Xbox 360 madness

By Gamewatcher on November 22, 2005 10:36 AM | No Comments

Xbox 360 madness
Xbox 360 Even though I have two pre-orders for Xbox 360s - including one promised to arrive by 3 p.m. launch day - I heard a rumor that the Best Buy in Bellevue, Wash., would be getting up to twice their originally scheduled allotment of 200. So I chanced it and ran down to get in line last night.

I was both elated and disappointed. First, the rumor was true - sort of. They arranged to have leftover 360s from their Burning Man-inspired desert launch party in the Mojave desert flown up to Bellevue to satisfy the unusually large demand at the site where Microsoft's Bill Gates was ceremonially handing over the first console - and a disproportionate number of Microsoft employees were congregated.

I didn't see it, but heard that Bill actually gave out the first system at 9:01 p.m. to sync with the official East Coast kick-off time for North American sales. Apparently, 19 more got theirs early and the rest had to wait for another three hours.

I joined the crowd just before 8 p.m. and was estimated to be number 342 in line. I heard that a non-employee who was keeping tabs on the line numbers perhaps a little too closely actually got busted by the police for organizing a ring of people to buy 360s he could pawn on eBay.

It was cold. We talked geek stuff. The Super Famicom system was invoked. A guy next to me brought a pizza with him. I watched Firefly episodes I'd ripped to my PSP and tried to avoid getting bronchitis. A devoted mom grilled us for information on which system, games and accessories to buy for her lucky 14-year-old son.

After an hour of conferring, the Best Buy employees announced that the first 150 or so people would get systems, and the rest would purchase vouchers for systems to be delivered the next evening. We still had to wait in line until everyone who was getting a system (including the Microsoft employee who had been waiting since the prior Friday) got theirs.

About 11 p.m., the line broke down and all of us "Special Order" customers were huddled together like sheep as close to the door as we could get, line order be damned. (We didn't have numbers.) Chaos ruled. A guy with a laptop entertained us with an impromptu screening of Team America World Police.

Some people who thought they'd show up just in time for the "midnight opening" were turned away. A few people lined up for the 9 a.m. reopening for some 30 reserved systems that were promised in the Best Buy ad - though it seemed to us that they'd already met this minimum when they opened at midnight. Someone in corporate should be punished for that one. Oh, and that guy who had supposedly been busted? He was back at the front of the new line.

Finally, about 2:15 a.m., I made it in. They had no VGA cables (apparently these didn't actually make launch) and they had run out of charge-and-play kits and Call of Duty 2. I got everything I really wanted though:


  • Receipt for a full Xbox 360 system (promised to arrive tonight)
  • Memory card (for the occasional LAN party and saving off exclusive kiosk content)
  • Microsoft Points card (to buy Geometry Wars and Penny Arcade avatars)
  • Perfect Dark Zero LE
  • Project Gotham Racing 3
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins
  • Amped 3
I missed out on the really cool swag, like winter caps and scarves emblazoned with "Xbox 360 Launch Day." But I did score some nifty Perfect Dark Zero posters, Xbox 360 pins and Frisbees that were tossed from a pair of party buses that Microsoft shipped to the scene.

Was it worth it? I'm not sure but based on what I'm hearing about the new Xbox Live and the launch titles I picked up, I suspect so. As I write this, I'm listening intently for the FedEx delivery truck. I'll let you know.

-=Gamewatcher

For your convenience, here are some useful Xbox 360 news items and rants:

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