So I didn’t get killed last night. I wasn’t even close to any real danger, which is a bummer to be honest. Sounds shitty to say I know, but I was hoping to find myself in the middle of a huge, flat-out riot.
I arrived at the Sony Style store in midtown Manhattan last night, at around 10, about two hours into their big PS3 launch spectacular, and two hours till the system was on sale. The place was packed with exactly 400 folks all waiting to get their hands on the prize. Plus you had assorted press folks, PR people, security guards, and the such.
The gamers that I spoke with were for the most part pretty chill… just happy to be there. Pretty much everyone told me that they had been waiting in line since Monday or Tuesday. So maybe chill wasn’t the proper word… more like exhausted. Most seemed pleased with what they saw, but no one was at all blown away by the numerous games that were on display. In fact, what was the one game everyone kept talking about? Xbox 360′s Gears of War which came out like a week ago.
The Sony folks on the other-hand were rather agitated, on-edge, standoffish, even surly, at least some of them. But given the scale of it all, and how exhausting the whole production must have been, I can’t be too upset. But it doesn’t hide the fact that the whole event was poorly organized in certain regards, mostly on the press side of things, who were by far some of the most pissed off people in the house. I too found myself getting herded around like cattle with little rhyme or reason. Again, in comparison, the gamers were all totally laid back.
Though apparently I had missed all the action from earlier in the day. One guy I spoke with at length was a guy named Alex who had been waiting in since Tuesday morning, along with two friends. He mentioned that all was calm for the most part, with the line being relatively thin till the night prior. Then all of a sudden it swelled and line cutters began to make trouble, which him and a few others, the ones who were there since the beginning tried their best to keep things in control, since the last thing they wanted were knuckle-heads fucking it up for everyone.
I guess that would explain why the MC for the evening, some DJ from a rap station here in the city… I forget his name, but it was Fat-something (because if you’re in the world of hip-hop, and you’re heavy, then you have to have “Fat” in your name somehow)… warned the crowd what felt like fifty thousand times to “not act thuggish.” At a certain point, Chappelle Show’s Charlie Murphy hit the stage, who did about 15 minutes of stand-up. Only the first four minutes was funny. Though his “In the future, you’ll be able to fuck your PlayStation!” He also kept saying that the system was $700, and you know some Sony PR rep was probably off the to the side, trying to whisper as loudly as possible the correct price. Plus Ludacris showed up, and the funny thing about his appearance was that it was all ultra dramatic, with him parting the crowd, along with his entourage… and about 8 Starbucks baristas all following him rabidly, with total star-lust in their eyes. But he didn’t rap or anything, he just went on stage to introduce his homeboys Howard Stringer, and Kaz Hirai, the CEO of Sony and President of Sony Computer Entertainment of American respectively. When Kaz asked the crowed, in the most strained, try SO hard to be hip manner “Alright, what does everyone want?!?!”, my attempts to start a “RIIIDDDGGGGEEEEE RACER!!!” chant didn’t work. Oh well. BTW, and they had some chick dressed up as Laura Croft as well, posing for pics with various dudes in the crowd.
But back to the games, they had a bunch of stuff on display, including Virtua Fighter 5, which looked simply amazing…
… and it played great as well, even though for whatever reason, I had a hard time pulling off many of the moves I though I knew with Leon. One guy asked while I was playing “Is it like Soul Calibur?” Ummm…. no. Also gave Ridge Racer 7 a spin…
… I’ve always loved the look of the Ridge series, but for the life of me, I can’t play a single fucking one (with the exception of R4). So after watching two guy place first effortlessly, I was the dumb-ass who couldn’t make a single turn. Then I tried out Gran Turismo HD which looked a LOT better in person than in static screenshots. I know you could find better pics elsewhere, but I’m just happy the pictures came out nice…
… I’m still not 1000% sold as HD being the only way to play games, but I ain’t gonna deny that the many of the games last night looked amazing, primarily GT. Though any interest to get the game was pretty much dashed away when I reminded myself of the micropayment hell the game comes with it.
I should also perhaps mention that aside from the games, there was plenty of scrumptious finger to munch on (the mini cheesecake balls dipped in chocolate on a stick were by far the highlight of the entire evening). Sadly, there was no booze, and I was sorta hoping to be both drunk and in the middle of fist flying, but for obvious reasons, it was a pretty good thing to not have alcoholic handy, even though virtually everyone waiting for a system were well over 21.
That’s Annie Marie, one of the girl who they had on hand to keep an eye out on things, mostly to make sure no one stole a PS3 controller, or the Sixaxis to be exact. I asked her what she thought of everything, and she confessed that the smell of being around a bunch of dudes that hadn’t showered in three days was giving her a head ache. She also told me for whatever reason that her favorite game was Duck Hunt.
The one thing I made sure to ask every gamer I spoke with was if they planned on keeping the system or selling it on eBay. Most everyone said they wanted to play it, but were pretty tempted. But then again, it was pretty clear who were there to actually enjoy PlayStation 3 and who was there to grab something that would insure a quick buck. There were at least three guys that were obviously homeless dudes, who were obviously paid to be there (because it ain’t just happening in Japan). Anyway, at around 11:30, they began to form the lines; everyone was given a wristband with a color and number, and had to stand in line in the order which they were called. Soon things began to get a bit tense… primarily where I was at, scrunched between an angry Daily News reporter and a pissed New York Times guy, both of whom wanted to get into the area where the actual sales would be rung up, as did I, but we had to wait for… nothing really, since things were again rather disorganized. It was also at this moment in which I was getting ready (and kinda hoping) for shit to go down. But things went fairly smoothly. Eventually I got inside and was able to see Stringer and Hirai ring him up, plus two other customers. Then they simply let in groups of ten at a time. While inside, I looked back out at the crowd, which at this point were just milling about, waiting for their numbers to be called. It looked like some huge casting call.
So there were 400 “consumers” in total, and they each got a system. But when I asked a Sony rep how many systems they had in total, and what configurations (“what if its spilt between the 20 and 60 gig models, but everyone wants a 60 gig model?”), no one could give me a response. After about half an hour, only 20 or so people had been rung up, so when I realized that I would be there till four in the morning before everyone had gone though, I figured it was time to go home around 1. Plus the place was packed with cops, so I knew that no one would be that stupid to cause problems. But before heading out, I caught up with Alex who was just about to buy his system. The guy was totally pissed; at that point he felt that all the system, as well as all the trouble he had gone through was totally “not with the hassle… I don’t even want it anymore.” Alex was apparently quite miffed how one of the line cutters from earlier in the evening had won a free system, plus all the games. “That asshole was in line for just two hours! My friends and I for three days… that’s messed up… all I got was a free coffee maker” And then I noticed the Starbuck espresso machine which I guess he had won earlier that night. “I’m gonna sell this as soon as I get home. I just don’t want it anymore”
And here’s Here’s a shot from outside of all the people who didn’t manage to get in, and watching the “lucky ones” buying the first round of systems. It was like watching a bunch of homeless folks salivating over rich folks eating fillet mignon some five star restaurant…
… There was about a hundred people on-hand, but I was told at one point there was five hundred of them, but the really shitty weather last night scared most of them off. I sorta expected to run into someone at the event, but that didn’t happen, till I was walking away and I ran into two guys who work at J&L, one of the game shops in Chinatown. They were waiting for their friend who was inside getting a system. I asked if it was for the store and they said no, his friend just wanted one. One of them then said merrily that he didn’t like video games that much, at least to blow $600 on a single system… just enough to hang outside in wind and pouring rain, and smoking cigarettes, to wait for his buddy, and co-worker at a video game store, as he got his.
So yeah, the launch last night was without incident… at least here in NYC, as far as I can tell. Though this morning I woke up to various headlines, such as armed robbers stealing PS3s in California and Ohio, a bunch of linewaiters in Kentucky being the victim of a drive by shooting, though thank goodness it was only a BB gun. And there’s plenty of others, though my fave has to be the dumbass Wal-Mart manager who had the bright idea of having people play musical chairs over the few systems available. Plus, here’s the obligatory YouTube video on the subject, this one of a riot. Okay, so I’m glad I didn’t get caught up in something like this after-all.
As of right now, the system is going for about $2,000 on average. There was actually one that went up to the millions early this morning, but that got pulled since it was probably a scam. Though I’m most curious how much money this guy made.
And it didn’t take long for something like this to pop up.
Anyway… even with all this, I’m still not ready to dismiss that the PlayStation3 launch has been an abysmal failure. I know Mike (O’Connor) is totally flabbergasted with people entertaining the notion that Sony would deliver such a low numbers of units on purpose, since it makes no sense to spend a fortune to hype the shit out of something, set it at a price that the actual item is unprofitable (most console manufactures produce their machines at a loss, but the purported $300 for each PS3 is pretty friggin’ insane), and then release a such a paltry amount, to the point that people are fighting tooth and nail over it, or selling it many times the original price on eBay, a profit which Sony sees none of. But the bottom line is any news is good news, and with the PS3 officially the biggest thing ever, its created such an insane degree of urgency that the demand will probably still be there once the hype has died down and more units are finally available. As they say, mindshare is everything.
Though I also am of the belief that Sony is releasing such a low number of system on purpose since the Blu-ray format, primarily their software, is so untested, hence why they need a low user-base, that are more or less guinea pigs, to see how it all works.
Alright, at this point, even I’m sick of talking about the PS3, even though there’s still plenty to discuss and pick apart, such as how backwards compatibility with the PSone/PS2 seems to look shakier than ever. I’ve even heard that even with the upcoming adapter (which someone asked for last night btw, but was denied), third party controllers won’t work with it. But enough for now… time to move onto the Wii. Though now there’s trouble ahead on that front since I have heard that the number of units going to stores are quietly being decreased. I’ve also heard from various places that smaller retail chains have had to cancel their pre-orders. Not good at all. I just spoke with a representative from the Times Square Toys R Us, and he wouldn’t answer my questions regarding the number of units that will be available, though he did say that there should be enough for everyone waiting on line (he also wouldn’t tell me how many people he expected to wait either, but I would have to assume that going by past events, they’ve got to have an estimate or something).
… Okay, enough talk about video games for a minute. Time to get back to real life…
Last night, before the Sony event, I had dinner with Joe, June, and Keith, who’s one half of the team who’ll be creating the costumes for the big rock concert that I’ll be a part of next summer. Unfortunately, the other half, her handiwork combined with Joe’s artwork, and you might have a small idea of what to expect.
Also, the night prior was movie night and, aside from enjoying the Magnificent Seven in the miracle that is high definition (and Charles Bronson has never looked better), I got to watch it alongside a world championship Ti Chi master, who helped to spark an idea I’ve sorta had in my head for a while now; to get back into martial arts. I actually used to do aikido, and wouldn’t mind getting back into it, or some other form of martial arts. Though with everything these days, I have to factor in the time commitment.
Plus, back to yesterday, I struck a business arrangement with one of the Japanese kids that’s a student where I work, one whom I always catch watching some wacky Japanese variety show clip, one that you never see linked elsewhere since you really have to be Japanese to know about them. Anyway, he’s agreed to pass along any and all interesting clips that he comes across for the payment of one pack of smokes a week. So I’ll be passing them along as soon as I get some.
And finally, I’ve recently discovered the wonder that is The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist, thanks to the IC Forums, and during a Zelda discussion of all things. Its basically a comic featuring a naked white girl that constantly being kidnapped and attacked by Nazis, Eskimos, lesbian assassins, and the like. She’s also kinda dead for the most part. Kinda NSFW.
Alright, gotta get back to my Weekly World News “thing” for later this weekend. Maybe a movie later tonight. And then tomorrow night… back to video games.
