Word was swirling around the game blogs yesterday that some Wal-Marts and Targets had broken the June 11th release date of the Nintendo DS Lite (the new sleeker, brighter DS), stocking and selling the units before the allowed street date.

Calling around to the Des Moines-area Targets and Wal-Marts, the most common response I got was "lights for the DS?", but the Windsor Heights Wal-Mart reported having 9 of them.  The hunt was on.

Sure enough, the 9 units were sitting on the bottom of the shelf with a hand-written sign with "$129.88" written on it.  I called Phil, who like me had pre-ordered one earlier from GameStop but didn't want to wait until the 11th when he didn't have to, and picked one up for him as well. I then picked up a third unit intended for Ebay but that ended up with Jessica and Adam.  When buying the DS Lites, a slouchy young salesperson came over to the register:

Wal-Mart Guy:  I thought the Nintendo sales rep said these weren't coming out for a few weeks.

Me:  Well, other places are selling them. <None around here, I didn't tell him.>

Wal-Mart Guy:  I guess she didn't know what she was talking about.

Me:  <Phew>

So now I have the DS Lite a couple weeks early, and have been playing away at New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age.  I also picked up Tetris DS and the new Mario and Luigi role-playing game (I had previously played the GameBoy Advance RPG which was hilarious).