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Wii Pre-Orders at EB Games and Gamestop
Punkster812 writes "Tomorrow, Friday October 13th, EB Games and Gamestop will begin taking pre-orders. They say they have very limited numbers and will do a first come first serve. A $50 deposit is the minimum down payment for a console and they suggest for you to call your local store for availability. Their online pre-order information will be released at a future date. For full information, visit EB Games or Gamestop for full details."
Wow, good thing I have tomorrow off. I guess I'll get up early and go sit in front of Gamestop.
This guy's the limit!
Or 2) They are saving all of their shipments for overpriced bundle packs on their website, since they flat out said before summer they will only offer the Wii as a bundle pack.
Either way it just goes to prove real gamers dont use the EB/Gamestop monopoly on game shops anyway. Ill just show up at Target or Best Buy when the Wii comes out thank you very much
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
"Tomorrow, Friday October 13th"
How simple would it have been to replace that "Tomorrow" with a [Today]? I was panicing. I thought, for a moment, it was still Thursday. That's a shock you don't want on a Friday before coffee.
A friend just called me a few minutes ago from an EB in Westchester, NY. They're only taking 8 pre-orders. Eight. At 9am there were 10 people in line (they open at 11am). If such a small store can get a line waiting outside in the cold for hours just for pre-orders then it looks like the Wii will be a big hit. The Nintendo fan-boys are really excited, and that's going to mean great viral marketing for the Wii.
Developers: We can use your help.
Usually a Wii story has 50,000 replies before I get to see it, it's such a popular subject. Now I only see 15 after 20 minutes; I wonder where everyone's gone?
Oh, wait.
Drops laptop, runs to store.
This is mostly a Gamestop/EB problem. Having 2 million units for launch is not small by any means. I'm sure Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Toys'R'Us will have plenty of stock on hand. Like many people above you said, it's probably the Gamestop/EB corporate center hoarding a ton of them to sell on their website in bundles.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
I know it's been said repeatedly in different sites, but if you live in NYC you can just walk on over to the Nintendo World store near Rockefeller Center and place a preorder. They've been taking preorders for a few weeks already, to which I've done mine during lunch. Plus I have a hunch that they are less likely to overcommit and fail to deliver on launch date, something EB and Gamestop have been notorious for.
So far Nintendo has had a good record on this account. Either way the Wii is promised to have an updatable operating system. And there are few drastically new things on the Wii, I would estimate at worse you might have to update that as changes to their OS are rumored to be fairly new, possibly unstable. Otherwise one might want to wait a while on picking up extra controllers and there is a good chance the first version of the Wiimotes will have some problems.
I assure you, it is a very real marketing ploy, not a fake one.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
And? I'm sorry but I just don't see why this is a problem. PC manufactuers have been doing just this since 1981 when the first IBM PC came out. Today, you can but a Dell box (or even a Mac now) which is nothing more than a much faster version of that first machine from 1981.
The Game Cube had some really good games and a decent library size so the fact that there is a ready selection of games at low prices makes a Wii very attractive. Every GC game will play on the Wii. Compare that with the level of backwards compatibility you get with the Xbox360. I know, I have a 360 and it may or may not play a particular Xbox game, perfectly or otherwise. The Wii won't have that problem. I own a GameCube, PS2 and 360. Yes, I pre-ordered a Wii. No, I haven't even considered ordering a PS3. I can't wait for the Wii.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Just got back from the trenches, pre-ordering my Wii. Here's what it looked like at a North Baltimore Game Stop...
:)
7:30am - Arrive to meet friend. One person is already in front of us.
8:00am - Four more people are behind us. Manager is already there to make sure things are okay. Tells us there are 12 units for pre-order (and 2 which the store is allowed to let employees pre-order.) Also informs us they are openning up at midnight on the day of the Wii launch.
8:15am - Some guys join the line, they came from a line of 20 people at the Game Stop in the "Hunt Valley" mall area.
8:30am - Line is full. Manager tells people in line that anyone else who shows won't be able to pre-order.
9:00am - Some hard core games show up and tell us it's crazy they don't have more pre-orders because "5 million units are being produced"... walk away very pissed.
10:00am - Manager opens to the doors and we rush in; not so much to pre-order... but also because we were all freezing. (Temp started at 37 and only rose to 50 by 10am.)
$50 pre-order. $30 for a 1yr warranty.
Everyone in line was getting one for themselves, except for one mother... determined to get a unit for her sons as a Christmas gift.
this morning i drove by a GameStop and saw a ton of kids in line, so i yelled "PS3 FOR THE WIN!!!!"
they were probably like "stupid sony fanboy", little do they know i was just pissed they beat me there..
-- lol pwned
Wow, it's time to start calling all those girls that wouldn't go out with me in High School and College. Then, when my girlfriend complains, I'm gonna claim prior commitments. "Sorry baby, I had no idea never was coming so soon."
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
who has come out with something "different" in a console system in the past few years? other than the DS (dual screens + touchscreen) i can't really think of anything.
I may be alone, but I feel that Sony's EyeToy was fairly innovative. It may not have been the first camera system for on-screen gaming, but they did a nice job with ease of use and supporting it with some fun games. Very much in the same vein, Apple may not have made the first portable digital music player, but they made a nice software/hardware package that made the thing mainstream.
I would show the EyeToy to folks who are non-gamers, and they thought it was interesting enough to buy a Playstation 2. Mind you, these were folks who would never consider playing typical console games. If Sony had packaged an improved EyeToy with the PS3 (maybe with a Fitness Game), I think they would have gotten a lot of good coverage from the mainstream press.
My alarm failed to go off this morning in the usual fashion; it went off at 7 am, I hit the switch and rolled over. Next thing I know it's 9:20. Figuring I was either destined to be successful or not I went through the motions of getting out the door and to the store. I had 3 stores in mind, I had planned on cruising by and seeing what the lines were like at each store. When I got to the first one there was no line at 9:55 with the store opening at 10:00 so I stopped. Parking right outside the strip mall store I could see it was just the two employees inside, strolled over and waited for them to open the door. I couldn't believe it. I was first in line? I had to confirm the store opening time... yup, right there in the window it said the store hours 10-9. In the next minute five more people showed up. The store manager came out and told us he'd check the computer because he wasn't sure he had any preorders left. I said what the hell are you talking about, the store isn't open yett, how could you be out of pre-orders!! He continued ignoring us and locked the door. I was furious. He comes out 10 minutes later to let us in and advises they have 3 pre-orders left. He then tries telling us that they had let the line of people waiting outside in when they showed up for work at 9. Sorry, I don't buy it. One guy was demanding to know the managers name, district managers contact info, and was told they don't give out that info, the cashier gave him the customer service number and said good luck. This type of treatment to customers is why people avoid Best Buy, but I'm hoping there are specials out there or at least a ready supply of product at another store so I can cancel my pre-order with EBGames / Gamestop.
"dreadfully boring Red Steel gameplay" It might not appeal to you, but what about Red Steel's gameplay is boring? The run-and-gun formula that so many shooters employ? It's tried and true, that's for sure, but it also sells. Think of games like Half-Life, Halo, Doom, etc. The thing about these games that separates good from bad typically isn't the control scheme, but whether or not the game catches your interest--e.g., a story. I, for one, don't feel qualified to judge that aspect of a game until I've played it. It's a little like basing your opinion of a movie off the commercial. Certainly, though, it's rare for a company to come out with an entirely new kind of game; they just change something about previous games, usually bigger guns and prettier graphics. But I think Nintendo has something more than a gimmick with their new controller. If they can take a complicated game and make it easy to play by using motions and gestures already intuitive to us, that's a good thing. I'm all for ending the trend toward controllers with more buttons than I have fingers. When I want that, I'll go back to PC gaming. I can type a hell of a lot faster than I dance the Button Mash.
I would rather wait for Costco Wii console bundle, which the price will probably end up just below $250 with a game and an ccessory or two.
You should have seen how fast 360 Bundle went last christmas. Just below $500 and you get a game, charger and two wireless controllers. Of course, it still available today.
So screw you Gamestop, I'll stick with my local wholesaler.
\
yup, people make a big deal over this pre-order stuff when most of the stores that sell video games don't even take pre-orders. EBgames/Gamestop are small fries compared to Walmart and Best Buy, they get only a fraction of the stock. Unless you're #1 on their pre-order list you might as well through your money in a bank and wait for a few months past launch because their console allocations are crap.
I've found the absolute best place to get consoles on launch day are stores like Costco and Sam's Club. Most people don't think of them when they think new video games, also the membership fee turns away pretty much anyone who doesn't already have a membership. I camped out at Sam's Club for my Xbox 360 but I didn't even need to, because they had 20 units and there were only 14 people in line including myself. Most of the people only showed up about 15 minutes before they opened and NONE of them seemed the hardcore gamer types. Mostly parents or girlfriends buying them for Christmas gifts, a few of them just happened by saw the line and decided it'd be worth picking one up because of the demand. Even after my $30 membership fee, the savings from the console, controller and game I bought was about $40 so I actually paid LESS then I would have at EB or Walmart.
I had a friend wait out at Costco which got 50 something units there were apparently only 5 or so people in line. He went back the next day and they still had 30 of them so he bought a few more to sell on ebay. Way back at the Gamecube, Xbox, and even PS2 launches the situation was essentially the same.
Pre-ordering really only benefits the store, who basically gets your money early and at the same time prevents you from taking your business elsewhere. I had another friend who had pre-ordered his 360 at EB... about a month later he still hadn't got it, he was in Best Buy and saw that they had just got about 10 in... too bad he'd already giving all his money to EB, he had to keep waiting until THEY got stock.
Collector's Edition
Yes, I got my email yesterday. I went 1.5 hours early. I was 4th in line at my store. Had to wait in about 25F weather. (wind at 35MPH, yuck).
However, our store had about a 16 limit on orders. We started about 15mins to 10:00am and they where all gone by 10:00am.
I am glad I have mine. Though, I'm surprised orders are so low, given Nintendos statements of a large number of orders available. I would guess Wal-Mart or BestBuy might be getting large quantities.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
That's not a reservation, it's a carnival game. I was going to preorder a Wii at the EBGames that's less than half a mile from my house, but screw it. What's the point?
Good record like the NES front loading cartridge slot and the first generation GameCube optical drive?
I have a first generation GameCube. It has yet to fail. I haven't heard anything about problematic drives. I have heard quite a bit about failing first-generation XBox optical drives and even more about failing PS2 optical drives into generations well beyond the first.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!