A rare gold-plated Nintendo Wii gaming originally meant as a gift for Queen Elizabeth II is now being auctioned. The one-of-its-kind Wii was produced by game developer THQ in 2009. It was meant as a promotion of the Big Family Games collection of mini-games. It could not scale Buckingham Palace’s strict royal gift policy and therefore returned back to THQ.

After THQ went into bankruptcy, the 24-karat gold-plated Wii finally found its way to the hands of Dutch collector, Don who is now putting the piece on auction. This will be the second auction of the Wii after it was initially put on auction on eBay last October. At that time, the asking price of $300,000 was flagged and the auctioning account was shut down. This time, the Goldin auction is going on smoothly until May 21.

The item is not mint-fresh and its utility as a gaming device is absent since Nintendo shut out the Wii Shop years ago. It has signs of scattered gold chipping and will likely end as a collector’s item inside a glass case. It is a genuinely unique device, unlike many limited-edition consoles. It is a snapshot of the history of gaming and an audacious publicity stunt leveraging on the British Monarch. The auction is progressing at some pace, but whether it will achieve the $300,000 mark remains to be seen.

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