A computer games fanatic waited for 17 hours outside an Oxford Street shop to buy Nintendo's GameCube at its midnight launch, and this time it was not a teenage boy or middle-aged man.

Sarah Dodd - a 19-year-old student from south London - became one of the first people in Europe to hand over £129 for the latest games console. The Japanese company reported that 10,000 consoles sold in just two hours in Berlin.

A self-confessed enthusiast, Ms Dodd began waiting outside the central London HMV store at 7am yesterday. About 250 other people had joined her in the queue by late last night.

"It was worth the wait but I wouldn't do it again. I've met some great people out here in the queue but I'm now very tired," she said.

The 19-year-old, who is studying biology, computing and technology, said she first became interested in computer games at the age of seven, and since then has bought every console produced. When she is not studying she is paid to test computer games, and at one stage was spending eight hours a day in front of a computer screen.

Nintendo's European launch is accompanied by £60m of promotion and a £31 price cut before the console even hit the stores. Games companies expect to make a loss on their consoles and recoup the money in games sales, and Nintendo wants a bigger piece of the £510bn European games market.

The price cut means the GameCube is £70 cheaper than both its rivals: Sony's overwhelming market leader, Playstation Two, and Microsoft's recently launched Xbox.

Last month Microsoft announced a price cut just five weeks after its console was launched in Europe at a price of £299. Sony had cut the price of its PS2 console in December.

Nintendo said 50,000 machines have been pre-ordered in the UK and 1m are allocated for Europe over the first eight weeks.

Gennaro Castaldo, from HMV, said: "For the last few weeks the anticipation has been growing and people couldn't wait to get their hands on the GameCube. I was in touch with our stores in Birmingham and Glasgow last night and they also reported about 250 people waiting for the console to go on sale."

The supermarket chain Asda also attracted late-night gamers when it sold the console at midnight from 34 of its stores.