Launch Weekend Insanity 71
There are many people in lines out there already, waiting for their chance tomorrow at Sony's PlayStation 3. Probably the biggest line is at the Metreon, where almost 1,000 people are lined up outside of the official Sony store. Destructoid is carrying stats from eBay's pre-sales numbers. (The average sales price of a PS3 was $1,532.76. 2,165 Wiis have been sold since October 20th.) 1up's intrepid reporters have thoughtfully outlined the dangers of Wiimote use. Somewhat relatedly, Miyamoto reveals in a BusinessWeek article that he wanted the Wii to be even cheaper. From that article: "Originally, I wanted a machine that would cost $100. My idea was to spend nothing on the console technology so all the money could be spent on improving the interface and software. If we hadn't used NAND flash memory [to store data such as games and photos] and other pricey parts, we might have succeeded."
Re:Parent is not flamebait, it's a flame, please f (Score:1)
Reviews (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately the important thing is the games, the question is whether many of the games have lived up to the hype
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We are ofcourse seeing resistance and Z:TP reviews first as those are what everyone is focussing on.
Next week I figgure we will see all of the blog reviews posting their stuff, as well as the (more) credible review sites/mags posting reviews on the lower neame games.
And on a random note:
Exitetruck is awsome as a time killer. It didn't
Re:Reviews (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of the more negative reviews I have read for Excitetruck (and other games) seem to focus on the lack of a few features and then justify destroying the game in its score; basically they can be summarised as "Excite truck is an amazingly fun game when playing by yourself or with a friend, but being that it doesn't have online multiplayer or 4 player splitscreen 6/10." Now I understand why people want to point that out but it seems like it isn't being scored for the game it is, it is being reviewed for the game it isn't. I think I can explain this better
Since about 1999, when I was playing Zelda:MM and Unreal Tournament at the same time, I have thought that you could make an amazing Online Multiplayer (Deathmatch or CTF) game using Zelda as a base; you could make several classes of characters which had different items and health levels or what not. Personally, I think that this is an obvious extention to The Legend of Zelda and I'm disapointed that no one has made a Zelda Clone that has included this. What I was saying about reviewing a game for what it isn't is, would it make sense for someone to give The Legend of Zelda:TP a 6/10 because it didn't include Online Multiplayer?
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It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but He
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I've personally found reviews to be rather unhelpful these days. It is extremely difficult to find a review that isn't vague about both what is good and what is bad. Attempting to find anything specific is as timeconsuming as WoW.
Ultimately the best thing you can do is try the games yourself. Does netflix rent games yet?
Bundling ahoy! (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's also (Score:3, Informative)
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It was Miyamoto's birthday yesterday. It's the 17th in Japan.
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I just hate people who can't just let stuff slide without commenting on it.
Oh wait...
The best part... (Score:1)
Herding the sheep (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry but nothing out there would ever get me to waste that much time of my life for something that will be replaced in 3-5 more years. Not to mention wasting that much money on something with less moving parts than my mountain bike.
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If you buy a PS3, your mountain bike's moving parts will probably stop moving for about 3-5 years.
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No rain here in Las Vegas, but people are camped out [slashdot.org] in front of the local Fry's. They've actually pitched tents on the sidewalk in front of the store. Back at the office, we had a few good laughs at their expense.
You can't make this sh*t up.
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See, the guys in the Sony line, even if they are sheep, are at least getting something they think they'll enj
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KFG
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Note: This doesn't necessarily have to be a Bad Thing (TM) at all, Nintendo just ticks differently and focusses on other aspects than their competition does, as the NDS has demonstrated very convincingly. Anyway, there is some risk to limiting the te
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And why not? Do you need to modify the internals of a PC any time you plug in a new controller, steering wheel, keyboard or mouse? Of course not; it's all software driven. Nintendo could, in theory, easily produce a Wii remote for the Gamecube.
This is not to say the $250 price is unjustified, because it almost certainly is. As much as some people decry the latest innovations in graphics once they've gotten used to a
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Target. Fredericksburg Virginia. (Score:5, Interesting)
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You don't think the answer to the question was percolating through their heads as they watched the cars being towed away?
They can also observe where the managers park...
I would NOT want to be a Target employee this week. At any level.
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I would NOT want to be a Target employee this week. At any level."
The parking lot likely has security cameras, the store itself is private property, and most places have people called "police officers." If the store suddenly decides they don't like you camping on their sidewalk, you will, to say the least, lose your place in line.
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I'm actually surprised that we don't see more of this
As a customer I really hate having to "brush" through a crowd of local teengers who decide to hang out at the doors of my local 7-11; I understand why they do it (I'm not that old) but it i
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Well, personally, I think it's a great thing. My local target had about 10-20 people outside it on Wed. night and it was obvious it just wasn't designed to have a small tent city (my local store told them they would be removed if they put tents up though). This screws the store over in a number of ways, from fire code, general liability and people not going to the store due to the eye sore.
Also, from interviews, most of the people in l
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As for towing the cars...that's the way I would treat all of my customers waiting to spend their mon
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Hint: You know that water that's everywhere? That's not because of the storm.
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Let's just say that that wasn't water flowing around the parking lot afte the storm...
soo many decisions (Score:1)
So what are people in line for? (Score:2)
So what are 1000 people doing in line in San Francisco? There's no way there are that many units to be had, even at a Sony flagship store.
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Hard Core Machismo (Score:4, Insightful)
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I know a dude you left his state yesterday to camp out at some place in Idaho (which borders his state) with a wad of cash in hand. He wants to pick up as many units as he can afford and hawk them online for mucho profit. I'll give him credit for having a brass pair, as I'd never risk the kind of coin he was proposing on a gamble like that. But a minimum of 100% profits for a couple of days' work must a siren's song to some folks. I wish my friend well. :)
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Machismo? Camping out for a game console? Showing off to girls? Umm, yeah.
Wii watch (Score:2)
If not, well, I'll try again in a couple weeks. Or head out to the Fox Valley, because that's where I picked up a Gamecube not one week after launch - they had 10 other ones, and the hype for the GC at the time then felt more like the hype for the Wii now.
In any event, I would've thought that the general public had gotten over waiting in days-long lines
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You go line up at EBX and Target (Score:1)
Out-of-Control PS3 Lines! (Score:1)
Horrible PS3 line management (Score:4, Interesting)
My camp started pretty simply. I called all the local Wal Mart stores and asked for their timing and policies, etc. Almost universally they said they would have a line in the (soon to be closed) Layaway department. So I pick out the store closest to a friend's house, so he can come hold my spot while I go shower/etc at his place, and we hope to perhaps do a little word of mouth about our local gaming group.
Wednesday morning I walk through the store, see where the bathrooms, food, magazines, chairs, etc are. No one is in line, and I am not desperate to be first, so I head out for a little while to get some things done. I come back around 12:30 PM and there is a console-gamer-looking teenager sitting in the one non-bench chair in layaway. I take this as a sign that the line has started, but I left all my stuff (books and a deck of cards) in my car so I go back out and get them. When I get back inside the guy has disappeared, so I take the chair and start to wait.
Over the next 20 minutes or so a number of employees either ask what I am doing, or comment on it since they already know. The layaway attendant finally gets done with her customers and makes a call to her manager, and I hear "You'll have to come tell him that yourself", which soooo does not bode well. I then see a pallet jack full of chairs come out of the back of the store, and am enthusiastic about them putting together a real line. Sadly the chairs continue past me and out of sight, another bad sign.
Shorthly thereafter an assistant manager comes out and tells me the line will have to be outside, AND that they are getting less than the 10 promised units. I don't mind either bit of news so much. An indoor line is why I picked Wal Mart, but I figured outside wouldn't be too bad, they have covered and even heated outdoor areas. I head outside and am greeted by cloudy skies. I figure worst case, I step inside and buy a tent like most outdoor line campers do. The line gets set up as 10 shoulder-to-shoulder chairs in front of one side of the building, directly in the water runoff path of a large slanted roof with no gutter. Bad sign number 3 I think?
I sit down, and am shortly joined by two more guys who thought they would be the first ones there. No worries, the employee rumor mill has hinted at 6 units and 4 rain checks at this point, so top 3 is a fine place to be. At this point the store manager comes outside to talk to us. He vetos the idea of having tents (wtf mate?) which is really scary for that kind of line location and weather, and also tells us we can't have extension cords to the distant power outlets, and can't have cars any closer than the parking spots 30 feet away across the 'street'. So much for almost any sort of group entertainment, and any prayer of keeping dry.
The line fills up to the 10 chairs pretty quickly, and comments are made about selling seats. I jokingly offer the #1 spot for $400, which would have been a hell of a sale that early in the camp. No takers though. We hang out, a few people tag team friends into their spots, generally nothing happens for a few hours. It's a friendly line, we are letting people make food and bathroom trips into the store without losing their spots. All seems well, except for the previously noted poor location and rules. The evening manager comes on duty, and parrots the store manager's answers to all the questions, still no tents.
And then the rain starts. The rain is pretty light, but theres a difference in getting hit by 2 square feet worth of light rain (drizzle) and getting hit by 100 square feet worth of light rain
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$165 for 16 hours of my time.
And a good story, which is always worth something.
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So...
"Horrible PS3 line management" becomes "Horrible Bag of Shit line management".
"There are many people in lines out there already, waiting for their chance tomorrow at Sony's PlayStation 3" becomes "There are many people in lines out there already, waiting for their chance tomorrow at Bags of Shit".
"average sales price of a PS3 is was $1,532.76" becomes "average sales price of a Bag of Shit i
So the Answer of the Wii as a GC 1.5 is YES... (Score:1)
The answer is YES, they didn't want to spend ANY money to develop a new gaming platform to keep cost down.
(I don't see that as a bad thing, the standard income in my country makes a purchase of a console of 600 dollars som
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The nice thing about a cold climate (Score:2)