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Wii and PS3 Camp-Out Guide
An anonymous reader writes "A Wordpress blogger wrote up a guide to camping out on launch day. From the article: 'This is a download of my experience of over twenty-plus years of gaming and having been a part of six console launch days. No, I've never had to stand on line without knowing that my system was reserved. But I've spoken to enough people and accumulated enough knowledge to share. And with that said, here's my list of guidelines to insure that your camp-out in front of Best Buy, Target, Circuit City or Toys R Us is safe and not in vain.' Good luck to all the readers waiting outside for a PS3 or Wii next week." A lot of it is common-sense, but he has some good advice on pre-planning.
I feel sorry for the people who are camping for Ps3s and going to ebay. They will probably end up like this guy and lose a few hundred dollars.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Nintendo doesn't seem to have any production problems whatsoever with the Wii, it's very close to the Gamecube. They can easily churn them out to meet demand. Only in the mind of the most deranged Nintendo fan boy will there be a shortage. I think it will sell very well, especially in Japan. But I think that the only people camping out for a Wii will be Nintendo die hards who want to tell everyone that they camped out for one.
I worked at Best Buy for the '96 Christmas season... some big console was released that year and people waited and waited outside the doors for that release. I don't even remember what the console was.
We sold out instantly, most of the people left without one.
One week before Christmas we received a huge supply. People who waited until the last minute to get their gifts all went home happy. How's that for irony?
With ~400k available in N.A., what's the point in camping out for a PS3? If you're not one of the first 10 people in-line at EB/Gamestop or most other retail outlets, do you think you'll get one?
As an aside, anyone planning on camping out in the Portland, OR area may want to see if they can borrow someone's house boat. That is, provided the weather we're experiencing now is still around in ~2 weeks. Just pull up to a Best Buy and throw a line around one of the big yellow concrete posts out front.
No sig for you!!
i'm only second in line, and all I had to do was miss eight days of work.
All two of them eh?
Odd, the manager at our EB-Games said just the opposite. He had around 60 people on the 'call' list when it went on Pre-sale. He had, I think, 12 consoles. Took him over 24 hours to fill his pre-order. The Wii? 16 gone in the first 10mins.
The funny thing is, the 60 people on the 'call' list where mostly like "How much? Oh, never mind". Though that did pre-order probably planned on selling them on E-Bay. I'm sure there's a PS3 market, but for the most part, it's likely those professional football players who can afford to not care and bribe the Circuit-City guy to put him on the lit. (That happened to a buddy of mine, who's doing the EBay thing, but thought $100 over the price wasn't asking enough for a Pro-Football star.)
I would bet a place like Wal-Mart will get enough in stock to not sell out instantly. might actually take a few hours. Of course, then there's guys like me, who's anniversary is on the 19th. Arggh... Pickup my Wii or incur the wraith of my game-hating significant other! *shudder*
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Not sure what I'm gonna do, I'm up here in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I'm gunning for a Wii at launch. The only thing is, it's probably going to be at least -10F by the time the 19th rolls around, so I don't know how much "camping" is going to go on. I'm thinking about parking the car close to the store a few hours before openning, and waiting to see when people start to show up. I'll have to ask around about previous launches. Wal-Mart already sold out their pre-orders, as did GameStop, so I'm going after a state-wide chain department store instead, they're usually pretty on top of things.
Anyone else been faced with cold weather system launches? What was your experience?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
My favorite comment from the article... "My friends and I plan on getting a total of 6 ps3.. 3 of them will be mine. i plan on selling 2 on eBay. my goal is to make $5000. we will be getting in line Wed. around 5pm. Im just worried about security. I heard way too many horror sorries for the 360 launch and for that reason we will have a .45 in the car just in case. "
Heh. I notice that the first photo linked in that article has a guy opening what looks to be very much like a bottle of wine out on the footpath.
Pretentious snob. Beer would have been perfectly fine for that occasion.
Unless that photo was taken in France, of course.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The ability to delay gratification (i.e. don't do it now because it will be easier or the reward will be bigger later) is one of those personal traits which highly correlates with success. It's also one of those things people are supposed to learn when they're kids.
I reckon that anybody wanting to study those which never learned this valuable ability just has to go check the lines on launch day.
Having only recently gotten to the age where I have both the money and the time to afford for a late night launch I am rather ignorant of how this all works. The article was helpful, but some questions remain.
1. Where do preorders fit into all of this? I was #7 in line for the Wii preorders, assuming there are 7 Wiis left over after the store employees get theirs am I guaranteed one?
2. When they say the system launches on Sunday, do I camp out Saturday or Sunday night? (This has confused me in the past with game releases)
3. What do I do if I've recently moved and have no friends in the area?
Thanks.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I was camping for the Wii preorders. 50 given out, and they turned away at least that while I was there.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The idea is, they want to have it sometime during the first shipment rather than several weeks later for the second, but the first shipment has a high probability of selling out in the first couple of days - depending on the store, quite likely the first day. It's not so much they want one RIGHT NOW, but rather that they want one period.
...but is it art?
I'm not sure what area you're in, but everyone I've talked to about it says demand for the Wii is insanely high. And I stood in a line for three hours for preorders (didn't get one) that grew to maybe 70 or 80 by opening time (Cary, NC). Of course, that was TRU, so there were also PS3 and Elmo (pre)orders. But the buzz from the line was "Wii, wii, wii." The PS3 folks were the 5 at the front of the line with sleeping bags. Everyone else was there for the Wii, with scattered Elmo fans here and there. One Elmo woman, pretty far up the line, started asking people what the Wii was and if she could get one for her kids.
They only had 15 available, but everyone stood around, anyway. Hoping something would change, I suppose. At least, that was my foolish hope. And when the store manager clarified that there were really only 15, everyone slumped but kept standing there until he handed out the tickets and let everyone know it was really done.
The manager asked if anyone left in the line was waiting for Elmo. Someone yelled out, "I'll take whatever I can get!" Elmo as consolation for not getting a Wii preorder? Weird day. Never doing that again. Thankfully, I lucked out and got a walmart.com preorder in a few days later.
http://nerdcartoons.com/
Camping out for the Wii: Bring cash.
Camping out for the PS3: Bring a weapon.
Tell that to the two dozen people who were turned away from my local Toys R Us on preorder day before the store opened because there were already 20 people in line for the 20 systems by 7:30 AM.
I postd this to the ps2 newsgroup..
1. get a legit PS3 box
2. Stuff it full of computer parts(small ones). Go into store.
3. Walk out of a busy Best Buy or WalMart or Target and yell out loud
"hey I got a PS3!" while holding it over your head
5. Accidentally drop it
6. pretend to be sad and open the box as onlookers watch & pull parts out.
If you do this, have a friend videotape it and post it to youtube. If
it doesn't work, put it all back into the box and try another store.
If there's enough onlookers, or better yet, PS3 campers, it might be
fun.
"And status amongst whom? Fellow gaming geeks?"
hey, welcome to slashdot, new for nerds. stuff that matters.... do you happen to see a good portion of the articles that are posted here? ie, gaming topics? im going to assume that a lot of the people that come to this site are into gaming, and not so much into sailing or skiing. its called slashdot, not saildot.
I'm down the street from Cary. You gotta remember that Cary is FULL of kids, and most of them are rich, spoiled kids, to boot (as if you didn't know). That would explain all of the interest in the Wii in Cary...
It's a geek love fete mostly. There's something novel about having been in the PS2 line at the Metreon (where line passes were issued for meals, rest room trips etc) and having seen/been one of a horde of nerdcore game geeks charging en-masse for the bars.
And yes - you had to be there.
Sorry, I already did my camping out on the 13th for the Wii pre-order. When the 19th rolls around all I have to do is walk in remind the manager of the local EBGames what my last name is and walk out happy! And personally, I have a large Turkish friend with a heavy accent and enough girth to be intimidating. He waited with me to pre-order the system, he's going with me when I go to pick it up. I think I will be fine!
Wow, I'd be afraid to load that last site at work...
GPL: Free as in will
... not. I was walking through the mall yesterday and decided to poke my head inside the video game shop (n.b. I live in central Japan in a city of 150,000). There was a sign up saying "Now accepting Wii pre-orders", which must have happened in the last week or so since they didn't know when it was going to start on the 1st when I asked. I said "Excuse me, I'd like to pre-order a Wii". I put my name and phone number down on a ticket, got my copy, and told them I wouldn't need a reminder phone call. They said I'd have three days to pick up my Wii before they gave it to someone else. No deposit, no bundle, no hassle, no waiting in lines, and apparently no serious competition to get one here. I have this funny feeling that Nintendo is just saying "Screw console launch tradition, we're going to have one for every family that wants one, and priced to move." Either that or the rest of Japan is much, much less excited by the new Zelda than I am. Time will tell.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Yeah my gf hates games too. Im hoping the wii will entice her, but she's still resistent. I just hope the actual eexperience changes that.
;) But you may be abl to snag it that saturday night at midnight, which isnt really sunday. Just don't blow your date money!
PS You know you're not getting a wii the 19th
Haha, Saildot, news for boats, stuff that blows.
You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to Wii before jonnythan.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
There's a bunch of stores here in Brazil pre-selling Wii for R$ 2,500.00. That is like a thousand dolares!! I could go to Miami and buy me one console for that price! Actually, I could buy two and travel for free.
Visit the RPG Search Engine
I am right there with you!
/sob
Nov. 19th is my wife's birthday! Fortunately, she likes to sleep in very late so I should be able to pick up my pre-order and get home before she gets out of bed. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to wait until the next day to take it out of the box.
True. The guide these people need is 'how to get a life'. Get some real interests and hobbies. Get a girlfriend . And for what? You get a game console during what's guaranteed to be its worst 6 months, when its games are the fewest, most limited and even the crap ones cost full price.
On a tangentially related note, GamePro.com ran story about one of their writer's experiences waiting outside Toys R Us in upstate NY for an evening in the freezing cold. Might be of interest if you liked this article. http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=84872
You must be an older gamer. I grew up in your generation too. I have the same issues as yourself. Everything gaming related is a waste of time, right? Everything else is "cooler", and more fullfilling? I notice this pressure is less severe as it used to be, but, that feeling still sticks with us.
Maybe you should just allow people to do something that they enjoy. It is not harming other people for them to get pumpped up about campping out a new game system.
Maybe people think standing online for skiing is dumb? While I enjoy snowboarding, I certainly don't enjoy it on a crowded mountain. A nightclub? Maybe I don't want to choke on secondhand smoke and watch people have to down alchohol before they are comfortable enough to get out and move their feet. Wait in line for the gym? Why, so you can towel off some other guys back sweat before you add your own to the mix?
Personally, I don't understand people's need to have technology before there are really any games out for it. I'll get one of the new systems as soon as there is an exclusive that I really want to play, otherwise, there is no point for myself to have a new expensive toy.
But, despite this, if people want to get excited and spend their money, and their time, to sit online, why not? If anything, standing online for something like this is a great way to meet people. Any time I have been online for something, I've ended up talking to at least 5 to 10 strangers. When I go out dancing, I talk and dance with my friends/wife, and don't end up meeting anybody at all.
So, to each their own. As long as it's not causing harm, let people be excited about something. I mean god, we spend 40+ hours a week as someone else's slave, just let us have a little bit of fun every now and again.
Wow. Yeah, I had the same thing back when I worked for Microsoft and I went to the company store^W^W local software store, they saw surprisingly little demand for copies of MacOS X. I don't see why everyone is talking like the Apple market share is increasing, since judging by what the store employees said, people couldn't get enough of Windows software. If what you say is true, Mr. Sony Employee, Nintendo is in trouble...
I am the man with no sig!
You're down the street from Cary... where demand for the Wii is really high because, you say, there are lots of rich, spoiled kids (as opposed to the poor kids pushing for the PS3? But anyway)... but then you also say that your "local video game store," which presumably is in or near Cary, says there is no demand for the Wii.
Care to explain the apparent contradiction?
I am the man with no sig!
I refuse to camp out for either system. I got burned with my 360. I live in a small town and I only had to wait in line about two hours to get my 360 but after playing it for three days I got the "Three red lights". So I called tech support and about an half and hour later they told me to expect a box in the mail to return my system. So I packed up my system and sent it off to the Holy land of Microsoft and about a week later I hade a refurbished 360 sans my hard drive which I had also sent back. So after about two days I was on the phone again with "three red lights". I did the routine all over again and about a week later had a new 360 this time. I then called back a thrid time to ask about my hard drive, they gave me a hard time about not calling back sooner (I expected that they might send it back with my new 360). Then two days later I recieved a hard drive with no indication if it was new or refurbished but I was just glad to have a complete system again. I've been happy with my 360 now, but I'm going to let other people discover that just spent 600 dollars on a terd. After they get the kinks worked out and maybe after the holiday rush I might pick up the Wii.
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You won't see me down there either, probably because I, like you, have gotten too old to get quite that excited about a video game console launch; however, there are hundreds of thousands of days in a lifetime, and I don't really see any particular harm in wasting one or two or a thousand of them.
Wasting time is awesome.
That was one of the funniest stories I heard. People camping out for preorders? What's next? Preordering tickets for a raffle which decides which people get to stand first in the preorder line?
Realize that at the same time, the PS3 is a cheap blu-ray player, the Nintendo Wii is a completely new style of gaming, and that the following for a lot of this stuff is almost cult status. I know several places that insulting gamers could result in immediate peril.
My friend and I have been planning to camp out since September. We are going to camp out in front of the Best Buy in Tukwila, WA.
I've spent at least 30 min on the phone with the local branch as well as corporate, and the local branch was saying that they've been bugging their property management company enough that they finally agreed to send out a official bulletin to Best Buy about what is and is not allowed (logistics and all that).
I am so jazzed.
I got the week off of work, there's a Costco about 5 minutes away, we're going to start the day with grilling free hot dogs and burgers for whomever, just to get some positive faction with "Best Buy Employees" and "General Public". ("Well done, Jinky! I expected nothing less!" **fanfare**)
But yeah. So we won't know final details until the 10th. But we're set for the week. My friend has to work, but he works about 5 minutes away, so we're good, there.
Anyone in the aforementioned area who's planning on spawn camping as well? It's a rare drop. Level 60 Jink LFG.