Today's European launch of Nintendo's Wii games console has been overshadowed by a series of alleged accidents in which the machine's innovative remote controller has flown out of "over-enthusiastic" gamers' hands and smashed their TV screens.

The news comes as Nintendo announced global Wii shipments of one million units, and immediate sell-outs as machines hit shops in the US and Japan. The company said it still aimed to sell four million units worldwide by December 31st.

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, yesterday hinted that, in light of strong early sales, it might revise its full-year earnings forecast upward after the holiday season shopping period.

The company's estimate of Y170 billion (€1.1 billion) in pretax profits for the year ending March 2007 is viewed as too conservative by analysts, whose consensus puts the likely figure at Y181 billion.

Production problems have dogged Sony's "make or break" PlayStation3 console. Some industry observers believe that, since its US launch, it has shipped only half the 400,000 units the company was targeting by this stage.

Mr Iwata said that, following internet reports of a dozen alleged incidents of wrist straps breaking on the controllers and TV screens being damaged - mainly posted by US users of the Wii - the company had launched an internal investigation.

In spite of rigorous pre-launch testing of the durability of a strap designed to keep the Wii controller in its owners' hands, gamers had swung it "more excitedly than our expectations".