I was coming back from work last night, and I noticed a long winding line in front of my local BestBuy store. For a second there I was confused, until I remembered that today was the PS3 launch. I wanted to snap a picture but I was kinda in a hurry, and it was pouring outside so I didn’t even bother.
Yes, it was raining. Actually, to say it was raining is an understatement. We had a raging thunderstorm going on, with lightnings, and wicked strong wind. It was the kind of weather in which you crank up your windshield wipers to full speed and you still can’t see shit. It was the kind of weather that renders the umbrella useless because the rain is falling almost horizontally. It was the kind of weather that makes your back yard turn into a friken lake.
Hell, I tell you how bad it was. I was sitting at home watching TV when the local squirrels started banging on my deck door asking if they can hide inside till the storm passes over. I was like: “Fuck you Squirrel!”. Fucking Chip and Dale eat my tomatoes from the garden all summer, shit on my lawn furniture and then they want to hang out at my house cause they are afraid of the big bad storm. Screw them!
Anyways, this is how bad it was. And yet there were all these people camping out in front of the BestBuy all night. This is what I call dedication. You couldn’t pay me to sit outside of a store all night in that weather. Hell, I wouldn’t sit outside of a store even if the weather was nice.
I hope that damn thing is worth it. Cause personally, nothing that I have read about it impressed me enough to even consider buying it.
Needless to say, unless you queued up in front of your local store yesterday around noon, you are most likely not getting a PS3 until the next shipment arrives…
[tags]ps3, playstation, playstation 3, sony, best buy, line, queue, storm[/tags]
LOL, love that bit about squirrels :D
I’ve never even thought about buying any console… I’ll stick to gaming on the PC forever :)
Same here. My favorite genre is FPS which is basically unplayable on consoles.
I still own a PS1 that I bought back in the day. I must admit that there were several good games for it that I used to like:
Teken 2
Soul Edge
Final Fantasy titles
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil games
I think these are about it. It was fun, but I never got a PS2, or an Xbox or anything like that. There are much more interesting PC titles to choose from. I’m not planning to get any of the next gen consoles either.
I still have an original Playstation 1, but never play it. I used to player Driver 2 on my PC a few years ago though, using an emulator – so much easier than waiting 5 mins for it to load on the PS1.
I think nVidia’s new G80 GPU and the new Intel Core 2 Quad will beat anything that the PS3 can offer… Have a look here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1010840&postcount=1
Hehe… I need a second job to finance some new gaming hardware though.
I think that one of the things that draws people to the consoles is the fact that you only need to buy a new one every 2-3 years, and you are guaranteed that any game you buy from today, till the release date of next generation machine will run flawlessly on your hardware.
In contrast, 18 months (per Moore’s Law) after you buy the brand new top-of-the-line graphics card, there will be a game out there that will run really slow on it, under the max resolution/effects.
But then again, because of this hardware fluidity, we do get progressively better graphics all the time.
To the author – you seem to be mistaken. The poeple waiting in the line outside the store aren’t getting it for themselves – 80% of the time it’s for resale on ebay, for those lazy gamers or middle-classers with 9-to-5 jobs who can’t/don’t want to wait outside for themselves.
I waited in line for 37 hours – an evening, 2 nights, a full day and a morning – got 3 consoles (I paid my roommates to stay with me lol), and sold them on ebay for $6,000.
How is that for a slice of fried gold? ;)
Damn G, nice profit! I’m one of those 9-5 job + school people so there is no way in hell I would be able to pull that off.
Personally though, I would feel bad selling a $500 console for $2k. But then again if someone is willing to spend that much money to have it now, then I guess it’s their problem.
could have made more profit than that – there was one that sold on ebay for 15k
No there wasn’t. :-) Check it again – 95% of the way-above-average listings were “purchased” by kids having fun. It’s usually some sort of a witty nickname, a brand new account and, of course, no feedback… I suppose they could still give it to the second highest bidder, unless it was a BuyItNow aution to begin with – in that case the sellers just got punished for their greed.
I don’t feel too well about profiteering like this, either, but
a) the people who buy them online can’t/don’t want to stand in line, so that’s a sort of a payment for all the time I spent outside. :-)
b) I constrained myself – I sold them with a free overnight shipping for $1,900 each, whereas other sellers went quite a lot higher on the night of the release. Basically, if it weren’t for me, my customers would end up paying more and probably waiting longer to receive their consoles. :^) The way I figured, I was making money on it either way, but I didn’t want to come off as too greedy, because a) it just wouldn’t be cool and b) I probably wouldn’t be able to sell if my prices were outrageous.
Case in point – there was a middle-aged couple that looked like, well, upper lower class. :-) They held the first two spots in line, meaning they got there about an hour before I did. But anyway – they waited for 38 hours, got their two PS3s, and put them on ebay with a BuyItNow price of $2,500 _and_ charged peple for shipping – a USPS shipping, mind you. They ended up not being able to sell their consoles and, well, losing quite a lot of potential income, since now the average price on ebay is about $1,100-1,200. :-/