Once upon a time in a funny country full of funny people with funny accents lived a Queen. And this Queen was the luckiest Queen in the whole wide world because she received a very special present that granted her powers beyond her wildest dreams.

OK, so it wasn't quite as fanciful as that but HRH The Queen of England has just received a free gold-plated Wii and a copy of THQ’s BIG Family Games as a gift/publicity stunt from THQ.

THQ said in a press release that “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.”

Personally, I'd have thought Mad World or Dead Rising would have been more the Queen's kind of game, and I'm pretty sure the housework will suffer as soon as she discovers the addictive nature of Boom Blox, just please nobody send her a PSP and Patapon, otherwise she'll never be able to run the country.....or something.

Anyway, after the break is the full press release from THQ, so read and enjoy.

This is the full press release as sent by THQ to Crunchgear and shamelessly stolen by me.

HRH The Queen of England received an unusual surprise today as a gold-plated Wii was delivered to Buckingham Palace.

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.

As the UK’s ultimate family, the Royals also received one of the first copies of BIG Family Games to road-test their shiny new console.

Danielle Robinson, Product Manager at THQ, said: “BIG Family Games is the ultimate Wii game to get all family members, from grandparents to young children, playing together. The Royal Family is arguably the most important family in the country so we felt that they had to have a copy of the new game.

“But we thought that Her Majesty 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!”

The Queen and other members of the Royal Family will be able to use their new gold Wii to play 24 unique twists on classic family games including golf, tennis, ladder golf, lawn darts, horseshoes, bocce and more.

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.

Hats off to THQ for an amusing publicity stunt and a much better gift than a certain IPod, but I wouldn't expect to see those Knighthoods in the post just yet.