So what does this mean for you? It may already be too late but you should probably try and find a place to pre-order as soon as possible if you want to get a system next week. If that fails, just try and get to the store as early in the morning as possible. I personally pre-ordered my system on Amazon. Right now it is saying my expected ship date is April tenth even though the system comes out on the fifth. Does this mean I'm not getting one from the first batch or is Amazon just being slow? It's hard to say, but I placed my order on February 24. That's pretty early to not have one shipped on the release day.
The larger screens, downloadable games, and rumor of a possible Game Boy Virtual Console must be making the new DS quite the hot commodity.