When it was first announced, I knew I wanted a Wii — Nintendo’s new system with fancy wireless controllers designed to capture body movements and use them to drive the onscreen action.
In the tennis game, for example, to swing your racquet, you swing the game controller like a racquet. In the boxing game, when you “air punch” with a controller in each hand, your on-screen persona delivers a matching knockout punch.
With the media screaming that PS3’s and Wii’s would vanish on day one — and, potentially, be unavailable for the rest of the Christmas season — how hard, I wondered, would it be to get a Wii on launch day in Jackson, MS?
Not hard at all, as it turns out — if you’ve got Clyde on your side.
With an eye toward maximizing our chances to walk home with a Wii today, Clyde undertook a thorough analysis of the Jackson market. Target was stocking Wii accessories weeks before launch day — an indicator, Clyde believed, that the upscale department store chain would likely receive a relatively healthy allotment of units. That fact — plus the fact that Target would open its doors at 8:00 on a Sunday morning — made Target our first stop on our way to a Wii.
Clyde had mapped out other options, too, ranked by their opening times. He figured Best Buy, opening at 9:00, would have a long line — because everyone goes to Best Buy. Meantime, Sam’s Club (opening at 10:00), being a membership club, would probably attract a smaller number of buyers. If we missed out on the Wii action at Target, Best Buy, AND Sam’s, we would fall back to our last-ditch emergency sources: Comp USA and Circuit City.
As it turned out, there were only about five people in line at the Target when we arrived, and getting a Wii was as easy as asking the doorman for one of the tickets in his pocket. (One ticket per person, please.) That assured us Wii number 15 of 20 … and, given their scarcity, I urged Clyde to pick up Wii number 16 as well. (We can always sell it on eBay!)
We acquired a Wii, then, with relative ease; the real challenge turned out to be snatching up extra controllers and games before other shoppers cleared the shelves. We escape with three games and one extra controller; seconds after we popped these in our carts, Target’s Wii-sources ran dry.
With two Wii’s in tow, we drove past Best Buy, where about 25 unfortunate-looking people were huddled in the cold, waiting for the 10:00 opening. I wanted to drive around and around in the parking lot, holding up our two Wii’s and taunting them, but Clyde discouraged this.
Then I mentioned we could drive up to the line of chilly customers and say, “Tired of waiting? I’ve got a brand-new Wii from Target with receipt for $600.00!” (About twice the retail price.) That, I confess, made his eyes light up … but we decided to keep our extra Wii and move on.
At Sam’s, we missed out on a secret: the floor manager, a video game enthusiast, had begun handing out Wii tickets at the EXIT doors — not the entrance, where a number of people, including us, had lined up. As a result, five people who lined up at the EXIT were given tickets for Wii’s, leaving only one for others to purchase.
And yes, of course, we bought it.
So: we’re selling two Wii’s on eBay, where the $250.00 retail units are already selling for $900.00 or more. Keep an eye out for our auction — and, meantime, here’s hoping we get a Wii-diculous return on our little video game investment.
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