Wii? Wanted. PlayStation 3? Not so much.

Two months after two juggernauts of the videogame industry, Nintendo and Sony, launched their next-generation game consoles, shoppers are still lining up early in the morning for a chance at Nintendo’s small white box, while Sony’s more expensive PlayStation 3 sits on many store shelves, seemingly unloved by the gaming masses.

Is that what’s really going on?

It jibes with Ian Varley’s experiences. The Austin musician who also does technical work, has been going from store to store looking for a Nintendo Wii with little success the last few weeks.

He got hooked on the system, which uses an innovate motion-sensitive controller called a "Wiimote," while playing it with the drummer from his band Drop Trio at the drummer’s Houston home.

"We stayed up all night playing it," Varley said, "we sent his 10-year-old son to his friend’s house and didn’t let him take the Wii so we could play it."

Varley, 31, even bought a Wiimote at a Toys ‘R Us store for a system he doesn’t yet own.

Such is the life of the Wii wanter right now: the Wii is in short supply and high demand in the area. Newspaper circulars and online game sites announced last week that the $250 Wii would be available at stores like Best Buy and Circuit City on Sunday.

Best Buy promised a mimimum of 20 systems per store. Circuit City only made a half dozen or so systems available per store. Both retailers sold out of systems immediately, selling them to those who’d lined up as early as 5 a.m. and turning away several dozen shoppers at each store.

Varley was one of them. "I went and got in line at Circuit City for a half hour and there were only five (Wiis). There were 25 or 30 people in line. I went over to Best Buy and there were 50 or 60 people there. I was denied."

Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3, which boasts high-definition graphics, the ability to play next-gen Blu-Ray DVDs and features online gaming in its launch games – all features the Wii lacks – is readily available in stores after an initial shortage after its November xx launch.

At the Best Buy store on Mopac and Southwest Parkway last Monday, 20 $599 PlayStation 3 systems (the "Premium" version preferred by most gamers; its smaller-capacity sibling costs $499) sat in two piles, unloved by shoppers.

While Nintendo and Sony both said they shipped about 1 million systems by year’s end, only one of the systems is so hard to find that it still inspires early-morning lineups in front of store doors.

Could it be the pricetag?

When Sony dropped the announcement that it would sell its system for $499 and $599 last May at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, many gamers grumbled. But most expected hard-core game fans and early adopters to pay the price regardless. After all, Sony’s last console, the titanically popular PlayStation 2, has sold 120 million units worldwide since launching in 2000. It continues to perform strongly at its $129 prictag and was a top performer this holiday season.

Pre-launch buzz leaned heavily toward the PS3, which had the marketing muscle of Sony behind this ambitious shiny black box.

But despite its technical beefiness, the PS3 may have lost some of its panache to the Wii, which is seen by many as a more fun, more accessible and easier-to-use game console.

Nintendo’s marketing pitch has strongly favored casual gamers, older gamers and players who may have dropped out of the gaming scene when game consoles became so complex that for many, they stopped being fun.

Is the PS3 dead in the water?

David Karraker, senior director of communications for Sony in the U.S., says it’s simply a matter of Sony distributing more units of its high-priced consoles after a temporary production glut. "We continue to airlift in units on a weekly basis, upwards of 100,000 a week in this market," Karraker said, "that’s pretty unprecedented. If that means you walk into a Best Buy and you see that there’s a stack sitting there, that doesn’t mean that three days later the stack is still there."

Karraker acknowledged that the price difference in the two consoles could be turning the Wii into an impulse buy while the PS3 is viewed more as a long-term investment. "It’s clear that what we’ve put into the box is probably technology that we didn’t need to put into the box today," he said, "people will need this technology down the road."

Sony is hoping to ship 6 mlillion PS3s by the end of March. It will be doing so as it launches the console in the European market in late March at a hefty 599 euros (about $776). They will only offer the premium version at launch.

Many in the industry felt Sony botched many aspects of its PS3 launch, from the bombshell pricing announcement, underwhelming online game store, lack of must-own titles and some technical glitches that have been gradually fixed with downloadable software updates.

Nintendo, meanwhile, has wowed many critics with an array of simple, but fun family friendly games including "Wii Sports," which is bundled with every console sold.

Locally, store employees at big-box electronic stores and game shops said the availability of the Wii is the number one question they get asked. Wiis rarely last more than a day in stores and many shoppers use online trackers to find out when inventory arrives as stores like Best Buy.

At a local EB Games recently, one Wii system was available in the back of the store, but a manager said she didn’t expect the console to stay in the store the rest of the day. As for the PlayStation 3? "We’ve got tons of those," she said.

Despite the strong Wii buzz, Kitt McCurdy, an analyst for GameSpot Trax, a service of Cnet’s popular array of gaming Web sites, said it’s too early to declare a console victor. She said that in the console wars, "It’s all about the games," and at the end of 2006, the Wii had 54 games in the marketplace, compared to 22 for the PS3.

But for 2007, the PS3 is expected to boast another 127 games, while the Wii has 76 scheduled for the year.

"Wii is hot right now in the short term," McCurdy said, "during the holiday season it’s something that was really attractive to parents."

McCurdy said that as more shoppers buy high-end HDTV sets and become more interested in the newer DVD formats, the PS3 may be a winner in the long-run.

"Technologically, the PS3 blows the Wii out of the water. In terms of visuals and graphics, it’s excellent. Everyone’s going to wait and see if the PS3 puts out that killer app that’s going to be so amazing everyone’s going to drop 600 bucks on a console because they want to play it so badly."

There is also the matter of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, which boasts high-definition graphics and has had a one-year head start to establish a strong library of games and a formidable online gaming service.

It’s also priced at $400 for its premium version, placing it squarely between the Wii and the PS3.

With the release of the blockbuster game "Gears of War," which sold 3 million units during the holidays and the upcoming "Halo 3," the Xbox 360 could be a spoiler.

McCurdy thinks that many families will opt to own more than one console: a PS3 or Xbox 360 for the serious gamers in the house and possibly a Wii for the rest of the family.

"(Nintendo’s) strategy is to position the Wii as a family unit. They want people to play it the way families play board games. We’ve never really seen that before," she said.

Nintendo is counting on selling the Wii to people who might not otherwise buy or play a game console. As newer game systems have become more complex and many games have gone from intuitive pick-up-and-play experiences to confounding exercises in frustration for casual players, the company is taking a different road with the Wii. It’s easier to use than its next-gen competitors and features a controller that acts more like a very smart remote control than a traditional game pad.

Varley, who hasn’t owned a game console for about 10 years since he had a NIntendo 64, says the Wii renewed his interest in videogames and is a system he expects to be able to play with his wife, who typically doesn’t go near videogames.

"It’s supposed to be a lot of fun even for people who aren’t traditional gamers," he said. "I’m pretty sure she’s gonna have fun playing."

Varley says he’ll continue haunting retailers, hoping to Wii-lieve his Nintendo itch.

"It doesn’t really bother me if I have to wait another month. I’ve already bought the controller, so I’ve committed myself."