Exclusive pics of the Queen's "Royal Wii"

In what has to be one of our favourite games industry PR pranks of the decade, THQ has hired a mock butler in order to offer up HRH The Queen with a gold-finished Nintendo Wii console, cheekily dubbed "The Royal Wii".

You can see from our pics here that the Royal 'Wii' was delivered to Buckingham Palace earlier this week, although a THQ PR rep could not confirm with us earlier if HRH actually signed for and took delivery of the games console!

Any reason why?

Of course, THQ isn't just splashing out on a blinged-up Wii for the head of the UK's ultimate family for no reason. Oh no! That's not how PR works!

"Finished in gold, the unique Wii console was specially commissioned for the Royal Family to mark today's launch of brand new Wii game BIG Family Games – the perfect game for all the family to play together from publisher THQ Inc.

The Royals also received one of the first copies of BIG Family Games to road-test their shiny new console.

We await Liz's review

Danielle Robinson, Product Manager at THQ, reckons that "the Queen wouldn't want to play on any old console, so an extra-special gold one was commissioned. We hope that she and the rest of the Royal Family enjoy the game!

"Her Royal Highness will be able to play through the game as a single player or get Princes Philip, Charles, Harry and William, and even Camilla, involved when playing in multiplayer mode. HRH will even be able to create customisable characters for herself and the rest of the family."

There we go. Plug for BIG Family Games achieved, alongside a humorously diverting little story about some pictures of a man dressed as a butler near Buckingham Palace. (And if you are in the market for decent family-fun on the Wii check out more on the new game at thq-games.com.)

Win. Win.