Queen had secret Wii bowling talent, gifted 24K gold Nintendo
There are many priceless items that belong to the royal family, but one stands out above the rest: a 24-karat gold Nintendo Wii.
It turns out the late queen — who died last week at 96 — had an obsession with not only her corgis but was also a secret gamer.
The monarch shared a love of the Nintendo Wii with her grandson Prince William, sources told the Mirror, and was gifted the gold Nintendo game console to commemorate it.
Palace sources said the queen especially took a shine to the bowling game on the popular console after seeing William playing it after lunch at Sandringham House.
“She thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in,” the source recalled. “She played a simple 10-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural. It was hilarious.
“William was in fits of laughter,” the source told the Mirror. “He was enormously impressed at having such a cool gran.”
The solid gold console was a gift from video game company THQ as part of their BIG Family Games promotion, with the product manager Danielle Robinson telling CBS News in 2009: “Big Family Games is the ultimate Wii game to get all family members, from grandparents to young children, playing together.
“But we thought that Her Majesty the Queen wouldn’t want to play on any old console, so an extra-special gold one was commissioned,” Robinson added at the time. “We hope that she and the rest of the Royal Family enjoy the game!”
However, the gold game console ultimately ended up on eBay for $300,000 due to the Correspondence Team being unable to pass on “unsolicited gifts” to the queen for security reasons, as per the Buckingham Palace website.
The console ended up in the hands of IT administrator Donny Fillerup, who bought it back in 2017 for an undisclosed amount after THQ went out of business in 2013.
Fillerup said he was looking to get rid of the gold Nintendo and listed it on eBay with a starting bid of $300,000. The listing read “24 Karat Golden Nintendo Wii that was made for Queen Elizabeth the 2nd” and came with one game — “Big Family Games” — and one Wii remote control.
The description said the item may have signs of “cosmetic wear,” but it assured the future buyer the system is “fully operational and functions as intended.”
“I have documents and emails of its possible authentication,” it continued. “All the documentation will be framed.”
Fillerup previously told the publication his family was never “financially healthy,” so he decided to sell the console, even though he didn’t want to.
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“I was always curious how much someone could give for it,” he admitted. “I’m the type [of person] who is attached to things in a way that I find it hard to let them go, so selling the Wii will also help me move forward in this respect.”
Fillerup said a friend at Nintendo told him to try to sell it for a price so high that no one would buy it, suggesting starting the bidding at $500,000.
“I want to be reasonable with buying a place for myself, and $300,000 is the price that I came up with,” he reasoned at the time. “I don’t need more and also this gives more people the opportunity to buy it.”
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