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Prelaunch Wii Kiosks Only at GameStop, Pre-Order News

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the need-my-preorder-jeremy dept.

saintory writes to mention a Dallas Morning News article about Gamestop's annual new product conference. Employees and new vendors were given a chance to take a look at the upcoming next-gen consoles, and a few details about the Wii retail strategy were revealed. For example, Gamestop will be the only place to demo the Wii prior to the November 19th launch. More frustratingly, "GameStop has not yet decided when, or even if, it will offer pre-orders for the new systems ... Last year, at the launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360, GameStop accepted more pre-orders before Christmas than it was able to satisfy. Microsoft's manufacturing problems turned into GameStop's angry customer problems. 'We did learn a lesson last year,' said Steve Morgan, president of GameStop. 'I think the lesson is caution and optimism at the same time.'" Update: 10/03 18:20 GMT by Z : Okay, there is *some* pre-order news. I was told last week to contact the Gamestop folks today (Tuesday) for details. At least at my local Madison store, they're going to be accepting preorders as of Monday the 16th (two weeks from yesterday). One would assume they're not some sort of 'rebel' store, so this is probably along the lines of what we can expect nation-wide.

2 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Re:UK by Ewan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    More likely game (who I've preordered with too) are just blagging it and hoping to get away with it, going to Nintendo with a "We need more stock, we're your biggest pre-order location"

  2. Re:Pre-orders are bad by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, but that has issues in and of itself. Waiting sucks, it favors those who don't have jobs, and you can't simply beat line-cutters to death on the street without having to explain yourself to the police.

    I'd suggest a lottery system given away a week before the release, but that has it's own problems. Do it on the internet and you have IP spoofing to get multiple tickets. Do it in person and you'd either have to card/register first (just as long/invasive) or risk people hopping store to store to get tickets.

    Maybe like the old days? Mail away for a ticket, 1 per address?

    Then again, we are a Capitalist Republic. You can always guarantee you get a system, as long as you have some dough.