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
Vincent wat is ur email adress or wat is ur Mario kart or Metroid freind codes.
Julian AKA Link
You can get in touch with me at Mario.Bros.NYC* at *gmail* dot *com. I don't have my friend codes available right now, and I don't really play online too much anyway. Although now with a new DSlite, I'm sure I'll be playing it more often, though I'm currently playing NSMB, and messing around with the occasional Worms/Electroplankton/Metroid Pinball, hehe. Gotta brush up on my Kart/Hunters skills. I was unsure about how many LoZ games had gold cards, I knew it was either 3 or 4 (wasn't sure if Majora's mask had one cause I hated that game and never bought it after watching my friend play it once) and stupid Luigi said 2, I was like TWO?!?!? .. meh whatever, gonna get it wrong either way.
#15 - Mario
I like the 123 price tag! Cheap..im thinking of owning one for when I have those nothing to do days! Trust me when I say I have alot of these days!!
Wow, that's fantastic! Thanks for the ample number of photos, for the majority of us poor saps that weren't there. On a side note, this was nothing like the Xbox 360 launch... I walked into my local Best Buy and there were DS Lites on the store shelves.
Well today my girlfriend surprised me with a Nintendo DS Lite for my belated birthday gift. I asked her how long she took to purchase it and she said about 6 minute. The thing is that there was no one purchasing it at Yonkers Circuit City and it came with the promotional Nintendo DS Lite case & clothe and the brand new "New Super Mario Bros." game. For those who worry about how much they spend on games, I think this was one of the better promotional package than the "Brain Age" game which is only $20 compared to the new Mario game which is $35.
Here are some more pictures found on the Leakmob site:
http://www.leakmob.com/showthread.php?p=25186&posted=1#post25186
See this is why I am glad I don't live in a big city like NY. I have had mine for about two weeks now ever since some stores broke the street date. I would never stand in line for a console. Ididn't even stand in line for my 360 I had it preordered and waited till lunch time and went and picked it up and there was no one in line. I may not have got it at midnight but I had to go to work so I couldn't play it until 5:00 anyway so it was no big loss.I guess the enjoyment comes from the interaction with others. But 13hrs that's just crazy. I went to my local Wal-mart to get some stuff and they had a bunch on the shelve and there was no one around buying them oh well.
I want a Nintendo World in Auckland.
oh wait, we got DS lite weeks ago ;) One of the few times NZ gets releases before america. (except cell phones, man you guys suck).
Lite is so much better than the regular DS. Can't wait for a flush mounting flash cart. For um, home brew.
I remember the terrible failure of Virtual Boy, I won a T-shirt once in a mall when they were doing demos. But honestly that was probably the one mistake Nintendo has really made over the past 20 years.
13 hours are retarded. Especially when all of the local big box stores in my town were selling this last week. No lie. My friend bought one on Thurs. And yes, the stores here are open Sat & Sun.
All the Best Buys (3) in Austin, TX were sold out at 6 pm on Sunday, except for a fourth one on the outskirts of town. When I got there and bought mine, I told him how the other stores apparently sold out in less than an hour. He said they would have too except that they had lost a box of 16 which they found at 5 pm, and there were only two left at 6:45. Crazy, I didn't realize this would be so popular. Maybe the brain age coupon sent people towards Best Buy though? Anyway, NSMB rocks!
Hey Jazz! One you those guys was me. Security there were real assholes. They suddenly decided to close down the line at 11:50 and I waited there anyway the whole time just behind the "closed" line hoping the manager would understand. When they were letting the last group of people in I walked in and the jackass security people ran after me and threatened remove me. When I asked to see the manager, the security guy pretended to be the manager and started acting like one although it was clear that he wasn't.
When the manager finally arrived, he lied and said that I "cut in line," and The dumb manager believed it. If I really "cut in line" I would have already had my DS, not standing there for 2 hours at the back. One of my other buddies who was in the back with me actually made it in (I ended up being the diversion) and bought me a DS, but only after getting harrassed by security and the manager. After arguing with those guys relentlessly, at some point the manager realized that they couldn't have cut in line and that we were just waiting like everyone else. He grudgingly let them buy the DS because they threatened to stay all night and he warned them never to return.
There were also 4 people who waited the whole time at the back but didn't run inside at the end and they never got their DS lite. FOUR PEOPLE. How hard would have been to just let them in and sell them a DS? I mean those people also waited for 2 hours.
Honestly I think it was a case of the lazy ass security guys who wanted to limit the line so that they could get home at exactly 2. They could have just let in the extra 6 people who were standing there from before midnight.
For what it's worth the actual Nintendo employees inside apologized to everyone who got harassed by security. They were very helpful and more than willing to make sure that everyone got a DS lite.
#15 Mario!!!
I was in the city for the day to see a concert so a friend and I stopped by the Nintendo World store at around 5:30 to see what it was like. I took a rogue photo of you from the steps inside! We debated pulling out our own Lites as we walked past the line, but figured that'd be a bit cruel. Glad you had a good time.
PS Funny thing is I took pictures of basically all the same things as Engadget.
I walked into an EB store at about 3pm yesterday (the 11th) and bought one with no hassles. If it hadn't been in stock I wouldn't have been upset, I'm not the kind of guy who's going to wait in line for the thing, though it looked like you guys had some fun. At least it wasn't raining like it has been here in Boston for the last 2 months.
Any more pics besides those found on http://www.leakmob.com/showthread.php?p=25186&posted=1#post25186
thanks!
Hi Jazz & SR!
I was ONE of the FOUR PEOPLE standing behind you guys that didn't get in to the store at the DS Lite launch in NYC. I do agree with you guys, the security guys were A$$holes...so was the store management. I don't think that's a way to disappoint fans. The store wasn't like overcrowded nor the DS Lite was sold out. It was a total management B$! I was ready to spend $200. We were even jokingly begging to the security guys to let us in but NO...4 guys just left standing out there at 2AM.
I had been to the Xbox and Halo 2 launches, and I even flew to CA for the Xbox 360 launch but never felt that low and disappointed at a launch. Now I have second thoughts about picking up a nintendo product...just let it keeps its distant THIRD place behind Sony and Microsoft.
I GOT MY DS LITE! Woot. It seems to have a dead pixel, but it fixed... idk how, but wahtever.
isn't Ron Jeremy dress up like mario??
http://www.ugo.com/channels/tech/features/nintendodslite/
pics are up, did't find the video yet, still looking
Vincent, do you also know of other sites and blogs posting pics?
Nintendo.com and cheapassgamer.com added their pics of me as link. gonintendo also has some. ugo.com also put their video up for it on the link vincent put up.
Video is up!! Check it out!! http://video.ugo.com/player.aspx?articleID=18832
That line full of dorks is about the most fun you could have with a DS. Everyone is playing online and you can jump in all the games you want because everyone is multi-battling. Single Cart Download play and trading items gives the DS a totally different feeling. Dorks they may be but the game experience is worth it.
Well of course. You think we would camp outside the store alone? Hell no, it'd take a real dork to do that. I go because hanging out with a bunch of geeks like myself that I would normally never have met before is fun. Especially since most of us are Nintendo fanboys. d=
It doesn't cost more than a train ticket (if you live on LI like us) to have a night you wont soon forget. I still vividly remember the Miyamoto autographing and the recent E3 Live Broadcasting. And yes, I was at the 5th Ave Apple store opening too.. Just can't pass up experiences like this. All the stuff that happens afterward, the free game, the buying stuff, that is just a bonus. Real geeks go for the geeks.
#15 - Mario
fukcs i missed it whens the next PROMO event
Has anyone ever noticed how the designs of the Wii and the Lite are the same, they look just the same on the buttons and everything, it would be sweet with a white lite and an identical sexy white wii ^^)
I'm using my bank account savings to buy both the wii and the lite...SEXY! and then I'm broke again...but it will be worth it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_TV_Game
Ever heard of it,I can't beleive it was not there...
hi my name is alah im from syria i have a nintendo DS
and i saw the DS lite on the internet its the perfect
version of the original NDS. light,Bright and like never
before!!!! and to all people who have a PSP
"you fucking idiots sell your psp and shit and buy DS litePS: f!@#$ck you PSP owners pardon my french
I wonder how many people in line were playing the DS they own already...
http://www.laptopbatteryclub.com/
I really like the white one with the paw print. That is soo cute. Too bad it cost too much. For a price like that, i'd rather buy my own phony rhinestones to put on my Ds Lite. Mind you that i'm only 14. Thats putting someone way off a budget for a while. Do they accept layaway??? LOL but seriously if you wanna giv me a christmas present, thats the ticket.