Yes, I did. I just got home now after lining up for almost 16 hours to get one. I haven’t slept for more than 24 hours and am beat from standing in line in the rain. Brad and I met a whole bunch of people while waiting and we had a good time. The last half got ugly though and tainted the whole experience. A combination of totally incompetent and illogical planning (or lack of) and insufficient crowd control by Bic Camera, a whole team of homeless squatters and another group of over 300 chinese students who were each paid a fee to get a unit to sell, created a tension that exploded in a rampage of thousands across a busy intersection to grab a spot in line. There was complete chaos as people pushed and shoved and broke displays. It was like a tsunami of blood thirsty piranhas. I was genuinely scared for my life. Luckily, no one was hurt but it was probably the worse lining up experience I’ve ever had in Japan. What really pissed me off was the sheer numbers of these people who were out to make a mere ¥10,000 and taking the opportunity to get a PS3 on day one away from more genuine gamers. Of course, you can’t fully get rid of these opportunistic retards and yeah, everyone likes to make a buck or two. But there were so many that went to the trouble of flaunting they had more than one, purposefully walking along the line to show that they got 2 or 3 with a smug attitude.
It looks like this was not the case in other areas and Bic Camera in Yurakucho was the worse spot. The only plus about it was that it appeared to have the most units on hand. Over a thousand at least, plenty for everyone. Brad has already beat me to post a detailed account of yesterday’s happenings so I won’t bother repeating it here. He must not be as exhausted as me. Also check out photos of more civilized PS3 line-ups here. There were only 6 people lined up at Yodobashi Akiba at 1:30am!!! I should have gone there. I have no more love for Bic Camera, I’m crossing it off my 100 things list.
UPDATE: I have since unboxed the PS3 and set it up. It is a beautiful device. I got Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance, Fall of Man and am totally blown away by the gorgeous graphics!!
Congrats! Hope you got some games to go along with that thing ;-)
Roy, you’ve got a serious gadget addiction. While a PS3 is nice you could have waited a year for a price drop, saved $ and not have had to wait in line. Besides, Danny outdid you by going in his stormtrooper getup. :-)
I can hear Oscar Wilde shudder: there’s only one things worse than not lining up and that is lining up. Or Quentin Crisp bemoan; to line up invites unfortunate comparison with other people in the queue. I recommend a song by Shreikback called appropriately: We all lined up.
I hadn’t realized you considered yourself a “genuine gamer” Roy! ;)
Mike, I wouldn’t bother with practical arguments with Roy… when he wants a gadget, he buys it. It is the way.
Very nice Roy! Now I want one (even tho I have no reason for wanting one). Sony should have hired me to design that box….
Jim, well no I’m not a genuine gamer but you know what I mean..I don’t think I would have gotten the PS3 if I didn’t have the HDTV already. The graphics are really nice.
Eddie, yeah the box sucks. And the PS3 is REALLY HEAVY. It’s like a big hunk of lead.
Wow that’s awesome, I will be camping out starting wednesday here.
So what time are you going to line up for Nintendo’s Wii release?
Oh, no, I’m just as exhausted as you are. It’s Sunday morning and I’m still tired…
Congrads., I will have to wait til Grand Turismo 5 is released until I purchase a PS3.
You guys are crazy. CRAZY!
Kai, I’m in the same boat as you are. Hopefully prices will have dropped by the time they launch GT5 (several years from now ;)
Congrats Roy! I want one 2 but I’ll take some months to get it in Europe. One plus is that I’ll have more time to save up some cash…
A Blu-ray drive for how much? 49800yen? Man I’d love to have that. I’ve been downloading a bunch of 1080p/i movies. And they look GREAT on my TV. Totally blows just plain old DVD out of the water. But the draw back is that it takes my like 3-4 DAYS to get one movie. With a PS3 I can just rent a Blu-Ray disc.
So you took my advice to get it, your now offically in our ranks of the hardcore gamers. Respect.
Zeek & Fuzz
all I can say is WoW !
I’m getting a Nintendo Wii next year. I’m an old school gamer and I prefer the innovation the Wii brings to the table. I don’t need blue-ray whatcha macallits, or DVD High Def yet. Plus, The Zelda Princess game looks sooooo good.
Stoneman
Hi Roy. congrats on getting one!
Now you become a “Hito-Bashira” (alpha geeks who are willing to use gadgets to be sacrificed). It is widely believed that the first lot of electric devices have lots of discrepancies.
Try getting around rural shops (like Yamada Denki) if you don’t wanna be botherd by damn auction sellers when you get Wii.
Btw, I noticed that Bic Camera accepts reservations for Wii by customers who have a Bic Camera/Suica card!
Nao, hey how’s it going? Yeah, I’m guineapig for PS3 but so far I don’t have any problems. It’s a cool machine.
Patrick, that’s a pretty dirty strategy by Bic if you ask me. I guess they don’t want to experience the PS3 fiasco again but still they should open up preorders to everyone.
Does the PS3 units sold in Japan feature Bi-Lingual menu ?
Gans, yes they do.
I set the default language to English and when I put in Japanese games the language defaults to English automatically.