Updated at 4:26 p.m., Friday, November 17, 2006
PlayStation 3 mania hits Hawai'i
By Michael Tsai
Advetiser Staff Writer
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Riot, 23, was the first person in line at the Wal-Mart on Ke'eaumoku when the highly anticipated, much-hyped game console made its retail debut at 12 a.m. this morning.
The 18 consoles allotted to the store (10 60-gig models and eight 20-gig ones) went briskly in a tightly controlled distribution at the store's customer service center. That left 100 or so would-be PS3ers still waiting outside the store blip out of luck.
Sony released a mere 400,000 consoles with today's initial rollout. Another 600,000 are expected to hit the market before year's end.
As it happened with last year's Xbox 360 release, Hawai'i retailers found themselves with far more demand than supply.
Circuit City received a relatively generous 26 consoles for sale, but that was not nearly enough to appease the scores of people who began lining up on Wednesday for today's 8 a.m. opening sale.
A representative at Gamestop in Kailua wouldn't reveal how many consoles his store had received, but said all were reserved well in advance.
The situation was even worse for smaller local retailers. Toys n' Joys in Kaimuki didn't get any consoles this time around, and likely won't have any in stock until January.
Demand for the new console has been so intense nationwide that this morning, 60-gig models retailing for $600 were selling on eBay for as much as $5,100.
That simple (if bizarre) fact makes Riot's decision to camp out at Wal-Mart for a day and a half seem not quite so looney.
"I just called around to see who had it, then I made a game plan," Riot said, minutes before the consoles went on sale. "It's the coolest thing out there right now."
Riot and his friends showed up at the store at noon on Wednesday equipped with chairs, beds, food, drink and a hackysack and a few board games.
No. 2 in line was Riot's friend, Jim Shackleford, a 22-year-old tree trimmer from Kailua who took three days off from work to secure his own PlayStation 3. He's hopeful the new console, with its high-quality graphics and large memory capacity, will greatly enhance his game playing experience.
"It has a whole lot of memory which means the world of the game will be bigger, more expansive, and more detailed," Shackleford said.
Not-so ironically, Shackleford, who hadn't slept since 10:30 a.m. Wednesday and planned to start playing as soon as he got home this morning, favors games that feature zombies.
Riot and Shackleford were joined by friends Brad Kouke, 23, and Evan Parker, 21, both of Kailua.
While Kouke whiled his time with long, involved games of Stretego, Parker bemoaned the advent of another new era: the state's new smoking in public places ban.
"I had to take breaks to go outside and smoke," he said. "It was totally lame."
Still, Parker expects his new toy to be worth the withdrawal.
"I'm going to play until I fall asleep," he said.
"I don't think that'll be long for me," said a sleepy Kouke.
At midnight, store employees led the shoppers in to the customer service area in small groups, handing out consoles stored in a side room.
Thirteen-year-old Sho Kajima of Makiki was lucky No. 18, the last shopper to get a console. Kajima arrived at the store at 3:30 p.m. yesterday. His father, holder of the all-important credit card, joined him in line a couple of hours later.
"I was pretty nervous," Kajima said of his wait in line. "I was psyched."
Kajima, who enjoys role-playing games, "shooters" and football games, made a bee-line for the game section once his father took control of the console transaction. He wanted to be sure he got a copy of "Resistance: Fall of Man," a first-person shooter game compatible with the new system.
Jason Hall, 25, of Makiki, was next in line when the stock ran out.
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com
