Dozens line up in Gilroy awaiting release of Sony’s new
console
By Heather Driscoll Special to the Dispatch
Gilroy – A local mother and her son sat patiently in their camping chairs in front of Wal-Mart Thursday evening, awaiting the release of 10 guaranteed PlayStation 3 consoles.
Like many others, 11-year-old Scott Phelan sat at the very end of the line, hoping for the chance to score a machine to add to his pre-existing collection.
“I already have three PlayStations at home,” Phelan said. “It’s my Christmas present. My mom said that if we’re able to get one, I’ll have to save it until Christmas.”
Retailers across the country arranged midnight sales at some of their stores. Lines sometimes stretched around the block, even where the first consoles wouldn’t be sold until Friday morning. Deliveries went down to the wire with FedEx vans sending boxes of the sleek black or silver consoles to individual stores Thursday.
At the Best Buy in Gilroy, a group of young men from San Jose have been camping out since Tuesday, some of them even missing classes for the anticipated pre-sale.
“I had a mid-term on Wednesday that I had to miss,” said Gorge Cortereras, a 19-year-old San Jose City College student. “It’s all about the profit we’re going to make off of it, that’s what were here for.”
Some customers were buying PS3 machines for themselves or as gifts, but many were hoping to resell them at a profit. Even before Friday’s launch, units were fetching four or five times their retail price at the eBay Inc. auction site.
“I want to buy the PlayStation and then turn around and sell it on eBay,” said Mike Hunt, an 18-year-old De Anza College student. “It’s only $600 here, but online it’s going for about $2,000. That’s a lot of money so it’s definitely worth camping out here for a few nights.”
Short supplies and strong demand could be the formula for trouble as Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 makes its U.S. debut, a half-year late because of problems completing work on a built-in, next-generation DVD player.
The struggling electronics company, which has contended with laptop battery recalls and trails rivals in key products such as music players and liquid crystal displays, is counting on the PS3 to maintain and build its dominant position in video game consoles.
Gilroy Best Buy’s store sales manager Jason Perino said that there is a total of 26 PlayStations that will be released on a first-come-first-serve basis Friday at 8am.
“It’s been going pretty smooth, everyone is just hanging out,” Perino said. “Hopefully there won’t be any fights come tomorrow morning. There is close to 40 hopefuls out there who have supposedly started a list, but what they don’t know is that we’re not going by any list. Whoever is in line first at 8am will get the PlayStations.”
Along the sidewalks of lined-up tents and canopies, potential customers try to waste time playing cards, working on laptops, watching DVDs, filling out crossword puzzles and even playing video games.
“I’m just trying to fight the cold,” said San Jose resident Ariel Cuevas, who decided to come to Gilroy because all of the other Best Buy’s were supposedly filled up. “I originally wanted to buy my PS3 and keep it, but I heard there were small defects in it, so now I want to pawn it off on someone else.”
Enthusiasm for the PlayStation 3 wasn’t dampened by its high price tag – $500 for the basic model with a 20-gigabyte drive and $600 for the 60-gigabyte version, which also has built-in wireless.
By contrast, Nintendo Co.’s Wii, which goes on sale Sunday, retails for $250. Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, which had a year’s head start over rivals, sells for $300 to $400.
Sony crammed the PlayStation 3 with the very latest in cutting-edge technology, and it dominated the previous generation of consoles with 70 percent of the global market. The company is counting on a boost as it struggles to mount a recovery after several years of poor earnings.
Sony conceded Tuesday that the new console won’t run some of the 8,000 titles designed for previous PlayStations, despite promises of being fully compatible. Awaiting a second round of shipments wasn’t an option for many.
In Palmdale, authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday and started running around inside the store. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man ran into a pole and struck his head racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.
At a Best Buy in Boston with 140 machines for sale, employees simply gave out tickets for the first 140 in line so that everyone can go home.
At San Francisco’s Sony Metreon mall, a “sacred scroll” notebook kept track of the first 505 people in line so they could go to the bathroom or pick up food without losing their spots. Some even got wristbands guaranteeing a unit.
“It’s pretty cool that I’d be one of the first people in the country to have it,” said Chris Toribio, 21. “Being in line, waiting here with all these other people and making a big deal of the introduction – in some ways this all feels even better than actually buying the game.”
There was even a vibrant economy in Mount Laurel, N.J. Restaurants not only delivered pizza and wings, but also dispatched workers to hand out menus. The Dick’s Sporting Goods store nearby sold camp chairs and more than a few tents.
Machines sold out quickly in Japan when they went on sale last Saturday. Plagued with production problems, Sony only had 100,000 available for the Japanese launch.
Sony promised 400,000 PS3 machines for the United States Friday and about 1 million by year’s end. Worldwide, it was expecting 2 million this year, half its original projections. Sony has already delayed the European launch until March.
Even as retailers drummed up publicity by throwing parties and inviting celebrities, Best Buy Co. Inc. and others tried to lower expectations and curb any frustrations by warning customers all week that supplies would be tight. Game retailer GameStop Corp. said it won’t be able to fulfill all of its pre-orders on launch day.
Jack Tretton, executive vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment America, said retailers will be receiving new PlayStations daily – expedited by plane rather than ships.
“At some point we want to get to some degree of normalcy, but that remains to be seen,” Tretton told The Associated Press, adding that seeing all the people camped out and lined up for the console “kind of makes all the effort worth it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
