Wouldn't you know it, last night instead of going out and getting our social life on, Paul and I cruised over to
Rockefeller Center to the Nintendo World Store for the official
DS Lite launch event (it being the
eve of June 11th and all). We heard people were lining up over 13 hours in advance to get their shiny white DS Lite -- though the fact that the first 100 buyers got a free copy of Brain Age and a carrying case surely wasn't discouraging a crowd. While we were waiting for the NWorld employees to shuffle people in throughout the night, we took a few to cruise around the store and check out all the swag and memorabilia Nintendo had on display -- a real trip down memory lane for these jaded old nerds.
The line, as you can tell, was pretty ginormous. We'd estimate about 250 were waiting for their system, if not more. Check out the launch after the break!
You didn't know Mario worked for Hot97? Gotta pay the bills, man.
He may not have been first in line, but you really can't argue with a costume like that.
Perhaps most entertaining about this line was the enormous amount of
DS Lite owners waiting to get in. Ah, to be a fanboy.
"No,
I'm the real Mario!"
"Das right. Get yo fake self home, fool."
You too can own your own Swarovski encrusted DS. Only $500.
The DS Lite pods they had set up were quite nice, although you couldn't take a load off and play New Super Mario Bros. Nope, for that you had to use the OG DS standing up.
Ah, what everyone had come for. She's a fine piece of equipment, friend.
This is what the first 100 peeps got for wasting a half a day of their life in line. Now, let's see, minimum wage in the state of NY multiplied by 12 hours...
No, these aren't a perk. This Nintendo World employee bought these suckers on eBay. "You should see my place, it's all Nintendo stuff." Oh, we believe you!
Getting ready to check out some happy customers.
The natives are getting restless. It's 12:20AM and still no Lites have been sold.
Mario is extracted from the elevator by his keepers to placate the rabid fans and issue a peace accord in the name of fanboys the world over.
"It's a mee..."
'Dem boxes ain't empty, people.
First DS Lite sold goes to... this guy. His name is Jason S, and he'd been there for a freaking
long time.
Paul, kickin' it with the brothers Mario.
Some very satisfied customers, who immediately began applying screen protectors and hand etching their names and phone numbers into the acrylic coating. Just kidding about that last part.
Let's go upstairs, shall we?
These rails beneath the stairs pulsate various colored lights.
It's past midnight -- do you know where your fanboy brother / son / husband is?
Why am I not surprised to see some Krypton Egg Chairs here?
This rather large plasma column juts down to the first floor rather dramatically.
Swag man, swag.
Hey man,
somebody's got to play the acid-house Mario theme song remixes.
Ahh, the collector's series. Here we have the Nintendo AVS.
And, of course, the Famicom and NES.
And more GBAs than you can
shake a PSP at.
The Gulf War-damaged original Game Boy, still in working condition.
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy). The zapper. Have we really
come so
far?
Collectively we had pretty much every single one. The Game and Watch was by far the best, though.
Hey,
we know that guy!
Original Nintendo playing cards.
Thanks, Mario -- see you at the Wii launch party. Call me, let's do brunch.
posted June 11th 2006 11:46AM
Why no Virtual Boy console, I had one of those, it was Red and simulated Virtual Reality... Really. Google it, surprised Nintendo didn't have one of those on Display.
I wonder how many people in line were playing the DS they own already...
Wow. 13 hours wait just to get a DS Lite? That's ridiculous.
Those of us who don't live in NYC just went to WalMart at midnight and were on our merry ways 5 minutes later.
Midwest FTW, I suppose.
It's so awesome to see Nintendo making such a great comeback!
yeah i think i am going to that store for my Wii, just for kicks....
there's a lot of love in that room...
I want that Naruto SP.
yea, i got my ds lite at bestbuy 25 minutes ago. there was nobody there and they were stocked. and i live in long, islnad ny, and everyone here is walking around w/ more than enough money to buy one of these bad boys.
The real question is if there was a Virtual boy on display. Muah-ha-ha.
"applying screen protectors"
Huh? Who does that?
"We heard people were lining up over 13 hours in advanced "
advanced
:P
I still like the article, I like how nintendo is trying to be more like mac "WARNING - YOU MUST WEAR SUNGLASSES TO ENTER THIS STORE"
I was there at the NY world store... last person in the line. They closed the line after me (a little after midnight). Some people (from Jersey) came just minutes after me and weren't allowed to join the line.
One of the security guards was very rude to them. He wouldn't let them in. I dont' know what he wouldn've lost if 4 more people got in.
Well, when it was my turn to go in the store, the peeps behind me ran in as well. The guards ran after them as if they were thieves and wouldn't let them purchase DS lite. It was really awkward, especially since there were hundreds of units in stock and the cashier was willing to sell it to them. After lots of shouting and shoving, they were finally allowed to purchase DS lites.
Nintendo should tell their security guards to take it a little easy. They spoiled the experience for everyone in the store.
oooooo
game systems from before my time
with that AVS.....
well.....
how the hell did it play games on tapes
its crazy
i love that gameboy display
i still have a working original (i love my brick) and pocket
plus i have a color and advanced
and i pretty much only play black and white kirby, pacman, and tetris
Wow you guys got a lot of pictures of me and Luigi @_@ make sure you guys check out UGO.com and ...unfortunately HOT97.com ... for more pics and some videos. And no, I do not work for HOT97.. my throat hurts so much from yelling at that moron the whole night.
#15 - Mario
rofl, the funniest thing is that ive had my ds lite for weeks now :P for once australia got cool stuff ahead of america. ftw
I'm happy! I reserved my DS Lite at EB Games, and am getting it when they open in about 40 minutes (11 am here on the west coast)
I enjoy video games as much as the next guy, but I can't imagine waiting outside in a liine full of dorks.
BTW, the AVS pics are pretty neat. Nintendo really is revolutionary. wireless controllers in 1985, perhaps too revolutionary.
Ha ha lol. I wonder if anyone who had already got a Lite was in that line.... That would be priceless.
Of course, you could have just went to certain Wal-Mart or Target stores and picked one up a week and a half ago. Then you, too, could have cost Wal-Mart $4500 per system sold early!
I don't really get it. I live in Taipei, and we've had these Lites here for a while now. I've held one, nothing special really. Just a DS but smaller. I like the plastic of the old one better, that's a bit dull. The plastic on the new one feels very oily. Also, the gba cartridge sticks out like a grey blob. Kind of ruins it I think.
just got my DS lite this morning after selling my PSP on ebay. It's great, I don't regret getting rid of the PSP one bit. picked up Brain Age and Trauma Center... plan on getting NSMB, Metroid Prime Hunters and Advanced Wars Dual Strike.
In the whole article, there is no mention of the pricing...
"It's so awesome to see Nintendo making such a great comeback!"
This requires Nintendo to actually be making a comeback. What exactly is unusual about Nintendo controlling the handheld market? Besides the fact that Nintendo's percentage of said handheld market is down, anyway.
yeah i walked in to wally world at midnight, waited 15 mins.. no lites, found a blue coat.. 3 bluecoats later i had ds in hand, was out of the store at 12:30am, charging it by 12:45. hey buddy.. if you havent kept up on it, ds lite = 129.99
went to walmart and got one in about 3 mins, that's more like it.
Yeah i went to best buy this morning. They had a coupon (online) for a free Brain Age when you buy a ds lite.
All i had to do was go to EB games at 2:00 in the afternoon, they had plenty in stock...
Wow that looks like Nintendo fanboy heaven! I wanna Nintendo World in London!!
Hey I was there too at the Nintendo World last night. THERE WERE a ton of people cutting the line..in particular this one spanish lady and her son who weezeled their way in...trying to play the sympathy factor. Needless to say it was a great night. Where on UGO.com and Hot97.com can i see the pics?
HELP, THE SCREENS BLINDED ME! lol, I love my DS Lite. Those screens are amazing but it does take some getting used to the new layout. I unfortunately got a dead pixel DSL but was able to get another from the EB that I reserved from.
The Nintendo store looks great. I would love to make a road trip of it and check it out...maybe around the Wii launch window. Okay, back to Metroid Prime Hunters....
Man, this launch was nothing compared to the Japanese launch. I went to Circuit City 2 hrs early thinking there might be a line. Not a single person there, so I sat at the Atlanta Bread Store across the street, drinking coffee. Finally, it opened at 10am and I was the only one there to buy one.
I did get a free case & cloth. But the great thing is I had a $40 off $200 coupon. I got a ds lite Brain Age, New Super Mario Brothers, & Tetris DS for $180 + Tax.
Happy Camper (minus a few sleepless hours)
I was in the line. When we got there at about 8pm there were something like 32 people in front of us. By about 11pm there were about 45 people in front of us. This is to be expected -- people saving places for friends - a tad annoying, but, to be expected. The DJ was from a local hip hop (?) station. They were doing a bunch of trivia questions and such (starting with Nintendogs but later mostly Zelda questions) giving away swag from the radio station. It was too bad they didn't have any Nintendo stuff to give away. The free pizza and water was a really nice touch.
They didn't start letting people into the store to purchase units until about 12:20 or something along those lines (people were starting to get antsy by 11:55pm). After they finally started letting people in, it went pretty smoothly.
The only complaints I had were (1) I'd like to know why they couldn't actually let people in to buy them until 12:20am and (2) security really should have been watching the line better. Four people tried to, at the last minute, cut into line near us. Two of the four were completely stopped, I think, but two middle aged ladies did manage to make it into line a couple groups behind us. I notified security and a manager who acted like they would do something. I didn't wait long enough to find out of they did do something, but, I can hope. One can hope there is a special level of hell for line jumpers like this.
Anyway, I got my DS Lite, my DS sold on ebay just a few days ago and I got what I wanted for it (for the most part). I really like the Lite. The line was fun, will probably consider doing it again for the Wii, if there is such a gathering. Probably have to arrive earlier for the Wii :)
Why are people so excited to spend money on a DS again because Nintendo fucked up and made it ugly as sin the first time?
where did you get the coupon for best buy to get brain age with purchase of the ds lite? Thanks in advance.
I got mine at a local Toysrus store. They said they only sold one other today and still had about 20 left!! I called EBGames up earlier and they only had one.
Direct link to coupon (warning: pdf) http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/musicmoviegame/videogames/features/isc_060611_dslite.pdf
crazy. i think i remember seeing that gulf war-damaged game boy in nintendo power 12+ years ago.
They should be up later today, not exactly sure when they plan on putting them up... not like they are reliable sources like engadget here. Not surprised at all you guys had it up first. Great job.
#15 - Mario
Hey Vincent...do you know if any pics of the event will be posted on nintendoworld.com or nintendo.com? Also is there any possible way that once pics are posted from the event on other sites (such as hot97.com or ugo.com) that you could post the links to them as well on this comment-board?
Many thanks!
p.s. I thought it was a great event!
why are people waiting for 13hrs anyways, you get brain age and a case for free at circuit city too... haha here's the link http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/genericContent.do?c=1&oid=134935&cm_re=main+marquee-_-Lighter.+Brighter.+Nintendo+DS+Lite.-_-In-store+only+offer!+Free+Brain+Age+with+DS+Lite+purchase&com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&BV_SessionID=@@@@2064284655.1150036729@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccfaddiddekijmcfngcfkmdffhdfgo.0
I know for a fact that NintendoWORLD Store took about 300 pics. He was standing in front of me and Luigi for like 3 minutes taking pictures every 3/4 of a second, it was kinda annoying. But yeah, they had video cams and DSLRs galore taking pics of the whole scene, I'm sure they'll be up at either of those sites soon. And yeah I'll post as soon as H97 and UGO get the videos/pics up. You'll all witness the phrase I coined describing the DSLite ^^
#15 - Mario
Good Times
http://www.meowzas.com/blog/06-10-2006.html
I went to the Nintendo store today at like 3pm and picked one up no problem. Only hard part was the Puerto Rican Day parade, so many people around Rockefeller.
I did stop at two EBGames in Manhattan and their shelf was full of them, but they were all pre-ordered. BS! Who pre-orders and doesn't pick them up
It's not the fact of whether you get one or not, or who gets it sooner, or who waited the longest to get it. It's about the experience you have obtaining it. Sure Hot97 was really stupid and the guy couldn't pronounce Ganondorf or ocarina, and Majora's Mask was pronounced Mahora's Mask.. Sure It was annoying, but making fun of them, how he said he was an oldschool gamer and couldn't describe any game, and he thought Link's name was Zelda.. and oh the joy... Either way, The people around us Bros. were cool, we had a lot of fun hanging out in the streets in the city. That is what it is really about. (Oh and that crazy guy across the street ^^)
#15 - Mario
I still have to wait another few weeks to get my DS Lite. Damnit, stupid Europe is always last to get stuff, I want it now.
Ah well, at least we Europeans get the bonus of having an exclusive super sexy shiny black one!
Hey
#15 Mario hows it going i was the kid dressed up as link that hot 97 guy was really annoying even when i went up to answer the question of who is Links fairy in OOT he called me Zelda even though i repeatedly told him it was LINK and He said ocaraina and Majoras mask wrong. He also never called on me for any of the questions even though i knew the answer to almost every single one(except the double dragon and killer instinct one) But anyway the dance contest was pretty fun you really should have had a dance off against that other mario guy. I won tickets for an Advanced Screening of Nacho Libre for winning that. Anyway the guys from ugo.com told me after they got a video interview from me that they would post the pics and videos of the event within 2 to 3 days. And cheapassgamer.com said that they would have their pics sometime within the week. Ohh by the way were you repeatedly asked to have pics o you taken while eating Pizza and to act like u didn't know they were taking the pics.
Julian
AKA Link
Hey mario
we are also on Gonintendo.com
Julian
AKA LINK
Yeah, that's when he took all the pictures of us.. while we were eating pizza. Pretty funny.. Yeah I was at GoNintendo a few mins ago as well. When I was unsure about that one question, he called Luigi down I was like "Nooo Luigi doesn't know crap about LoZ!" and he made my doubt my first answer, oh well. I had given them some nice questions to ask everyone. But, okay, 2-3 days, I can live with that. Hopefully CAG got some good pics too.
i picked one up from the navy exchange in san diego and they had quite a few ds lites. they barely had any games though so i'm going to head to wal-mart later to pick up new super mario bros.
Hey
Vincent
CAG wasnt taking as much pics as Ugo.com because when the CAG guy came it was just one person with i think a cannon elph. then after taking the pics he said to check CAG over the week. But all this was worth it and i cant wait till the wii comes out because i will be there at NWS for the launch of the Wii but i will be there much earlier because for my DSL igot there at around 7:45 BUt i will be there if they have an event like this for the Wii much earlier. Which question were u unsure about because i knew all the answers to the LOZ quetions and when the hot 97 ppl stopped calling on me i told the answers to my little bRo in the tyedye shirt and myfreind in the white shirt whith the black bag around his body.
Julian AKA Link