The line to fork over $100 to reserve a Playstation 3 started at 6 a.m. at the Gamestop on Route 1 in Laurel, MD. Mike (the red-shirted gentleman in the picture above, who refused to give a last name) lined up at the early hour to ensure he got a system for himself and said he planned to go to another local store to reserve a system "for eBay." By 9 a.m. the line had grown to the seven hearty souls above, who still had an hour to wait before the store would open and take their money.
By 9:45 a.m. there were 16 people eagerly awaiting the 10 a.m. opening of the EBGames on Route 198. The line, which started developing at 8 a.m., ranged from college students to police officers to air force pilots, and even included two parents reserving a system for their children.
Just before 10 a.m., EBGames manager Craig Gosnell (left) came out to tell the line that he was only expecting to receive 11 systems in the first (and only) shipment before Christmas. On hearing this news, some people in the back of the line headed off to try their luck at other stores. Gosnell later admitted he couldn't reveal exactly how many units he'd be getting, and used the rough number to thin out the crowd a bit.
David Cummings, a Best Buy employee, places his pre-order with an EBGames clerk. Manager Gosnell only allowed one customer into the store at a time to avoid any confusion over positioning in line.
A restless line peers in at a table filled with other pre-order offers and goodies.
Vince Tinio shows off his pre-order receipt in front of the EBGames in Laurel Mall. Tinio drove an hour from Germantown when he realized his local store wouldn't have enough pre-orders to satisfy the line, getting to Laurel just 15 minutes before opening. Despite his late arrival, Tinio was fourth in line for a pre-order at the mall store.
Other Notes:
- All three Laurel-area stores had sold out of their pre-order allotments soon after opening the store. If you didn't line up, you were out of luck.
- Liner-uppers learned about the pre-order opening in a variety of ways. Some got e-mails from Gamestop's promo list, others got phone calls from their local store, still others found out from various gaming news sites. One man came down after hearing about the opportunity on CNN 15 minutes before. Another got the info. from a clerk only after pre-ordering a PS3 game yesterday.
- Rumors of employees snatching up systems before consumers could get their hands on them drew the ire of many waiting in line.
- Almost everyone in all three lines already had an Xbox 360 and was planning on pre-ordering a Wii when they could.
- Most pre-orderers expressed a preference for sports or racing games. Madden and MotorSport were popular PS3 pre-order picks, as was Resistance: Fall of Man.
_thumbnail.jpg "i am 8-bit: 2008")
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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DocWho, suck my titty whattas!
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esp that studmuffin holding up his receipt.
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there will also be plenty of wii this xmas, so don't even bother pre-ordering, like teh GC, it won't sell out this xmas
this is good and bad for Wii. good that it won't have stories about shortages, and bad that it won't have stories about shrotages
Wii is not the hot item this xmas, even with the PS3 already sold out.
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I've got #3 at my local Gamestop, right behind the two employees. A friend got #15, but if they don't get fifteen in the initial shipment he's gonna be pissed...
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jk.. 4th out of 8 @ my GameStop w00t ;)
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Haven't been to any of the locations recently, though, and certainly wasn't there for the PS3 pre-order. If the Wii pre-order comes soon, though...
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So how many of these assholes are going to put it on ebay and charge insane amounts instead of letting someone who wants one buy it and actually enjoy it?
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i guess you got tired of leaving rational comments on joystiq and your new thing is to hang flame bait and see who bites. sorry doc, you wont get a cent from me, but im sure others will reply to you. but they shouldnt because they will be falling for your trap
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I don't know about the racial divide, but there is definitely an intelligence divide.
Anyone who would line up for a PS3 is a complete idiot.
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LOL....hardcore indeed.
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Nice! You've established a new watermark for stupidity & hypocracy with your baseless racial generalization. Hell, weren't /you/ the one bitching about racism last week?
I welcome your response, complete with threats and [hysterical] YouTube rap video links. The last one had the office positively ROTFLMAOWTFBBQ-ing.
Cheers!
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Sony is promoting racial diversity alright. Making the world a better place through console gaming (sarcasm). The diversity you see probably has more to do with area it was sold than Sony's "univeral racial apeal".
Nice try but we know who you are. You just can't pull off not sounding like a fanboy. That's cool be yourself.
Oh yeah
"whereas on the city streets where I roll, everyone is talking about PS3"
thank you for that line I haven't had that kind of laugh for a long time. If you're on this site as much as you are you don't "roll" on any streets.
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Without exception, the racially diverse crowd ALL owned Xbox360's, and many (about 80%) also said they were going to preorder a Wii. Most said they intended to flip the PS3 online, if only to finance a second unit as a freebie.
The email the store employee showed to us told us that store preorders were strictly limited to one per household, and that EB would supposedly be cross-referencing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. Any violators would lose all their preorder dibs simultaneously (but could still get a refund). This is supposedly done chainwide, so you couldn't surf the stores and score multiple units. They did say, however, that the online preordering would be considered separately (so you could order one in-store, and one online), but that we could expect heavy bundling restriction online.
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Another example - around here I see lots of PSPs, and not many DSs, even though I know DS is selling better, so again, Sony seems to be getting more buys from the 'urban' (read: ethnic) crowd, at least in my area, and I assume M$ and Ninty must be selling better to your midwest 'wannabe soldier boy'/country 'good ol boy'/suburban soccer moms.
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laurel is about 15 min from my place
too bad im getting a gaming PC and a Wii (WiiC instead of Wii60?) over that ridiculous PS3
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"people who buy the 360 in particular are pasty midwest farmboy types who seem to enjoy the generic FPS and 'kill them dirty A-rab terrorists!' type games...on the city streets where I roll, everyone is talking about PS3"
See what he does here? Attempting to attribute some "street cred" and "urban cool factor" to his product of choice in the same vein as the lame ass PSP commercials with the ultra hip dust balls and squirrels. Surely if you are not with the PS3 camp then you must be a slack jawed yokel with strong republican political leanings. Bravo sir! You have associated everything that is cool with your Sony product and everything that is not with your competition. A round of applause please. It's pure genius!
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Whew...thanks man I needed that laugh. It's been awhile since a post has made laugh so loud that it got the attention of others in the office.
Now I've got to get the picture of you "rolling" on your bicycle in your subdivision with your collar popped, talking ghetto to everyone, and a upside down visor out of my head so I can try to get some work done without getting a case of the giggles.
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$600 ftl
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Look at the math on this for a minute....500,000 consoles for North America until Christmas. So on a rough count....take all the Walmarts, SAMS Club, Best Buy, Circuit City, Toys-R-US-, EB Games, Gamestops, Targets, etc. I'm in Houston and there are a lot of those stores here and in the suburbs. Then take 50 major cities with these same stores...So one has to wonder...how many stores will be getting PS3's?
Makes me wonder if each store may and I mean may get 3 or 4...so then you have put your 100.00 on a PS3 and a new shipment won't come in before Christmas? No sense in that...
I want to know about the employees taking up pre-order slots. Theirs should be kicked on principle alone. If an employee address comes up...they need to lose their slot. Do what my man did from Best Buy and go to a Gamestop to Pre-Order. Keep it real.
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What a failure of a launch, confirmed distance last place for Sony.
Atleast they have the PSP right, right, right???
Oh
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completely ignoring the fact that %65 of americans are white, the author kyle orland wrote "Almost everyone in all three lines already had an Xbox 360 and was planning on pre-ordering a Wii when they could." This tells me that the xbox 360 had the same diverse crowd that the ps3 has. However, im sure that in your rough streets of you conviently unnamed city, only a hick would have an xbox 360.
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sony has diverse racial appeal, huh? anybody remember that seemingly racist psp ad?
hooray for irony!
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Not my suggestion at all....I just pre-ordering is useless if 1.) The employees are going to take up the slots and 2.) each store is only going to get 3 or 4.
Sony knew what is doing when it allocated 500,000. Keep the masses wanting more. You have to clap your hands and pat them on the back for that. Perfect business sense. People who didn't get one will be chomping at the bit after Christmas.
My thing is why fuel the hype. I could understand if I had a legit chance of getting one.... but 3 or 4 per store when store employees have first dibs....??? And this is the kicker....if the employee gets a pre-order and he is 5th and you are 4th all he has to do is call and tell you is "our store didn't receive the allottment we thought...so therefore your order is on the next shipment" take your PS3 that you busted your ass to get in line for and put it on ebay by days end. How opportunistic is that??? Pre-Ordering a console is not a good idea when allocations are going to be that low.....
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I'm curious...what "hood" do you live in that is so urban? I mean, you can obviously afford a computer...so it can't be much of a ghetto.
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dont you mean racist ad(s)?
because last time i checked squirrels that talk like an old african american stereotypes and dustballs that sound like hispanic gang members sure sounds racist to me.
look what i got ese - psp vato, hells yeah!!!
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The posted hours on the door were 10:00AM opening time, and at 10:15 no one had shown up to open the store and the line had grown to 12. There was no movement inside the store. The last guy in line thought we were all there because there was a new Tiger Woods golf game.
The second to the last person in line was a pregnant lady who called her hubby to tell him what was going on. A few of the other people in line called the Gamestop in the mall to see if they could call someone.
Around 10:45 or so someone comes tearing into the parking lot and makes for a close parking spot. Out jumps a grey shirted Gamestop Manager and he opens the door.
As he was quickly going through the store opening, turning the lights on and booting the store systems up, he explained that his assistant was scheduled to open today, and he apparently quit literally a few minutes ago.
13 made it into the store and he had 14 preorders to sell. I made it out the door with preorder #8 :)
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Which system are they offering pre-orders for (20g or 60g) AND how many of each were available? Are you gauranteed the model you pre-ordered or just any PS3?
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Hmm, by "area" do you mean parents basement? By "city streets where you roll" do you mean hallways? Don't worry many young gamers create realities to be cool.
I know a few people who "roll" and are "urban" you know what they think about the PS3? They don't. They just want to play Madden/NBA2K on their PS2's/XBox's (no they really don't care about 360's either).
See don't try to think the PS3 or Sony is cool. It's not, neither is this site. We are geeks, nerds we care about the next gen, cool urban people don't give a sh*t, they bought their PS2's for $99 and they only care about the next Madden.
Wii is interesting to me... not to my friend who works as a mechanic, tell him to come home after a hard day of work to jump around trying to throw the ball and he will throw his beer at me.
PS3 (and 360 at this point) will get smoke blown in my face and something along the lines of "F*ck that, I can spend that money on booze/weed/rent/car"
That's reality, this website isn't. The Wii may sell a ton, but to adult gamers its PS3 or 360 who will in the end "win" and the only thing that is going to convince my "cool" friends to buy one of them is when the price drops. Right now the 360 has a $200 price advantage. That's all that matters.
I'm guessing if you and all your fake homey little friends are talking about getting your PS3's you never seen the people who make up the "100 million" PS2 owners. They didn't buy them at launch and they sure as hell didn't buy them for JRPG's. They bought it because it was cheap and they could play some sports games. Sony has a long way to go to be affordable. Even if the PS3 turns out to be 10x more powerful than the 360 if the 360 hits $200 first it wins.
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I don't know how they can do that when two other *auctions* are starting at $0.99 and a few "Buy it Now" listings are for $1500.
If someone really has a $1,000,000 laying around and wants a PS3 badly, I'm sure they could bribe an EB employee into parting with his PS3 for just $5,000.
Some people.
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