 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
I pre-ordered my Wii from the Nintendo World in Rockefeller Plaza in NYC on October 10th. When I talked to the manager there, he assured me that there would be no lines on Sunday, November 19th. He said that anybody with a pre-order would be able to get into the building any time on that day and walk out with a nice new Wii. Apparently, this manager had completely underestimated the lifelessness and voracity of gaming fans. People started lining up outside Nintendo World on the 18th - without having pre-ordered a box. Some people who pre-ordered also showed up that early.
By around lunchtime on the 19th, the lines had calmed down. By calmed down, I mean that they went from wrapping all the way around in a loop from 5th ave on 48th up to 6th ave on 49th and round at 6am to only consuming 48th avenue. Here's a couple photos of the lines just after eating a horribly overpriced lunch off Times Square:
This is the head of the line above, and a couple shots of the line from the middle (not the end) follow:
You can see the full-size versions of these images on my Flickr page.
Couple things I noticed about this particular line:
Now for the bad news:
The manager of the store, who was outside walking up and down the line chatting with people, told me that after about 11am, the staff was so overwhelmed by the flood of people from the lines, that they no longer had the manpower to pick pre-order customers out of the line - so it was just one big line..and the non-pre-order people who were getting into the store were being told to go wait at the end of the line or being put in a new line (couldn't quite figure out which).
Regardless, he presented me with an option - wait 4 hours in line (or more) on a cold Sunday afternoon, or pick it up in 10 minutes on Monday during lunch break with absolutely no wait whatsoever (by today, all non-pre-order boxes will have been sold off).
I couldn't help but wonder why Sony would deliberately short the market, create a black market for PS3s .. oh wait... nevermind. :) Nintendo obviously had other plans - supply enough Wiis to keep everybody happy during the holidays. However, if you're Sony and losing $300 per unit sold, you probably don't want to make too many units :)
So, bottom line is last night I wrote some .NET code and read the instruction manuals for Zelda, Excite Truck, and Red Steel :) I should be ready to jump in and play tonight.
