Hey everybody.
With the launch of new consoles always comes long lines, fights, camp outs, shortages and mobs of people. I am really curious to hear from those that work in video game stores or those that have been present on the big launch days. Please share your experiences and observations with us!

Here's one day, the day I had Wednesday, that just annoyed the hell outta me. It's completely Sony and the PS3's fault.

We're getting a decent amount of PS3s in, 28 in all, and we're selling them in a bundle package. Basically, a thousand for the core system and eight games, and $1100 for the premium system. All day today was call after call and person after person asking for the same info about the PS3, and occasionally getting angry at me because we didn't have any in yet.

We had people lining up today, but we're not allowing people to line up and wait until the day of the launch, so we keep shooing them away. People tonight even brought a bit of "caution" tape and a couple of stands to show where the line started. They had to go home. :lol:

I'll let ya know (if I remember and not too exhausted) how things go on launch day. I'm working the opening shift for the PS3 launch, and the closing shift for the Wii launch.

wow...interesting
Best of luck!

what do the people say when you tell them to leave? caution tape, damn what launch game is so impressive they cant wait?

At my store they are all for reserve customers, so we get to tell everybody that we don't have it. It's kinda funny that so many people don't have a clue and they think that they can just walk on in and buy one. I love how stupid some people are.

I can't really say what they said, I didn't get to watch them kicked off of our lot. I kinda wish I had though; as it was I was giggling because I knew their fate better than they did. ^_^

And I have no clue what would be the game to get them lined up so early, maybe Resistance: Fall of Man? Or are they just the type that want to have the "biggest and best" as soon as it's out so they can brag to their friends for, say, a DAY?

I was watching the news and they were live from nyc and they interviewed people camping in line. The first guy said he can buy it for 600 and sell it for double on ebay...the second guy said he is gonna resell it as well. The third person, a kid, said he wasnt sure if he wanted to play it or sell it. I CANT STAND it when those idiots reserve systems to resell it!

There's a bunch of reports of violence occuring at ps3 lines every where. One person has also been shot, by armed robbers, trying to get the money from people in line, in Connecticut.

PS3 systems going near the $4000 mark on ebay now..... damn this is ridiculous

people just suck plane and simple. I had a customer offer me $1,000 for one today, and NO i did not sell it to him.

People shot, riots, stores being shut down by the cops, people camping out for three days in line... Is it worth it? I've been watching G4 most of the night.. From about 6pm til 9pm, it's been nothing but PS3-related programming.. The people at g4tv say that the PS3 isn't worth buying as of yet, because there just isn't enough good launch titles. They rated every game 1-3 out of 5 stars, with the exception of resistance, which was 5 out of 5.

A little while before that, I saw a few ps3s on ebay that had as high as $5900 bids, and attack of the show claimed there was one that sold for $9000, although I believe they're selling average for around $2100-$2500 now..

I heard earlier today that a console with ALL of the launch titles showed up on eBay for a full 10K. I still can't believe people are spending that much on a console that, chances are, they're going to sell as soon as the "next big thing" rears its head.

From my end, the PS3 launch went by pretty smoothly, no issues with anybody, just a stream of content customers. I kept hearing stories about our Fremont store, in which someone was shot, IN THE STORE I understand, for a PS3 and all of the money at the registers. Yeah. Scary stuff.

Good thing I'm in the "other" ghetto electronics store. ;)

i just don't understand how somebody can pay thousands of dollars for something that they can buy at regular price if they can just wait 2 months. Am i the only one who dosn't understand the logic in this?
I mean with the games that are out for the PS3 i don't even want one now, maybe in a year or so, and that's a BIG maybe. I guess i will be very happy with my Wii for a long time. Long live Nintendo and f/k sony.

I agree that it makes no sense. Those people camp in line and all hell breaks loose. Why? So those idiots can resell the system on ebay to other idiots for triple what they paid.
I don't see a launch game worth thousands of dollars......you could tell me camelot and Sega teamed back up to make Shining Force 4 using the original battle engine and I wouldnt spend 4 grand.

Can someone tell me if they think this is gonna happen with the Wii?

It's perfectly possible. But with the people I've talked to about it at work, I've tried to discourage them because of the sheer numbers; how many systems Nintendo's trying to release right out of the gate. I've heard a million at launch, and either 3 million TOTAL, or three million MORE, by the end of the year. There'll probably be people trying to sell them on the 'Bay, but I can't see how they'd get as high as the PS3 systems.

And those resellers really aren't "idiots," just what they're doing is WAY overdone at this point. Anybody and everybody has heard of doing such a thing, so they think if they can make a couple quick bucks (or in this case, a few grand on top of getting their money back) they're going to try it. I understand the basic logic of it, but I personally don't agree with it; it just comes off as sleazy.

And remember, if absolutely no one buys the systems at launch, the company, no matter WHO they are, takes a massive hit in sales. They need those people to stand in line so they can stay in the bacl (or set themselves up to get back there later).

Well the Wii launch went alot smoother and calmer than the PS3 launch. Different kinda crowd all together. More family based customers less E-bayers and alot more fun if you ask me.

Thats good news, no murders at least...how pathetic does that sound, riots and murders for a console...

Yea, it is sleazy, they screw over the true gamers that want to get the system and then overcharge them...like when scalpers used to buy up all the tickets to a concert and then rip off the fans by charging them so much more.
I know they are trying to make money and all, but I cant stand the resellers.

I couldnt have said it better myself, damn resellers and the mindless people that buy them at such high prices.

I used to post on the old site, not really online much, but here's my opinion...Everyone is being to light on these losers...those fuckers that wait in line just to resell on ebay are scum and should be shot.....they rob gamers of a chance to get a system...how can you watch them being interviewed on tv and not wish harm upon them? "Umm, I'm gonna sell this sh** on ebay and make money yo"
Next loser "yea gonna sell this on ebay!"

I will say one thing, I admire Nintendo shipping large amounts of their system to avoid this, and those that pay big money on ebay should be shot as well :ph43r:

Amen Vyse.

Sony did this to themselves with these problems. I don't think anyone even bought one game (with intent to play it) in the midst of all this console scalping. The more I witness this, the less I want to even look at a PS3. This is ludicrous! Who fought over $300 Sega CDs and got anywhere? It's almost the same thing!

From what I understand, some of the resellers are actually doing some real gamers some good... those prices being fetched are being paid by gamers in Europe, who won't see the consoles (the Wii at least, I don't know about the release of the PS3 in Europe) until August (where their official release date is something like 8/10/07). They've got some solid time to wait.

The resellers might be pretty sleazy for doing it, but at least those poor Euro gamers will have something brand-spankin'-new to play.

Are those months saved really worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars/euros? I don't care how you slice it, what's happening out there is just not justified.

Well Black friday is tomorrow, good luck to everyone working and or shopping tomorrow and i hope you get the early morning sale stuff that you are going out for. For me this is my 15th black friday selling video games and it just gets better every year, customers get more stupid every year and i just laugh and laugh ( to myself of course ) LOL :lol:

Another black friday has come and gone and it was nuts, People are just crazy.

Oh DAMN did Friday hurt.

I had three hours total off that day, and I got lucky there... but other than those times I was on the clock from 4:30 in the morning until 1:30 the NEXT morning. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be; the worst of it was really the night after, and not for the reasons you might think. Somebody decided to make some noise on the outside of our building, and we had a report that had to print (which was a large number of pages in length), so I was basically doing nothing except standing around for an hour and a half at the end of my day. Then, a few hours of sleep, and back to work this morning at 10:30.

Pain in the butt, I'm tellin' ya.

The customers... for the most part, they were alright, no real problems, a lot of rude bastards but they happen everywhere. I helped them out, stocked the shelves back up, walked around and marvelled at the wonder of everyone freaking out about a three-large selection of dollar DVDs (The Matrix, Doom and one other one) and TV seasons on DVD for 15 bucks lower than normal.

But it was an alright time, I got paid regular time... then time-and-a-half... and then about five hours of DOUBLE time. Getting paid over twenty bucks an hour, for ANY length of time, in retail is a very cool thing. :-)

Need sleep!?!? what day is it? LOL

Indeed... and honestly, I don't think I'm fully recovered yet! I've had to work more hours since then and my feet are HURTing! lol

worked 68 hours last week and scheduled for 78.5 hours this week. :blink:

:blink: :blink: :blink:

...

You win. lol

Well the christmas season is over and i only have one thing to say. If you have never worked retail during the holidays please don't ever bitch at the service you get or the different polices stores might have. This was my 15th holiday season selling stuff and i just love when customers get mad at nothing. they just have no idea what it's like.

I did get pissed off one time when I went in to a best buy at Christmas Eve. The store didn't seem too busy, because they had these different lines, which I suppose turned out to be return lines. So, I picked up a movie or some thing, and when I went to check out, they said "No, wrong line, go to this one." and then the line they pointed me to was like a half a mile long. It would have taken like 4 hours or more to get a $10 item. So, I threw down the dvd and walked out.

I suppose it was my fault for going in to town any time near Christmas though. Never again. If retailers want my business for Christmas, they can forget about it :/

We were expecting a lot of customers on New Year's Eve and the day of, but suprisingly it wasn't so bad. Pretty easy goings compared to other days off people get (by that I mean both holidays and weekends). We got a lot of work done and didn't have many customers at all.

Day before Christmas, though... pretty bad. Not as bad as the day after Thanksgiving, but still really crowded. Doesn't help that it was made more stressful with a horribly ignorant boss who wanted everything done immediately, but yeah.

I worked about 12 hours that day alone. Damn, I've never wanted to quit a job this badly... lol

Bosses can be d**kheads. I was doing painting and power washing apartments many years ago, and I come up with the brilliant plan to work twice as fast so I would have longer break time, because the boss got paid by the job and not by the day.

That idea was cut short pretty fast, because the boss was always yelling for me. "Where are you at? What are you doing?" I told him I was done, and bosses apparently don't want to hear that phrase. So, he sent me to do some crap just to say I was working.

In conclusion, working harder doesn't always get you further.

I like this thread, I don't wanna see it die... anybody else have any horror stories, remarkable notes or anything on their retail experiences lately? All I've had are the same ol' issues with the boss and a lot of customers pissed because we still have to sell Wii systems in some form of bundle (at the moment, it's the system and two games of the customer's choice all together, with no exceptions).

And we don't even have the XBox 360 Elite anymore, we've had about seven or so since the thing launched. Must really just be a special edition... or something.

Yea, this thread is a very interesting read, I will probably pin it if everyone wants. Lemme know