Woes of Wii: problems mount for this year's toy have

Few games consoles have been more sought-after than Nintendo's Wii, which sold 300,000 units in Europe last weekend alone, forcing parents to turn to eBay in desperation.

But there was a warning yesterday for those inclined to unwrap one near the Christmas tree: switch off the fairy lights before using it, or you might find it behaving very strangely.

The hazards of operating a Wii when the tree lights are on were revealed by puzzled bloggers. One wrote: "The last couple of days, my Wii has been acting weird in not picking up the Wiimote [the console's controller] on the side of the Christmas tree and I could never figure out what was wrong. Well tonight, I turned off the Christmas tree and it fixed my problem."