[Iwatasan]

I don't know the entire story, and I wasn't in the UK when it was released, but I was watching the news online at the time. It was 2007, coming up on Black Friday, shortly after the release of Phantom Hourglass. On short notice, NoA and NoE announced simultaneous releases of special edition Zelda DS Lite systems bundled with Phantom Hourglass. The US version was the gold Triforce edition and the UK one was silver with that black outline art. Except I don't remember hearing ahead of time that either one would be limited. The US one sold for a while. I've heard they made 10,000 units but that could easily be an underestimate. The UK one though I found out later (after it became much harder to find on eBay) was limited to only 1,000 units. Then you started seeing Chinese and Hong Kong companies selling replica silver DS Lite cases with the same art, and not long after that people selling their DS Lites "refurbished" with the replacement cases. Hard to find the genuine article these days, needless to say.

This is a pretty speculative account, but from what I understand, the UK silver PH DS Lite was only available from "small independent (franchise?) game shops." Of course with only 1,000 units produced, each game shop probably got like 10. So of course if you didn't pre-order, then tough luck for you, but to be honest, because of NoE's last minute announcement, I'm not even sure if you could have pre-ordered. First-come first-served survival of the fittest gets it may be closer to the reality. And yes, that particular box art was exclusive to the UK edition. The US DS Lite was gold and had very different box art. Kinda tired right now so if I missed anything just post another reply and I'll try to tell you everything I know. I have some pics layin' around too.