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The State Of Wii Preorders
1up has a hilarious article up looking at the state of Wii Preorders across the U.S.. Despite the fact that preorders began (and likely ended) this morning at EBs and Gamestops across the country, the employees of the megalithic game store were less than fully prepared. From the article: "WEST VIRGINIA: GameStop #1330: 'We don't know. I mean, we're gonna be doing reserves. We're just waiting for them to tell us we can.' WISCONSIN: EB Games #4626: 'It looks more like we'll just sell that one. Because there will be 2 to 4 million units available on launch day, and EB/GameStop will be getting 70% of them that first come first serve would be doable. Even a smaller store like ours could be getting upwards of 50 units day one.' WYOMING: EB Games #4294: 'Any day now, man. Any day now.'" Despite my wife's best efforts, I missed out on a preorder by three people in line. Stupid cross-country trips.
It's not a next-gen launch unless you spend two days urban camping. Harassing "normal" customers, being hasseled by employees, and forts made from shopping carts: That's a launch!!!
This little gamer went to Gamestop.
This little gamer went to EB.
This little gamer got a preorder.
This little gamer got none.
This little gamer cried "Wii Wii Wii" all the way home.
I went into EB today (I live in Canada), and they said they're doing pre-orders for PS3 and Wiis on Monday morning. You can only get 1 system. Not one of each, they're making you chose!
:) I don't remember having to line up for a pre-order. Isn't that what a pre-order is suppose to prevent?!? The need to line up on launch day!
:) Use that money to buy a Wii! But now they're only letting me pre-order 1 of the systems! Grrr ... I might have to take a risk and get the PS3 anyways, in hopes that I'll be able to find a launch party line up the night before the Wii launch. Afterall, there's supposed to be a lot more Wiis right?!
You need $50 in trade-in credit or $200 cash down.
They're expecting a line up too.
My question: WTF?!
This is getting a little out of hand. What's next? The Wii2 launch will require you to line up to get a # so that you can line up to pre-order, and then line up again to pick up on launch day?!
Problem is, I was going to maybe pre-order a PS3 to sell on ebay
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Zelda: Twilight Princess. The gamecube version won't hit until a month later.
Trauma Center.
Others I'm more, or less, interested in seeing how they turn out: Red Steel. Elebits. Rayman.
So, it appears that the chances of pre-ordering are Wii-mote?
I don't understand why these game systems are shortaged at launch. 80 or a 100 XBox360s for a town of 130k people? One or two PS3s or Wiis per game store? Are they trying to funnel them through the big box stores? Are they under-estimating demand or trying to create artificial scarcity?
If a car company could only supply one new car of each type per dealer per town, they would look foolish. Why is the same kind of behavior normal when applied to game consoles?
While the EBGames/Gamestop pre-order is making news, they can't be the only store doing pre-orders. At some point stores like Walmart, Target, BestBuy, FutureShop, etc. will start pre-ordering. The question is, has anyone heard news on when? Where? How many?
The 'state of Wii Pre-orders' shouldn't be limited to one chain. It should count all chains. The 1up article is a bit limited in scope (however, still an interesting/funny read).
If Zelda, WarioWare, Wii Sports, Excite Truck, etc, haven't gotten you excited yet, then stick with your current console(s). Different people like different games, and you'll just be disappointed if you buy a console become other people say it's cool.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I opted for the mall since there was an EB and a Gamestop (and it's indoors). Despite getting there at 9:15, there were lines of over 30 people for each. While I was walking up to the first shop, the manager came out and announced that they would only have 14 units. I hopped back in car and decided to stop by a Gamestop that is on the way back to my house. There was ten people in line already. A few minutes later, the manager came out with donuts and told everyone that they would have 14 units. Very organized over all. They were pressing hard on the pre-ordering of accessories, but that was to be expected. The only confusion was from parents waiting in line. The gentleman behind me knew that his son wanted a Wii, but he had no idea on what it was or what to purchase with it.
Wii: $50
Remote: $10
Zelda TP: $5
Classic controller: $10
There is nothing revolutionary about the horsepower, graphical abilities or capabilities.
There is not even anything special about the controller. That's not the point. (Sony and MS will make competing controllers that will probaly be better. i.e more sensitive, better range, more buttons, etc)
The point is (and this is the MAJOR point of every Console in the history of consoles)...
the Wii controller comes in the box!
why is this so important?
people don't buy add-on hardware for their consoles. that's the whole point of a console. you buy the "gaming Appliance" bring it home and play games with it.
developers never know how many "Console Owners" will have "X-Add-on" so they will never design a game for that add-on.
developers will know that every Wii has at least one Wii-mote. period.
If you've already read the game list, I doubt anybody will have anything to add. It's not as if anybody has played these games to speak of, or at least anybody allowed to talk about it. (A couple of hours of "hands-on preview" doesn't count.)
I'm interested in the Wii, moreso than the XBox 360 or the PS3. But I'm going to be "sticking with the PS2" myself for a while. For one thing, there's still a good 10 games that I'm interested in, and I have a Real Job so it takes a while to get through them. Fortunately, they're pretty cheap now, especially if you buy them used and sell them back after a reasonable period of time. I've played kick-ass AAA-quality games from two years ago for a net-outlay of about $8 over three or four months, which beats even rental.
While somebody needs to buy the Wii, I don't think there's any compelling reason to run right out there and be first on your block unless you've done everything you want on your existing consoles.
Because for as excited and intrigued as I am, the fact remains that the Wii is highly experimental and it may yet be one dumb-assed idea, and I don't think there's a problem in waiting for somebody else to find that out, while you continue to mine the deepest, richest vein of console video games ever on the PS2. (And those PS2 game's prices aren't going up, although finding them may become an increasing challenge.) I for one will not buy a Wii until I've actually used one, either in a store or preferably at somebody else's house.
(Also, my wife got a DS, and there's a couple of things coming out for that that we have to get. Yoshii's Island 2 is going to be a rare release-date purchase for us, and we just got Mario Kart which is going to keep us occupied for a while. And the new Zelda piques my interest... it's been a long time since I've played a Zelda, and I think both the 3D and the 2D branches of Zelda have their own charms.)
They'er going to have my favorite game: resell on eBay for double the price!
The sequel is also good: Buy another a few weeks later.
At 10am I swung by my local gamestop. They said they had 6 units for preorder and they were all gone by 6:30 AM, as there were already 6 people in line. Strange, as the PS3s at the same gamestop had sold out at 7 PM the day the ps3 preorders launched, plus they were issuing 12 preorders. Why are they only issuing 6 preorders for the Wii when there are going to be 2.5x the amount of units? That didn't make sense to me.
Three reasons.
1: Interest on $50,000,000 for a month (You really think the costs of running the pre-order operation for a day are going to exceed $4 million?)
2: Gets the customer into the store two times, increasing the opportunity for additional sales
3: Requires the customer to provide personal information that they can sell
I guess some people have a fascination with serial input busses, but for the rest of us, Zelda on launch is like candy for breakfast.
You're right though: a lot of the other titles are widely ported mass market games. But many of them seem to be somewhat modified -- the Wii version of Madden allows you to use the motion sensor to control the gameplay. Ubisoft is making a racing game using the remote. They put out a plastic steering wheel and you put the remote in it, at which point it can detect you turning it one way or the other. Tom Clany's double agent is well anticipated, but many people I think would rather get it now on another platform than wait a month for the Wii version. There's also Trauma Center, a Wii exclusive and definately not a game that surrounds itself with the familiar; it's a surgery simulation game.
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Thanksgiving is going to be awesome this year, having a nice shiny Wii to tote to the in-law's house to show to the kids. :)
Should we notify the authorities ahead of time?
(No, the jokes won't stop.)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Why isn't it making news that your pre-order at gamestop or EB doesn't guarantee you a console, even if you are sufficiently to the front of the line.
What are people paying $50 for? If they want money, I'd better get a guarantee, or at least more that $50 back when they're telling me they aren't actually going to sell me the machine I pre-ordered.
I got to my local GameStop (Squirrel Hill location in Pittsburgh, PA) at 8:45 AM, about an hour before they opened. There were about a dozen people in line. Then the EB employee came by, and handed tickets to the first bunch of people in line (not me).
From what I've gathered, they had a lot fewer units allocated than they did for the PS3. When I asked on Wednesday, the clerk said those had sold out in about 15 minutes. It's kinda odd, considering that the Wii's going to have about 10x the availability. My guess is that Nintendo is purposefully avoiding selling the majority of their hardware as preorders. They want to get the hardware into the hands of the general public, not the sorts of people who read gaming sites or get email notifications from EB. It makes sense, though, when you consider how vital Nintendo's market expansion plan is to the system's success.
Only on the NES and TurboGrafx-16, whose button configurations are similar to that of the Wii Remote held sideways. The Super NES and Nintendo 64, on the other hand, have a lot more buttons. In Super Mario World, how would the player spin-jump (Super NES A button) or use the camera panning controls (Super NES L/R buttons)?
Almost. The Z button is in the wrong place (where R1 is, not where L1 is), making Z-targeting harder. I'd imagine that Nintendo's emulator would be able to reassign GameCube L to N64 in games that don't use the L button. But what might be harder for the emulator to work around is the lack of a six-button layout under the right thumb (especially in fighting games). You'd have to use the GameCube's X and Y and miss out on N64 C up and C right, or you'd have to move back and forth between the GameCube's A and B buttons and its C-stick. Or will Virtual Console games' control systems be reprogrammed for GameCube controllers and Wii Classic controllers?
I'd just like to relate my preorder experience. I saw /.'s posting of the story at about 11:30 (Central). Wasn't really planning on preordering but figure WTH and started calling. The third closest EB/Gamestop to me (still within 5-10 minutes) had two left. Futzed around a bit and then went over there. Got there at about 12:30 and there was still one left.
So, all in all pretty easy for me.