Topic: Long lines at Nintendo's booth just a trick

[wandering]

Thanks for clearing that up, PS3 Portal!

[BlackNMild2k1]

Nintendo used smoke and mirrors and special lighting tricks.....
You didn't see what you thought you saw.

Those are NOT joygasms, those people are seizuring, please stand back.

This area is closed till further notice, please enjoy our Sony booth right across the hall...

........ummm........there's no lines......  

[mantidor]

Those Nintendo bastards, they even created those morning stampedes out of nowhere through magic or something!

[EasyCure]

"Due to the artificially long wait times they setup for the Wii demo's, people would wait in the line once and not want to leave the area. They were never told to leave. They could stay there all day if they wanted, thus creating even longer lines. "

so those videos of the doors opening and hundreds upon hundreds of people rushing straight IN to the nintendo booth was some sort of trick? pleease, its so sad they even tried to come up with such comments. even if it is true and nintendo's booth was so "poorldy designed and mismanaged", it seems like there were more people who rushed to make the original lines into the nintendo booth than those who wanted to get a taste of sony and MS's offerings.

i want to hear from someone who was actually waiting in those lines if any of this "poor design" stuff is even true, but only out of curiosity. the fact is those people stampeded (is that even a word?? lol) into nintendo's booth and not sony's for a reason.

[Crimm]

Those weren't people, it was one person reflected in Nintendo's mirrors.

[SgtShiversBen]

Although there was kind of poor design, it was way more than Nintendo expected.  You can tell they knew there was going to be lines just because of them putting the video chat things outside the lines.  Inside the booth though it was seemless.  Although there were alot of lines at mostly every game, it was because it was a blast to get your hands on.  The controller and it's mechanics were great.

Moreso than stinky PlayStation 3's.

[BlackNMild2k1]

You forgot the holograms(aka special lighting tricks)....

If they just had the balls to walk up to the group of really hot girls at the front of the line, they would have realized that they(the girls) weren't real. And that there really wasn't a line of people to get into the booth. There was a line of videogame nerds and geeks that were too afraid to approach the attractive women at the front of the line. All those with the balls to step up, got into the booth.

It was a test, a test to see if you are ready to get off your ass, a test to see if you are ready for the next level. The next level being Interactivity. If you didn't get into the booth... you failed.  

"Si vous n'avez aucun testicule, vous ne méritez pas un Wii, oui"

If you translate every word except fot the last, then say it fast, it sounds kinda funny:p

[vudu]

It's funny that someone writing for a PlayStation website would complain about bottlenecks; you would think he'd be used to them by now.  * zing *

[Bill Aurion]

"Nintendo is doomed!," says PS3 fansite...

[Zach]

OK, lets say hypothetically that the booth was horribly designed, and the line was so long because it was "artificial."   Even in those circumstances, could someone explain why that enormous amount of people were willing to wait 5 hours to play with the Wii?  

[Crimm]

Actually, my favorite part is where he takes "credible" journalists to task.
The irony was hilarious.

[Khushrenada]

Those weren't Nintendo fans stampeding to the booth in the morning.

Those were Nintendo employees who were late for work and had to quickly mismanage the set-up of the booth as well as turn on the line holograms.

Of course, this caused too many employees to be in the booth which caused the bottlenecks and kept many people from entering at a time.

[wandering]

If I could be serious for a second (in the funhouse? ahh!) The flaw in their logic, as I see it, is that the problem they described is that people weren't free to come and go like they were in the MS and Sony booths. And why weren't they free to do that? Because there was a hold up. And what was the hold up? Oh...people didn't want to stop playing the Wii.

I agree, in retrospect, the booth could've been better. They could have, for example, forced people to move along from one game to another conveyer-belt style, before throwing people out. But even so, interest in the Wii was MASSIVE and there's no way Nintendo could've inflated that.

[ThePerm]

the fact that the console was named wii and had a line this long....

[UncleBob]

"There were long lines at retailers across the nation as Nintendo fans and hardcore gamers alike awaited the release of Nintendo's new system, the Wii.  However, these long lines were very deceitful, as the six to tweleve hour wait was really caused by poor management on Nintendo's part.  For example, did you know that Nintendo actually forced retailers to wait until Midnight in order to sell the new system?  This meant that anyone wanting the system would just have to stand there, doing nothing, waiting for the retail employees to be allowed to sell Nintendo's precious hardware."

[S-U-P-E-R]

Quote
While present at E3 2006, I ran into one of Reuter's reporters over by the Nintendo E3 2006 booth.  To start, his questions for me were poorly worded and seemed to favor a prior assumption.  That being said, I do feel that Nintendo had a great show and our own video exit interviews of attendees that visited the Wii booth will show this.

But, I don't know where to start... he is way off in terms of them "stealing the show" with his reasons why.  The basis of Reuter's argument was that the 3 hour long lines showed that it held much more interest than the 30 minute lines for PS3 and Xbox 360 content. See Reuters article.

For starters, the wait at the Nintendo Booth was completely artificially generated. Nintendo held people out. When they were let in, they were let into a huge area that was mostly a stage with tiny little alcoves with a couple of games. If you wanted to play on those, which gave you a big screen TV and a nice comfy sofa, you had to wait there for over 1 hour.

At first, this looked like all there was to be seen, so people were crowding around and waiting.

Then as you got further back into the booth there were about 30 - 40 kiosks setup - easily over a dozen different titles, of which we got some nice video and two exclusive interviews about.

In here there was another line. The obvious original intention was that you waited in this line, got to play a short game when one became available, then left the booth and let another attendee have some fun.

Unfortunately this isn't what happened...

People waited in line. Then when they got done, they formed little lines behind each individual kiosk. These lines blocked entire hallways easily blocking people from moving through.

Some people played one game, then moved onto the next, then the next, then the next.

Until a person left the hall, they wouldn't let more in. Some people were in there for hours. Playing and playing and playing.

Due to the artificially long wait times they setup for the Wii demo's, people would wait in the line once and not want to leave the area. They were never told to leave. They could stay there all day if they wanted, thus creating even longer lines.

If someone wanted to play additional Wii games, because of the lines to even get in, they would just wait and play them all. Remember, they couldn't just come and go like with all the other booths at the convention.

This was a very closed off area. It was hard to move around and it was far from open.  There was only one way in, and even then, it was poorly designed.

If you went to the PS3 or Xbox 360 areas they were amazingly well setup. They had smooth flowing traffic and it encouraged people to come and go as they desired.  To play a few games, maybe even less popular ones, then come back later to the big games as the wait on those would fluctuate throughout the day.

Frankly, this isn't a sign that the Wii "Stole" the show. It was a pure example of mismanagement or worse, exploitation.  This was done to give the appearance of it being even more popular than it was by Nintendo. If they had had the Wii booths as open as the PS3 or Xbox 360, you wouldn't have had any longer lines. You would have had people coming and going as they needed to.

All that Reuters has done here is a lack of real journalism.  Rather than investigating the situation, they saw a line, talked to a couple of people who exited the one area and were excited, and wrote an article with a big title.

If they had done their job, they would have realized that Nintendo's booth was poorly designed and even more poorly managed on the inside.  When I talked to the Reuter's reporter, he stated that he did not even go inside the booth.  How could he adequately comment on the booth and Nintendo's presence at the convention without even doing that?

600 dollars

[Athrun Zala]

Ty wins

[wandering]

Ty wins a one way to ticket to bansville for quoting an entire article without permission!