I almost repeated your mistake. I went to Wal-Mart and they had 2 core systems left, and I just walked away. I instead drove for an hour to get to the nearest large-ish city that had both a Target and a Best Buy. Target was my first choice since I figured no one would think to camp out there. Boy was I wrong. Fortunately I also had the leaked information about how many that particular Best Buy was getting, and only 7 spots were left for the premium sets. My wife and I sat there from 2:30AM EST until they handed out tickets at 7:45AM. We were warned that we had to be there at 9AM or our system would be sold to someone else. Well, the call of nature was enough to make us risk that, and breakfast sounded pretty good. 20 minutes later we were back from Steak and Shake (best one I've ever been to, they usually have horrible service) and freezing in the cold again.
At this point, they had opened up the first set of doors, and were letting us in 7 at a time to play on a widescreen set they had in the lobby. Unfortunately all they had was Ridge Racer. Some people seriously started questioning why they had been waiting so long after playing that game. The controls were horrible. It looked pretty, but a fresh coat of paint can't save a terrible gameplay experience. I like the idea of setting a monstrous HD set in front of a captive audience for boosting sales, but put a good game on it.
Of course, my mission was simple. Just get the system, and a memory card for kiosk downloads. Then the more I waited, I saw the wisdom of an extra controller. Batteries are expensive, so play and charge kits will save money over time. I have no idea where my TV and satelite remotes are, so one of those spiffy universal remotes would be nice too. Oh, and a face plate for the wife. And since I can't pick just one game.... that simple little purchase plan quickly grew into $790 as my wife got suckered into the service plan, even though a better one was offered for the same price inside the box. (I tried to tell her that they were lying about Microsoft's service plans, but I was too tired to fight about it.)
So yeah, when I get home from my 10 hour shift (after staying awake for 24 hours by the time I had that 360 in my hands) I'm shooting some Nazis on COD2. I think I deserve it.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I almost repeated your mistake. I went to Wal-Mart and they had 2 core systems left, and I just walked away. I instead drove for an hour to get to the nearest large-ish city that had both a Target and a Best Buy. Target was my first choice since I figured no one would think to camp out there. Boy was I wrong. Fortunately I also had the leaked information about how many that particular Best Buy was getting, and only 7 spots were left for the premium sets. My wife and I sat there from 2:30AM EST until they handed out tickets at 7:45AM. We were warned that we had to be there at 9AM or our system would be sold to someone else. Well, the call of nature was enough to make us risk that, and breakfast sounded pretty good. 20 minutes later we were back from Steak and Shake (best one I've ever been to, they usually have horrible service) and freezing in the cold again.
At this point, they had opened up the first set of doors, and were letting us in 7 at a time to play on a widescreen set they had in the lobby. Unfortunately all they had was Ridge Racer. Some people seriously started questioning why they had been waiting so long after playing that game. The controls were horrible. It looked pretty, but a fresh coat of paint can't save a terrible gameplay experience. I like the idea of setting a monstrous HD set in front of a captive audience for boosting sales, but put a good game on it.
Of course, my mission was simple. Just get the system, and a memory card for kiosk downloads. Then the more I waited, I saw the wisdom of an extra controller. Batteries are expensive, so play and charge kits will save money over time. I have no idea where my TV and satelite remotes are, so one of those spiffy universal remotes would be nice too. Oh, and a face plate for the wife. And since I can't pick just one game.... that simple little purchase plan quickly grew into $790 as my wife got suckered into the service plan, even though a better one was offered for the same price inside the box. (I tried to tell her that they were lying about Microsoft's service plans, but I was too tired to fight about it.)
So yeah, when I get home from my 10 hour shift (after staying awake for 24 hours by the time I had that 360 in my hands) I'm shooting some Nazis on COD2. I think I deserve it.