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PS3 Lines Already Forming In America

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Nov 09, 2006 04:03 AM
from the get-a-life dept.
Wowzer writes "Nine days until Sony's PlayStation 3 launches in America, and lines are already forming. From the article: "Someone went to Best Buy this morning and saw about 7 people waiting outside. He went inside and one of the workers told him that they had been there since Monday. It must be a tough job being such big PS3 fans and being the butt of many passer-by jokes like 'Where is the line for PS4? Is it on the other side?'"
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  • Jokes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by onion2k (203094) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:09AM (#16781945) Homepage
    It must be a tough job being such big PS3 fans and being the bud of many passer-by jokes like 'Where is the line for PS4? Is it on the other side?'

    I'm not a fan of the PS3, and I'd find it tough to listen to a 'joke' like that.
  • Damnit... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TrippTDF (513419) <hiland AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:10AM (#16781949)
    ... How the hell can you afford to stand in a line for over a week?? Are you taking vacation time from work? Are you unemployed? Unemployable? And why the hell would you stand in a line for a week even if you had the time? Stupid kids and their rock music.
  • Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jlebrech (810586) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:10AM (#16781951) Homepage
    Why can't Sony just sell the first 200,000 straight from the factory doors. They'll be plenty of demand and it'll save on overheads.
  • dept. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Halo1 (136547) <jonas@maebe.elis@ugent@be> on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:10AM (#16781953) Homepage

    from the get-a-life dept.

    Says the Slashdot editor...

  • Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperPunch (660987) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:13AM (#16781975)
    Actually it looks like the started monday. (11.06.06) I believe this thread was the first: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php ?t=114295 [cheapassgamer.com] Quote from the post: "I went to Best Buy this morning for a job interview (got the job, but it's seasonal) and I saw about 7 people waiting outside. I went inside and one of the workers told me that they had been there since Monday. Do these people have no lives? The awesome thing was, as I was waiting outside, I saw a bunch of people coming to Best Buy and picking up Gears of War. A few people made some funny remarks. One guy is like, "I hope you guys brought enough food!" Another one said, "Where is the line for PS4? Is it on the other side?""
  • Mad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by herczy (1024845) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:14AM (#16781979) Homepage
    Oookay... So they spend 7 days. And hygiene stayed at home. And it got to be very unhealty. But, I suppose, if you like something, 7 days are not so much.
  • by BadAnalogyGuy (945258) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:14AM (#16781981)
    I went to eat with a bunch of friends at a mall food court and noticed an optimization problem. All the seats were full. Some people who were carrying food were forced to walk around looking for tables while others were 'holding' tables waiting for other members of their party to buy and bring back food.

    By essentially creating a semaphore on the tables, the 'holders' were forcing a backlog of 'eaters'. By taking the resource and not using it, they blocked other users who would be ready to use the table immediately. With more 'eaters' coming out of line, the more crowded and backed up the general flow of customers got.

    By sitting in line for a PS3, you're perhaps creating a slight advantage for yourself, but you are unoptimizing the situation for everyone else. You don't smell nice either, and you look like vagrants standing around in front of Best Buy.
  • The hype machine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slim (1652) <john AT hartnup DOT net> on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:18AM (#16782007) Homepage
    I'm pretty sure this is astroturf. Just like for movies, publishers pay people to form queues and get on the TV news.

    Anyone who really wants a PS3 that badly would have pre-ordered.

    I'm getting a Wii on Euro launch day, and I fully expect to queue for no more than 5 minutes, wave my preorder receipt at the attendant, and walk out with a Wii.
  • Will be pre ording via mail order then e-baying mine for twice what I payed, I'm still on my old (second hand PS2). Sure the new console is going to have pretty HDTV graphics but I'm from the game-play is more important old school, also I have a life (well as much as a slashdotter can have).

    * Welcome our new PS3 overlords <ducks>
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:18AM (#16782015)
    So, Sony sells CDs full of malware, sues grandmothers and kids, sends checks to various US Congressmen stapled to drafts of anti-consumer laws to be introduced by them, and I'm supposed to line up at 4 AM to give them money.

    Cool stuff you can do for $600:
    - Buy a bike
    - Rent a decent sports car for a couple of days
    - Take a plane trip to just about anywhere
    - All-day shopping spree at a huge bookstore
    - Adopt a starving Brungarian refugee
    - Join a health club
    - Take professional-development classes
    - Many things involving girls

    Dumbass stuff you can do with $600:
    - Donate to the Cowboy Neal Retirement Fund
    - Give it to Sony
    - ...?
  • The question is (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How many of those 7 people were being paid by Sony to make demand look greater than it is?
  • apt-get install life
  • Not too costly, and it would really dent the ps3 games market, but thats just plain really evil,
    maybe all employees will buy 1 each and use them for blueray, and nothing else.
  • "Are you unemployed? Unemployable?"

    Not if they can afford to buy one! Ba-dum-ching!

    Thank you, thank you, your all too kind ^_^

    So, uh, have the smashmy...com guys got a spot in one of those lines? :)
  • This tag should read:

    Dude, you really, really, really need to get a life.
  • In your analogy, it would be Sony causing the backlog, not the people in line. You have a producers and consumers problem and the consumers are actual consumers. It seems fairly trivial to figure out who the producers would be.

    Are you arguing, then, that Sony should release the PS3 because people are waiting for it?

  • To me it kinda doesn't make sense, as you could preorder hardware. If I preorder a PS3 couldn't I just walk in when it's out and sales stuff would hand it over, no matter how many people are in the shop that didn't preorder? Maybe they are hired by some marketing company on behalf of Sony?
  • by Chicane-UK (455253) <chicane-uk&ntlworld,com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:37AM (#16782127) Homepage
    If they're such diehard fans that they're willing to wait in line for over a week to buy a goddamn games console, why the hell didn't they just preorder it instead?!
  • by Weedlekin (836313) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:38AM (#16782131)
    Wow, a queue with seven people in it! That must have wound its way for at least two dozen feet from the front of the store, or even more if some of them were fat. If this sort of massive demand keeps up, people might have to wait in line for five or even ten minutes to get a PS/2, so buy yours before Christmas to avoid gigantic lines with ten or even a dozen people in them. You know it makes sense!
  • Employeds might take annual vacation time to stand in line...which might make sense if they had 1)2 weeks time saved up, 2)Make less than $500 a week, 3)Are able to sell them on Ebay for 1k over purchase price, 4)Are actually willing to sell them soon as they get them. ...still, breaking even or better than that still doesn't make up for spending 2 weeks outside of a building waiting for an electronics device.
  • You think you're being clever, but you fail at analyzing the PS3 queue correctly.

    The table queue has two different ways of queuing, where they stand around waiting for a table and one where the table is taken prior to getting food. The former is optimal, while the latter isn't. This is because the table has a period of time where it is not being used for its primary purpose, eating.

    Where in the PS3 queue does any inefficiency off PS3 distribution accrue? The PS3's will be distributed at the same pace no mat
  • Anyone who really wants a PS3 that badly would have pre-ordered.

    Apparently you haven't heard. Even pre-orders were extremely limited, and there were lots of folks camping out for those. And unfortunately for even many of those folks, they ended up still not getting one.

    So, the alternative for these fanbois are to buy an overpriced one from eBay, or take off work and camp out for two weeks.

    Personally, I choose none of the above. :) It's stupid to buy a console at launch. The reviews are already rolling in, a

  • By sitting in line for a PS3, you're perhaps creating a slight advantage for yourself, but you are unoptimizing the situation for everyone else. You don't smell nice either, and you look like vagrants standing around in front of Best Buy.

    It is not the people waiting in line that are causing/will cause a backlog, it is Sony - they are the ones that have created a semaphore on the PS3. The people waiting in line will simply be the first eaters to get a table, to borrow from your metaphor (i.e. all consumers

  • If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Go figure, the demographic that's willing to buy that overpriced game console is the demographic of unemployed kids who's parents give them enough money to have a thousand dollar vacation in front of a Best Buy.

    Fuck the fancy new toy. Go to Costa Rica or something.
  • Lines FTL (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:46AM (#16782175)
    Only people lining up are those that really want to for the "fun" of it or because they're gonna flip the thing on eBay. Sucks that most of the initial units are going straight to the secondary market. Hell with that - http://www.playstationfinder.com/ [playstationfinder.com] FTW.
  • That analogy make no god damn sense at all BadAnalo...gy...guy. Ok. Nevermind. Just nevermind. Why the hell is this not modded "Funny" instead? What do I pay you modder for?
  • by tktk (540564) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:52AM (#16782209)
    I just can't believe they're going to wait in line for this long and sincerely hope that this is a hoax.

    I'd actually have more respect for these people if they said they'd be at home and masturbating continuously for the next 10 days.

  • By sitting in line for a PS3, you're perhaps creating a slight advantage for yourself, but you are unoptimizing the situation for everyone else. You don't smell nice either, and you look like vagrants standing around in front of Best Buy.

    It is not the people waiting in line that are causing/will cause a backlog, it is Sony - they are the ones that have created a semaphore on the PS3. The people waiting in line will simply be the first eaters to get a table, to borrow from your metaphor (i.e. all consumers

  • by heli0 (659560) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:56AM (#16782231)
    ... I want to see the look on the faces of the last 3 when they find out the store only has 4 units.

    "Someone went to Best Buy this morning and saw about 7 people waiting outside."
  • by carou (88501) on Thursday November 09 2006, @04:59AM (#16782253) Homepage Journal
    It must be a tough job being such big PS3 fans and being the bud of many passer-by jokes like 'Where is the line for PS4? Is it on the other side?'"

    Now is this a difference between the English and American languages, or can TFA not spell? On this side of the pond we'd talk about the butt of the joke.

    (and then have a cup of tea).
  • How does this work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by optimusNauta (784677) on Thursday November 09 2006, @05:01AM (#16782271) Homepage
    Will someone honestly answer me this. Do they put 2 weeks of food in a cooler? Do they sit with their best pal and take turns waiting in line? Does Best Buy obligate me to respect their encampment and let them buy first? What if I just waltz in on the appropriate day and put my tent in front of theirs? Can they be arrested for sleeping on the sidewalk? Can Best Buy kick them out? How does this work?
  • Anyone who really wants a PS3 that badly would have pre-ordered.

    Considering that the preorders were sold out at everywhere that offered them within an extremely short amount of time, and that the quantities Sony is releasing are not large, I don't think it's that unrealistic.

    There ARE people out there who really just have no lives. Hell, I work with someone who 100% WOULD be doing it if he didn't have the job, and even that is barely holding him back.
  • Easy. It's called being a contestant on The Apprentice :)
  • Because it would piss off their distributors and resellers, who they depend on to keep the sales high.
  • Ok.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    so why wouldn't these idiots just go to a more desolate area that does not yet have people camping out like retards. I'm at Purdue in West Lafayette Indiana and there isn't a single person camping in front of any store. Might as well just come out here and save yourself at least 5 days or so.

    Either that or just stop acting like such a pathetic lame ass.
  • by JoBlo69 (1023365) on Thursday November 09 2006, @05:16AM (#16782345)
    When the xbox 360 came out well about a week before i realized that is was going to take more than just walking into a walmart day of the launch and picking one up with no prob. It soon dawned on me that i would have to take extream measures (not THAT extream) to get my 360 on launch day. Me and a friend ended up driving out of town about 60 miles and came across a fredmyers (northwest department store)and we where 3rd and 4th in line. We had to spend the night in almost freezing weather but it got done and i made twice my money back when i listed it on ebay the day after... To me that was worth it, financhaly...

    But for me the logic doesnt work. I cant justify spending a week and a half out side of best buy for the "chance" to get a PS3. The only whay i would do it is if i was Garenteed to get one and ablr to sell it for more money than the lost days working. And at my salary good luck even at the vey bloated Pre PS3 sales happening on ebay right now. There going for at least $1500...

    I fail to see why anyone sane would stand around outside for 10+ days waiting for a PS3 that they may or may not get unless that are hoping to make alot of money reselling it to someone else just as desprate to get one...
  • This is marketing...
    These guys are paid to be there.
  • Yeah, except a queue can be of an an infinite length is naturally dispatched on a first come first serve basis. It has an order of process that cannot be changed.

    I believe your table hogging analogy wrong. It is more along the lines of pre-allocating memory or fetching resources before you absolutely need them, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Put it this way, why buy the food if you can't get a table at which to eat it? And why queuue for hours and hours and hours and then *not* get a PS3 *if* you can
  • consuming waste (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jovius (974690) on Thursday November 09 2006, @05:20AM (#16782371)
    The society seems to have closen a circle when you can afford to line up for a product designed to waste time.
  • by giafly (926567) on Thursday November 09 2006, @05:35AM (#16782453)
    By sleeping outside Best Buy for a week, instead of paying for Hotel rooms, these guys are saving enough money that their Play Stations are in effect free. They're not so dumb.
  • by dangitman (862676) on Thursday November 09 2006, @05:47AM (#16782531)
    Was Eric cartman in the line, or is he still waiting for Wii?
  • by NeoManyon (953080) on Thursday November 09 2006, @06:09AM (#16782659) Homepage
    In my town we only have four people... and we are still waitng for the PS1
  • by netean (549800) <emailNO@SPAMiainalexander.com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @06:19AM (#16782709) Homepage
    I've spent some time with the new PS3 (via work) and I have to say they'll be really disappointed.. Vastly overpriced, really buggy software (OS is flaky, real flaky) and the games (i've played) aren't much better!!!, poor build quality (drive access fails, disc fails to spin, connectors loose at the rear), poor controller, etc.

    They'll have the same games they bought before on their ps2, just much more expensive this time around.. Games WILL look great (as long as they have HDTVs) but, in all honesty I think it's going to crucify Sony... it's just such a pile of crap you wouldn't believe.. NO really, it just doesn't work the way you'd expect/want and when you factor in that SONY made it, not some junky two bit chinese company you've never heard of.. it's just shocking.

    it's just so disappointing you won't believe it.
  • by GayBliss (544986) on Thursday November 09 2006, @07:00AM (#16782985) Homepage
    Look, you have people with nothing better to do than stand in line for a week for something that they will probably use for days on end without doing anything else constructive. What else do they do for a sense of accomplishment in their life? It probably makes them feel great about themselves to have such dedication and determination.
  • by Kartoch (38254) on Thursday November 09 2006, @07:43AM (#16783267) Homepage
    "He went inside and one of the workers told him that they had been there since Monday."

    A lot of republican voters are in PS3 lines, which would explain the recent results in american politic...
  • by dimer0 (461593) on Thursday November 09 2006, @08:18AM (#16783547)
    So, if you get a PS3 on day 1, you can turn it around on ebay for 1500-2000. (Which sickens me). So, that's a 900-1400 profit. Let's assume $1400. So, that's $200/day for standing in line they're making - which is probably a lot more than these kids make in their normal days jobs (if they have one). Not a bad deal, I guess.

    Now, I really want a PS3, but we already have a next-gen console out there which is finally getting some quality titles. I'll have no problems playing Gears of War for a month or two while it's hard to get my hands on a PS3. There really isn't anything that excites me about the PS3, well, until the next Gran Turismo comes out.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2006, @08:30AM (#16783689)
    Several people with enough money to buy a PS3 alone at night?
  • D&D in Line (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Phaxn (946939) on Thursday November 09 2006, @09:06AM (#16784189)
    Just think of all the D&D you could play while waiting!
  • by British (51765) <british1500@gmail.com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @09:53AM (#16785023) Homepage Journal
    Triumph & a camera crew should get out to the lines. He could heckle them good, just like he did at the lines of the Star Wars premiere.
  • by Ender Ryan (79406) < > on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:35AM (#16786745) Journal
    netean, I don't believe you.

    My disdain for your silly profession aside, why the fuck would you get your hands on a PS3, through work, as a hypnotherapist?

    That... and I've already read a lot of hands on accounts of the PS3, from a multitude of sources, and none of them mention any of the supposed problems you speak of.