I have to share what just happened to me at the store when I went to go preorder Smackdown Vs. Raw 07.
So I'm in line with an obvious bunch of Wii folk; Moms, grandparents, etc. The line is out the door because none of these people have any clue how reservation works and the guy has to explain it to each one of them before they'll give him their info. He tries with each person to hurry it along by just asking whether they want to preorder games or just the system, and then immediately asking for their phone number--but none of them were having it. Each and every person in line before me needed a full rundown of their policies before they would even give him their phone numbers.
So I'm at the back and some dude comes rushing in all panicked and out of breath. "Do you have any Wii preorders left?!!?" he exclaims.
The guy behind the counter counts up the people in the line, then looks at his screen, and goes, "Sorry man, this guy's got the last one," pointing to me.
So the guy starts to leave all disappointed but I quickly stop him and explain, since I'm not there for the Wii, he gets the last one. He thanks me but is fascinated how I can not want it. I explained to him about where I thought the future of gaming was going, and how I thought the controller was gimmicky, etc. He starts talking to me about the brilliant applications the controller could have. I say to him that, yeah it's great if it could be like that, but that I doubt they'd take the thing in that direction. We go on like this for awhile before I finally get irritated with the guy's ignorance to the history of games ("You know Nintendo invented the Playstation, right? And Sony stole it from them! Like they steal everything!!"). So finally I say, "Look, all I know is, 20 years ago, dudes like you said this same crap about Robbie the Robot, and 10 years ago dudes like you said this same crap about the Super Scope 6, and you all end up the same way--****ed. So you can have your controller, man--but I've got games to play."
Now the dude finally leaves me alone.
I get to the front and the dude, thankful to see a regular customer who knows the deal, immediately asks me for my phone number so I can preorder the Wii. I tell him I'm not there for it and then we do my business with SVR07, takes all of 2 minutes.
I started to browse and took note of the sheer amount of people who had been there to get the Wii, and the various stragglers who came in too late. Totalling over a 50+ people, and the store had only been open for an hour and a half.
So the dude who was behind me is at the counter and is trying to shoot the **** with the clerk. He points to me and says, "This guy thinks the PS3 and the 360 are better! Can you beLIEVE it?!" the second syllable of "believe" sounds liek nails on a chalkboard, it's so high. Then he mentions how no one was there to get the PS3 and so many people were there to get the Wii.
I was kinda pissed but then another clerk walking by casually says, "Oh, the PS3s are all long gone. The last of those preorders went out the door this morning."
The nerdy guy says "You've only been open since 10!!"
The guy behind the counter chimes in. "Well, yeah--the PS3 crowd though, they all had their stuff ready to go, we were really shelling them out. They were gone a half hour after we opened the gate, all 50."
"40?!?!" the guy yelps. "You only had 25 preorders for Wii!"
"That's what they gave us," the guy behind the counter shrugs.
"Well!" the dorky dude exclaims. "What does it matter anyway?! I bet nobody can pay the full price on that thing anyhow--"
"Actually," the other employee says, "most people paid full. I didn't get any who paid less than 250, anyway."
"200 was my lowest," the guy behind the counter says. "it was a lot easier to move 'em, no grandmas in that line."
The other guy goes "Amen, frigging soccer moms," and walks off.
"So...you wanted a Wii, right?" the guy behind the counter says with a grin.
I guess he annoyed the clerk as much as he was annoying me, heh.
(Not meant to be anti-Wii or anything, I just thought it was a funny story)
