NeoGeo X Gold hitting Europe in late December

The NeoGeo X Gold games console will ship to European customers over Christmas, with a likely landing date of Dec. 27 or Dec. 28, European distributor Blaze told Eurogamer.

The retro games console was initially believed to land in early December. According to Blaze head Jason Cooper, all European distributors will collect stock over this weekend from Asia to be shipped to customers over Christmas.

"In the UK, Funstock are our exclusive retailer for the Christmas season and they wrote to everyone to tell them 10 days ago when they would be getting theirs, so everyone who has placed an order is 100 per cent in the loop.

"Tommo [the US distributor] released the first of their stock in the US version the day before yesterday, they have totally sold out and this has been a great boost for us in Europe as it has reviewed very well and our web sales went absolutely crazy yesterday. I have not seen anything like it before."

According to the company, there will be enough stock for all those who pre-ordered the consoe, as well as "a limited stock beyond that to cover orders up to Christmas."

The NeoGeo X Gold console includes the handheld device, a dock and an arcade stick. Twenty NeoGeo AES titles come pre-loaded with the console, all for 175 British pounds.