Comments on: Wii Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary - 14 Million in Sales

By: freshayer

freshayer — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:47:01 +0000

edit previous post..I had wanted a Wii when it first came out..Sorry for that typo

By: freshayer

freshayer — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:45:07 +0000

I had a Wii when it first came out last year, but like many others I was not willing to stand in lines all hours of the day and night to get one. I was looking in the internet everyday for a console. Too many bundled systems I thought and I gave up. Fast forward: November 23, 2007 (the busiest shop day of the year), a coworker of mine would to purchase a silver PlayStation 2 for her son, so I agreed to pick the system up for her at my local Gamestop in downtown Baltimore. It’s about 10:30 am, and the store has about 10 customers. I am standing behind this guy in line to place my order for the PS 2 when I hear him ask the store manager for a Wii. The manager goes into the back and come out with a Wii. Oh joy!! Oh happy day!!! Now i am edgy because I don’t know how many are left. So I just yell out, “Can I get a Wii too”?! lol.Oh and a silver PS2. He looks at me and says…………Sure thing..I was so elated to say the least. Price: $264.00(US) including tax.

By: Tenacious_G

Tenacious_G — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:11:48 +0000

I waited at the local Wal-Mart November 18th, I went in at 10:00 PM and was the second person in line. Missed half of my girlfriend’s concert to stay there, but overall there weren’t too many problems. The store had 20 units, and the 20 that were there kept a close watch on each other, which made it easy to take bathroom breaks and get food.

The second I got it, I took it over to my girlfriend’s house — she was still angry for missing the concert — but when I told her she could open it her eyes lit up and she was just as excited for it as I was. We played Wii Bowling and she’ll never admit it, but she loves playing games on it — bowling, Happy Feet, Wii Play, and Mario Galaxy. It’s been a good year so far, and I hope Nintendo keeps up the great work!

By: Dragoniv

Dragoniv — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 04:38:16 +0000

The night before launch, I joked with my wife that I’d run out and get a Wii. We’d never bought a launch system, we always buy used units maybe three years after launch to minimize costs. However, with titles drying up for our GameCube and Xbox, and having been thoroughly disgusted with the performance of the Xbox (I’ve had to repair the dumb thing many, many times), the Wii looked like a real possibility. When I heard about the likely shortages, I decided to run out to Target around 4am and see if I could land one.

I arrived a bit late, and at first was ecstatic when I saw the queue was only about 10 people long. I got out of my car, and realized I was in trouble–the line actually wrapped around the building. Crap. I did an informal count, and found I was the 38th person in line. Ok, I think I’m ok–a check of Target inventory earlier in morning revealed this Clifton Park, NY store would have 45 units available, with no pre-orders honored.

At 6am, they handed out vouchers. Just prior to handing them out, a Target employee did a count and I found I was number 44. WTF? Turns out, several folks waiting in line had co-buyers waiting in warm cars, and they were playing tag-team to keep warm. Grrrrrr.

OK, they’re now handing out vouchers…as Voucher Lady is handing the magic tickets out, she’s calling out the number and writing it on the voucher ticket. I do a quick count and discover to my horror that it looks like I’m now person #47. At 4am, I wouldn’t have been disappointed–but here at 6am, I was ready to go nuts. Well, nuts for a guy who is pretty much a nice guy. I might have gotten myself worked up enough to swear. :)

Finally, they get to the person in front of me, and he is #44. YES! Woohoo! But then I realize the person behind me still thought he was getting a voucher, basing that on the original count done by Voucher Gal, and had tuned out since, sinking into his iPod netherworld. I felt terrible (I’m one of those empathetic fools), but not so terrible that I couldn’t take my ticket #45 and rush off to my car. I then proceeded to guard the certificate *very* carefully, as the store wouldn’t open until 7:30am. I got some caffeine at Dunkin Donuts (as did pretty much everyone else who was on line), and then the new, much more relaxed wait began.

Of course, dummy here didn’t fight to the front of the line, thinking they would only let us buy in order of voucher number. So…by the time I got to the register, I could only find two extra WiiMotes and one extra Nunchuk, along with a couple a games to put away for Christmas.

We have barely stopped playing it since–and my kids lionized me as a hero for “staying up all night” to land the Wii. However, in truth, I only waited in line for about three hours, and really REALLY lucked out.

A few weeks later, we tracked down enough wiimotes and nunchuks to get us four pair to max out the system, and we haven’t stopped playing the Wii ever since. Amazingly, it’s almost wiped out my PC gaming time–something no console has ever been able to do.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:43:40 +0000

also, i love this blog. You do a great job of keeping it up to date, and its my first stop whenever i want to find out about new games.

Keep up the good work :)

By: omar

omar — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:07:10 +0000

i remember i started my Wii hunt the day Metroid Prime 3 came out,i bought the game at circuit city completely fine,but was saddned to hear that they didnt have any Wiis and to try next week,so i did.same thing happened again the next week, sold out. 4 weeks went by with no luck,so i went a games stop nearby to see if they had,to my luck the had 1 used wii for $229.99,sure it didnt have wii sports but at that point i was desperate for one so i bought it,since then i havent had any problems and i beat Metroid Prime 3 ,Legend of zelda twilight princess,super metroid and im playin super paper mario now.

By: Ryan Bennett

Ryan Bennett — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:49:01 +0000

My mom was trying so hard to get a Wii for me for xmas last year. She went to numerous stores and they were sold out. The local EBGames said they wouldn’t be getting a shipment that day my mom went there, but in fact they did, like 5 minutes after she left. So my mom was mad. But I didn’t really care that I didn’t get a wii for xmas that year. I love my mom for trying so hard to get one. I was happy =)

The following February, me and a friend who also wanted a Wii, we went to the local EBgames again early in the morning. The store didn’t open until 10, but me and my friend went in around 8 am. He was first in line, I was second, and there was like 2 other people behind us. We all became friends, talked about what games we are going to get, and what we plan on doing. The employee came out and gave all of us numbers, and said the Wii wouldn’t be until about 2pm, so me and my friend waited in town then. Of course, at the time, I didn’t have the money, my mom gave me it, and I love her to death because of it. She will do anything just to see a smile on my face. And the total came to about $316.95 with taxes included. And my mom decided to buy me Twilight Princess too.

I love my mom so much. She does a lot for me. The thing is, we’re always struggling for money, and the fact that she dished out this much just to see me happy, words cannot explain it. And now tonight, she is buying me Mario Galaxy, and we are still struggling for money. Like we’re not poor, but still, she does a lot.

Thats my story =)

By: AndyG

AndyG — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:56:33 +0000

Excellent stories, guys! Teedub you got so lucky! :D

By: teedub

teedub — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:49:00 +0000

Randomly went into a Best Buy in January 2007, to pick up a DVD or some such oddity. Walked over to the Wii displays just to admire the sight of the empty display boxes, and a customer rep walked up to me asking if I needed any help. I replied with the standard “no thanks, just looking”, and he stuck around to watch me staring at the display cases and Wii games. “Do you want a Wii?”, he asked. “Of course I do, who doesn’t? When will you be getting another shipment?”, I replied, answering his question with more questions, and expecting the standard roll of the eyes from all the other sales people I’d been hounding over the last two months. By this point I had resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting one for a while, as I wasn’t willing to stand out in the cold for hours just for the *chance* to buy it. He looked around suspiciously and whispered, “We’ve got a few in the back.” The look on my face must have responded to him, because he left me there and soon came back with a plain brown box containing the then-impossible-to-find console. I grabbed a Classic controller and Zelda as well, but had to wait a few more days to get another remote and nunchuck. It didn’t matter, I felt like a kid again. The Wii has rejuvenated my love for video games, after a few years of it lying dormant. 2007 has been the greatest video game year since the NES era for me.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:11:58 +0000

Well I used to live in a small town of 2500 and there are no stores that sell games there, the nearest store was about 1 hour away, so I had a real hard time trying to find one in store. However, I went to Ottawa for a weekend and one guy had 10 that he was selling on Kijiji, I picked it up for $380 CAD, this is when they were going for $450+.

It was definitly worth it as I still play it everyday. New games out all the time make it impossible to put away.