I've never bought a system on launch, but my wife and I have been planning to get ourselves a Wii for a late wedding present. We saved $400 worth of Zellers/The Bay gift cards from our wedding to use for the Wii. Zellers is a Canadian department store, they're not going to get as many in as Wal-Mart but we shouldn't have problems if we pre-order...
Unfortunately, it turned out that Zellers was only offering the pre-order as a bundle. Wii + Excite Truck + Rayman, all at full price. Zellers was also charging an extra twenty bucks for the Wii for some reason, but whatever - we had gift cards. With no discount or savings as part of the bundle, I really didn't want to send an extra 120 bucks on two games I didn't want. There were going to be lots of Wiis, right? I don't need to pre-order, they'll get in more than enough...
Yep. Wrong. Two days before launch Zellers here informed me that they had only enough Wiis to fill the pre-order. The wife suggested calling Zellers in Langley thirty minutes away. They were going to have a whole FIVE Wii's for walk-ins. So we figured we'd try to get there about an hour before open, have a chance. We pull up, there's not a lot of people in the line... unfortunately, there's not a lot of people in line because the manager just gave out tickets for their five systems. Dejected, we drove back home and got ready for work.
So began the calling. Zellers in three different cities. The Abbotsford Zellers got five Wiis in Monday morning, long after I went. The next morning, I found out a half hour before work that the Chiliwack Zellers got some in. No time to get there and back (40 minutes). And on it went, until we basically found out that Zellers was not getting any more Wiis in anytime soon. It looked like it might be after christmas for a Wii.
My wife and I struck a deal. If I found a Wii anywhere else that weekend, I could use real cash to buy the system only... and we'd use our gift cards to do our christmas shopping. Thursday night at 8pm, we stopped by Future Shop. There was ALREADY a line-up. Turns out they were getting in both Wiis and PS3's the next morning. At 5am, we woke up and joined the line, about 20 in. It was raining slightly and quite cold, but we bundled up good. At 6am, they were supposed to hand out tickets. Unfortunately the employees who were there couldn't get in the store. Finally by about 645 they handed out tickets. Would we get one? Please have most of the first part of the line getting PS3s...
We got one. Oh man it felt good. Two people later, the girl announced "We're out of Wiis, we only have PS3's left." The line dispersed quickly. They had 15 Wiis and 10 PS3s, and they handed out all the Wii tickets before the PS3s. I won't deny that gave me a giddy little thrill. We left and went back to bed, the store opened at 10am.
There was a huge line-up for Black Friday sales. To keep things orderly, they let in the Ps3 people first to get their systems from Customer Service, and "normal" customers in as well. The Wii folks waited outside. The reason was "Sony people are jerks, we don't feel like dealing with their crap if they have to wait..." For some reason it took a good thirty minutes for the 10 PS3's to get sold. We had a good time outside making fun of some women throwing a complete temper tantrum over not being able to get a Wii, chatting with the store guys keeping the door and whatnot. Finally, I got in, picked up my Wii, got a cheap extra warranty (I don't expect many problems from Nintendo but my eMac recently had an issue out of warranty and I don't feel like taking another chance), and went home. I set everything up, enjoying the whole process, and then waited. Got the wife for lunch from work and then we tried out Wii Sports.
I'm enjoying the Wii, but I asked for Zelda for christmas so I'm mildly bored.
Ironically people who don't get a Wii til after christmas will have a lot more to do with the Wii online ... but I'm still quite happy to have it within the first week.