The Wii came out on Novemeber 19th. On November 18th Jim and I decided it was worth it to CAMP for the Wii. It was a tough decision in light of all the media attention the PS3 was getting and the lack of attention the Wii was getting (beside “that funnily named Nintendo thingy”). We did some scouting and the lines were forming everywhere but even at 9pm on the 18th there was never more than 10-15 people in line at “normal” places.
The short version of this story is that after camping we felt like idiots and decided it would be a secret we would never tell our children, let alone co-workers and friends. One month later and the Wii is still hard to get and anyone who plays my Wii wants one. Now I don’t feel so bad about camping for it.
Wal-Mart and Best Buy seemed like the best options because they were open at midnight and were going to sell them then. No waiting until 7am in the cold at night (“cold” is a relative term . . . it probably only got down to 55 F that night but it was still sweater weather and I was grateful for my blanky and air matress). But the Best Buy lines were much longer than at, say, Target, and Wal-Mart is just plain scary. So, we decided on Target.
We went to a Target that was out in the middle of nowhere (and it was a Super Target so we figured they’d get more) even though I was already in line at a Target closer to town that had more than 40 consoles where I was 15th in line. I left my Target and headed for the Target on Power and Ray. I stopped at home to get the mattress and tent and other camping supplies. It was probably an hour before I got there and guess how many people showed up. Zero. Jim was still at the end of the line (and he was farther back than I was at the other store).
There was a lot more room at this Target though and it was nice because we set up the tent for Jim and outside of the tent I had an air mattress that I slept on (well, I would have slept but they turn the lights off but keep playing the music and the music was driving me crazy).
As time passed we felt more and more like crazed fools. But the Wii seemed so much more useful than the PS3 and any other console ever. So we waited. At 6am I gave up trying to sleep and rolled off the matress and started putting everything back in the car.
At 7am the “Target Guy” came out and started giving out tickets. After all that waiting there was probably another 20 people in line behind us 15 of which showed up sometime that morning. I had been negotiation with the family in front of us to get me an extra ticket because between the three of them they only wanted one. But they got screwed at Wal-Mart because they were handing tickets to 3 year old kids and they didn’t want to be like that. I understood when the dad wouldn’t let them get me an extra ticket. But I had a plan of my own. I got my ticket and then quickly disappeared to the back of the line. The guy who showed up behind me said “Hey, glad to see I’m not the only one who had this idea”. I put my head down and the guy counted out tickets 41 and 42, the last two tickets for me and the guy behind me, who also possessed #4 and had been there since noon on Saturday.
Of course Jim was freaking out and he had that look of fear on his face. I thought for sure the Target guy was going to approach me with the “one per customer sir”. Once the Target guy left Jim was telling me how I was taking a Wii out of the hands of a little kid and all this other BS. Only after hearing that I took a Wii out of the hands of some other genius who had the same idea did he calm down.
So, I had two tickets and I called my fiance to hurry over and buy the thing for me. I knew *someone* would want it. So Sarah rushed over in her PJ’s (it was a 30 minute drive and she got there in 35 minutes). Target had a “buy 3 games get a $20 gift card” so we got 3 games and an extra controller and nunchck. Thank goodness because anything Wii related is nearly impossible to find (I did get another Wii Remote from a K-Mart in Show Low and at Wal-Mart they had like 5 of them on the shelf on the Friday after Thanksgiving and I thought about buying them all but didn’t) .
A friend bought my extra Wii for $300 and he was so excited to get one he showed up not even an hour after I got home. He probably played he Wii before I even got mine set up (I was tired). I made $30 profit though!!! I was in line for 10 hours so that was about $3/hour. I joked it was probably more per hour than the 10 year old kid who actually made the thing in China.
I sold it to Juan Carlos who was willing to bring supplies and check on me to make sure I was okay. His brother, Jorge, had dibs on the extra machine but was MIA when I was trying to round up troops to wait in line. I couldn’t get a hold of him the night before or the morning of and he didn’t even call until 9am . . . way too late to get himself a Wii . . . but was it? He ended up getting one from Costco after waiting in line for about 8 minutes. I was happy for him and relieved that I didn’t screw a good friend out of the getting a Wii and end up selling it to his brother . . . that would have been a mess. But I was also kinda pissed that it was so easy to get for him after I waited in line for 10 hours.
Jim and I decided we would never tell. But now we can because *we were right* and the Wii was worth camping for.
Sheldon