www.wiibreak.com
Time/Temp: 7:21pm, 39 F
At this point in writing I realized that I hadn’t yet gotten any perspectives from my fellow line-waiters concerning the object of their quest: The Wii. I turned to the person next to me, a one “Calvin A.”, who had this to say:
- “I’m really looking forward to Twilight Princess, y’know, ‘cuz I read the previews online and its looking like it turned out to be a great game. Its a shame about the delays though. Oh, and I’m definitely getting a lime-green Wii, because it looks alot like my Alienware PC.”
An interesting, though not surprising point of view. He seemed a bit bummed when I let him know that it was only being release in White at launch, but he said that was his second choice anyways. I got up after calling seat check, and went down the line to interview some more people. One of the DS’ing gamers, “Richard M.”, agreed to pause and have a quick chat with me regarding his reasons for waiting in line:
- “Well, I’m not really here because of any specific game. I just like how the Wii is affordable, and my parents are actually excited about it. They want to play Wii Sports, and I don’t really blame them because it looks like a pretty good set of games for the Wii to launch with. If I had to choose one game to get with the Wii, it would be Red Steel.”
At this point, a representative walked out of Best Buy, and lo! He was carting a tray full of hot chocolate! What a great guy! We thanked him and huddled up to our warm cups for a few minutes of break from the bitter cold. It was around then that I realized how late it was getting.
Time/Temp: 8:32pm, 32oF
It was getting later and later, and colder all the time. After a quick head count, I saw that we were only up to 20 people waiting in line. It didn’t seem very competitive.
Time/Temp: 9:30pm, 30oF
An hour later, we still hadn’t received any more Wii-Waiters. “This is ridiculous,” I thought to myself, “There are still 15 spots left!” It was then that I discovered something that would turn my world upside-down. Upon asking about our apparent lack of Wiitards, the person who arrived after me replied that Target down the street had only 17 people in line, and a total of 45 Wiis to sell!!
Impossible. It couldn’t be… could it? Did Nintendo actually supply enough Wiis to meet the demand? After the PS3 fiascos, people getting shot, tazered, and mauled over the scant 13-console-per-store limit… It was hard to imagine that a console launch could go this smoothly.
Then I began thinking… What was I doing here? If there are that many Wiis available, I can just walk in tomorrow and pick one right off the shelf! I would need to test my hypothesis though… There was NO WAI that I would allow a Wii to slip through my grasp, after waiting so long. So, I set up a trial. I left, and went home, planning to come back to check on the line later at night.
Time/Temp: 12:30pm, 30oF
(Current time of writing)
…Wow. It’s after midnight and there are only a dozen people outside Target, and about 25 people outside Best Buy. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I didn’t need to wait out in the cold for 6 hours of my life. I decided to let the Waiters know about this, because they are probably very cold and they don’t need to be waiting…
“You know, you guys can probably go home. No one else is coming, and its going to be a cold night.” I said out my window to the Waiters outside Target. One person lifted their head, glared at me, and replied angrily, “Listen, I’m not gonna fall for that. No one here is going to give up their spots in line! We’ve waited too long for that!”
Well, its their loss… I am now back at home writing this in my warm bed, and I plan to stay here until the stores open tomorrow morning. I can’t say that I feel good about wasting hours of my time out in the cold, but it wasn’t all bad. At least I met some of my fellow gamers, and for a brief moment in time, Wii waited together.