As printed in The Northern Light newspaper
Nov. 28, 2006
The day before the PlayStation 3 was released, I bought two games, “Resistance: Fall of Man” and “Ridge Racer 7,” which are supposed to show off the new console’s graphics capabilities fairly well. Unfortunately, like most gamers, I wasn’t actually able to get a PS3 to play them on. Delays in production made the gaming console in very short supply on its launch date, though Sony announced plans to have at least a million units out by the end of the year.
So while Sony has finally entered the next generation of gaming, and the Nintendo Wii starts its own side generation, most of us will have to wait a while longer to play in it.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Those first few days were ruthless.
Thursday, Nov. 16
With very few places taking preorders, most people had to wait until today to start making plans. In other states, folks were already lining up outside of stores, but Anchorage retailers weren’t allowing campouts. A reconnaissance of stores in town revealed a few different strategies when it came to the PS3 launch.
Best Buy was getting a minimum of 26 units, and said a line could start at midnight for the tickets they would give out in the morning. CompUSA took PS3 preorders only with the purchase of a big-screen TV and had none left. Fred Meyer stores got six or eight units and lottery tickets would be given out to anyone in line tomorrow at 6:45 a.m.
Both Wal-Mart stores had six units and would begin selling them at midnight, but one was only going to announce the line’s location once it was 15 minutes to midnight and whoever made it to the line first would win. Sears had two units and would open as normal on Friday through a random door, which discouraged camping. GameStop took preorders a while back, which were snatched up as soon as they were offered, and Toys ‘R’ Us said it was sold out of preorders, but a rumor of unsold PS3s had people camped outside anyway.
My plan was to hit the Wal-Mart scramble, with a Best Buy campout and early morning Fred Meyer lottery as backup plans.
By 11:30 p.m., Wal-Mart was already a madhouse. Clusters of people were gathered at each aisle and intersection, hoping that when the secret line’s location was announced over the store intercom their group could get there first. Imagine a store packed full of people all wandering in tight circles in their little sections, ready to sprint to wherever the location may be, despite the cluster of people likely already to be there. To the store’s credit the announcement came over the speakers that they changed the format to a lottery. After lining everyone up single file, in a line that snaked in and out of the aisles of half the store, they started giving out tickets.
A group of people nearby was talking about their plans to sell the system on eBay if one of their numbers were drawn. An excited woman kept checking her Web-enabled cell phone to tell her friends the ridiculously high prices the PS3 was supposedly fetching on eBay. One man ahead in line said, “I need new friends,” after hearing what someone was supposedly willing to pay. Most of the people there were apparently wannabe scalpers, since selling the PS3 dominated most conversations.
It was a slap in the face to gamers everywhere to know that they might have had a shot at getting a new system if it wasn’t for the hoards of console-war profiteers who thought they could get thousands of dollars for a $600 machine, people who didn’t want it but would gladly take it just to drive up the price. Those are the type of people who shot a man outside a Wal-Mart in Connecticut and robbed a GameStop at gunpoint in San Francisco.
There were more than 400 people at this Wal-Mart but only six consoles. Needless to say, I didn’t get one.
Best Buy was next, but the crowd was dispersing by the time I got there. Apparently, nearly 1,000 people were waiting to line up and police were called in but had no way to organize the crowd, so Best Buy employees decided to give out the vouchers for their units right then instead of the next morning.
Friday, Nov. 17
While waiting in freezing temperatures outside Fred Meyer at 6:30 a.m., I look down the line and see a few faces from last night who are also enduring the cold for a last chance at a PS3. Here, as at Wal-Mart, most of the crowd wasn’t crazy about gaming, just money. After handing out tickets, everyone is ushered into the electronics department, where the drawing takes place and winners immediately buy their prize. When the first winner happily announced his intention to auction off his unit on eBay, the boos and hisses that came from some scattered members of the crowd showed that true gamers were indeed present.
It’s a small consolation, but after going through more than 100 pages of PS3 auctions on eBay that night, there were only a handful of legitimate bids. Most of the scalpers in those pages set the starting bid at $3,000-$5,000, but the bids that came in were obviously not real; bids would jump suddenly by thousands – and occasionally millions – of dollars, but only on auctions without a set buy-it-now price, and some winning bidders had no history of feedback. Going to various gaming forums, many upset gamers openly admitted to placing many false bids, despite the impact it might have on their eBay rating.
One poster said, “I will bet on every single PS3 auction, say ... $3,000.”
A particular auction’s bid history had a bidder who kept making high bids and then retracting it within an hour, saying it was a mistaken amount, only to repeat it and retract it continually over the course of the day.
Real auctions were taking place once the price got to $1,200 or lower, and by Monday that was around page 50. If the few hundreds of dollars is worth all the hassle, the opportunists will probably strike again, but more than half of the PS3s up for bid were only about $50-$100 over retail. If the scalpers were paying attention, they would have seen the exact same pattern after the launch of the system in Japan the week before. Non-gamers bought up available supplies and tried to inflate the market, only to have it come crashing back to earth within a couple of days.
But as I stood in line hearing others’ numbers come up, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to wait a little longer for Sony’s console. But maybe I could still get a Nintendo Wii.
Saturday, Nov. 18
With no reported supply shortages and less hype than the PS3, I thought getting Nintendo’s innovative new console wouldn’t be as difficult. Fred Meyer held a midnight opening, and when I arrived at 11:30 p.m. a line of about 200 people had already formed outside. It was 20 degrees and I wasn’t properly prepared for such a line. Most people weren’t, as many were jogging in place and huddling in groups for warmth. The air was much more excited than at the PS3 events, maybe because everyone knew they had a much better chance at getting one, or maybe because there were more real gamers. Jokes about the console’s name ran down the line (“Is this the line for the bathroom? I heard people say they had to take a Wii.”) and after a few of the more popular Wii jokes were told, someone exhaustedly said, “This is going to be a long year.” Employees on both sides of me were yelling back and forth, apparently not sure if it was first-come first-serve or lottery-style.
Despite the large number of people who sat in their cars and then cut into the middle of the line, it was a first-come event. In case there was a lottery, some people came in groups but only wanted one console. Yet, despite having 79 units available, the line was cut off about 20 people in front of me, leaving me without anything to show for my last three days of effort.
Well, at least I do have two next-generation games; I’ll just have to wait a while to review them.
