PS3 hopefuls line up weeks before launch

And you thought you were a fanboy. A Cheap Ass Gamer forum member recently spotted 7 schmucks die-hard fans outside his local Best Buy, already queuing up for the PS3. A Best Buy employee claimed they'd been there since Monday, so we're thinking these guys just got the date confused by a couple of weeks, and are really kicking themselves now that the Cheeto stash has run out.

[Via Slashdot]

[Henry @ Nov 9th 2006 12:16PM]

Haha suckers!

Don't they have anything better to do?

[Jay Minnick @ Nov 15th 2006 2:27PM]

Losers? Suckers? Dont you IDIOTS get it? Sell a PS3 or Xbox360 around christmas for $1100-$1400 easy. I did it last year for Xbox360...and your damn right I'll be in line for PS3...Do the math...$1000 profit...10 hours in line...thats $100/hour...MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Kyle Nichols @ Nov 9th 2006 12:19PM]

Thanks engadget for my self esteem boost. I was feeling down today, but then after seeing this, I'm feeling great about having a life!!!!

[DerekJ @ Nov 9th 2006 12:19PM]

Talk about showing them the WOW!

[Quentin @ Nov 9th 2006 12:22PM]

I wonder if these people on line have things like jobs to work at. Unless they took off a LOT of vacation time, I assume their landlords are proabably mommy and daddy.

[Peanut @ Nov 9th 2006 2:02PM]

@Henry, they are buying a Ps3, of course NOT! lol jk!!

They should just freeze them selves and hope they wake up in 3 weeks.

[psxp @ Nov 9th 2006 12:52PM]

Quentin is probably right..
these guys are fat b@stards with ponytails like comic shop guy on the simpsons who live at home

what a bunch of loosers..

[Frank @ Nov 9th 2006 12:27PM]

Dude...I want a PS3 as bad as everyone else, well, except for dorks who got hosed buying a 360, but man, waiting in line more than a week? That's HARDCORE Playstation love!!

[Tonicboy @ Nov 9th 2006 12:29PM]

If they have the dedication to line up two weeks in adavnce, you'd think they could've bothered themselves to wait overnite at EBGames when they were taking preorders.

[Brenden @ Nov 9th 2006 12:30PM]

I'll get some eggs, paint them Yoshi-style and we can meet there tonight at 12AM.

[caspianhiro @ Nov 9th 2006 12:30PM]

I read somewhere recently that companies pay these people to stand in lines like this (movies also) to create "buzz". Shouldn't these losers be at home leveling my World of Boredcraft character at $2.00 per hour or selling gold pieces on ebay?

[Seamus Bartlett @ Nov 9th 2006 12:34PM]

I think they got the date wrong. I'm sure everyone here has seen the PS3 commercials that are running, and at the end, they display the date as "1117"

However, they use their typical metal-itallic font, so it looks like ///7, and because normally your typical date looks like ##/##, people probably assumed it meant "11/7", or, last Tuesday. So people lining up Monday would make perfect sense.

Even though I already knew the date, the ps3 ad almost made me question it. Kind of a screw up on their part.

[Rob Patterson @ Nov 9th 2006 12:45PM]

What happened to people holding jobs down?

[JS80 @ Nov 9th 2006 12:36PM]

9 days x24 hours= 216 hours

At a CA minimum wage of $7/hour ( I think), that equals= $1512

That's probably more than what you can get from ebaying it.

[YaddaYadda @ Nov 9th 2006 12:37PM]

Why not go bust out some hours at a JOB for those 2 weeks and buy one on ebay for $1500?

[The Jerk @ Nov 11th 2006 9:28AM]

"Why not go bust out some hours at a JOB for those 2 weeks and buy one on ebay for $1500?"

Obviously these guys do not have a working job and are die hard gamers. So they cant afford $1500, and they dont wanna work to buy one for that price either. If you consider the ramifications of what you are suggesting, that is like paying $1000 overvalue. At $10 an hour you'd have to work 100 hours for that kind of money in California here, 100 hours comes out to about 2 and a half weeks at 40 hours a week. You are actually saving time by waiting 10 days rather than having to work 12.5 days because remember they want the machine regardless of any logical reasoning.

The Jerk commends them for their crazy die hard efforts.

And obviously these guys are not resellers so dont knock the true gamers, knock the resellers that are the reason why someone who truly wants the machine would need to even consider spending 10 days out in the cold for a machine that they know a scalper would have tried to sell them at beyond market value.

Oh one more thing, too bad for those presellers on ebay, when they have to revoke their PS3 auctions on ebay, because if they dont get in line that day there are no guarantees that the store will hold your system. It happened before with Xbox 360 where they revoked all resell tickets til the 2nd shipment and it will happen again unless they wait in line for one on launch. Silly ebayers.

[Pal @ Nov 9th 2006 12:49PM]

There should be rules for this kind of thing.

[Eric @ Nov 9th 2006 12:42PM]

Smells like paid sitters/ Hype Generators to me. How sad.

[Porkchop Flavored Cupcake @ Nov 9th 2006 2:00PM]

Eric, I think you're right.
This is Sony's marketing dept. at work.
I also expect to see segregated lines between white folk and black folk for the corresponding colors, this way they can generate the same amount of controversy they had over that other black vs white ad some months ago.

[ScOObyDoo @ Nov 9th 2006 12:43PM]

My money is on a marketing stunk by BB. You can't buy PR like this. Loads of photos with their store name on it, Slashdotted, Engadget etc... Pay each loser $2500 and you get massive publicity for a few thousand.

[yg @ Nov 9th 2006 12:50PM]

Publicity? Who in the US hasn't heard of Best Buy? If BB's paying these guys to stand out there, then they're just pissing away money. I think these guys are just a bunch of losers with no life.

[Cody S. @ Nov 9th 2006 12:44PM]

Meanwhile, everyone else is playing playing Gears of War...

[KnowItAll @ Nov 9th 2006 4:09PM]

Everyone else? Hardly, the 360 has not done THAT well. After next week it will be second tier yet again. Sorry fanboy, but you are living a dream

[TVGenius @ Nov 9th 2006 12:48PM]

Yeah... cause three or four smelly guys in a lawn chair is effective marketing. And seriously, if they're that dedicated, where were they when EB/GS did their presales? Our GS didn't even sell their pre-sale PS3 allocation out until about 4pm that day. Losers.

[Jason @ Nov 9th 2006 12:50PM]

Who would take a week off work and then also be able to afford a PS3?

Like someone else said I'd rather work overtime from my climate controlled office and buy a $1500 PS3 on eBay or from an ebgames.com bundle than wait outside for ten days.

[rjj130 @ Nov 9th 2006 12:50PM]

Since when did 9 days turn into two weeks?

I will admit they are idiots however.

Get lives or next time preorder sooner!

[Kevin @ Nov 9th 2006 12:53PM]

Geez...leave them alone. They arent hurting anybody. Wait till they get pissed that they got the date wrong and start shooting everyone. Then you can worry about why they aren't at work.

[glacia00 @ Nov 9th 2006 1:02PM]

This type of madness usually only works for ticket booths.

Even if you line up for a month that doesnt mean you'll be first to get something unless the store has established the line and declared "the people in this line will be first to get one." And I doubt they would since no store wants the liability of people croaking after a few days in line.

It's happened a few times that fans of some product think they can establish their own line to get into the store when it opens. But it just doesn't work that way. A line doesn't stop anyone from just walking up to the door. If I go to a best buy or any other store I'm going right to the door regardless of how many wingnuts decided to line up.

[Lewis @ Nov 9th 2006 1:05PM]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if Sony delayed in by another few weeks!

[Jon @ Nov 9th 2006 1:09PM]

Humm ... I walked into EB games 15 mins before they opened and pre ordered one (#5)and was out 5 mins later ...

[Jon @ Nov 9th 2006 1:10PM]

Its actualy been harder to find a Xbox360 HD-DVD drive then a damn PS3

[KnowItAll @ Nov 9th 2006 4:12PM]

LOL, ok dude, you go find a PS3 thens how everyone else that you did. They are not even out yet, so where you are finding them must be magic!

[M. Rod Von Hugenstein @ Nov 9th 2006 1:18PM]

First off, maybe they are planning to sell them on Ebay?
Maybe they take rotating shifts with their other friends?
Maybe it is a stunt by Best Buy.

Regardless, it's a freaking game console, and after the PS2, and 360, I could care less about waiting in any other line besides the checkout line.

[John P @ Nov 9th 2006 1:17PM]

HOW? How are you just able to put your life on pause to wait for a video game console? I mean do you really have zero responsibilities?

[Ming Han Chung @ Nov 9th 2006 1:33PM]

Even if they were selling it on ebay it wouldn't be worth it to wait this many days. You guys must have some really good herb in that city for people to be stupid enough to do that

[Dave95 @ Nov 9th 2006 1:37PM]

Fanboy? They take the Cake!

Why not rent a homeless person instead? Ha?

[Tomery @ Nov 9th 2006 1:48PM]

I highly doubt they're there just for the platform. I could see people camping out like that more for the notoriety than anything. Think about how many people will walk into the store and ask them what they're doing. Just attention whoring, that's all.

[FRANK THE TANK @ Nov 9th 2006 2:00PM]

I'm sure they're getting paid. Who ever thought of this is very smart. It doesn't make any sense to us here because we are well informed about the pros/cons of the PS3. To some parents or others not informed they think "Hey, people wouldn't wait for weeks for a console that is not worth $500-$600...I need one for my kids!" Genius. I was at my local Best Buy and some parents were asking about the PS3, and of course the employee was making it seem like the second coming of christ. If you didn't go on gadget/gamings sites, would you know what you do about the PS3?

[Jon @ Nov 9th 2006 2:13PM]

WATCH OUT OF THE OTTERS

[Jackson Pritt @ Nov 9th 2006 2:18PM]

A lot of you are using really bad maths here, and assuming that they'd be working 24 HOURS at a normal job, something you CAN'T LEGALLY DO. If we do the math as a 10 hour work day (8 hours + 2 overtime) and count the rest of the hours that they're camping as "hanging out" (what they would do with their free time) here's what we get in terms of math:

For the record, 9 days x 10 hours = 90 hours.

Soo... $1000 profit = $11.11/hr

$2000 profit = $22.22/hr

$3000 profit = $33.33/hr

$4000 profit = $44.44/hr

And so on. Granted they're unlikely to get more than a $2,000 profit, but even $22.22 is pretty fucking good if you normally make minimum wage. Most of these people are probably college students who have buddies with them, so they're just skipping class and hanging out and playing video games like they normally would be.

[Jason @ Nov 9th 2006 2:54PM]

Even when I was a poor college student I wouldn't sleep on the sidewalk for $22 an hour.

[Randy @ Nov 9th 2006 4:29PM]

I was going to take a snap of these guys, when I saw the first one there on Monday by himself asleep in the middle of the day. Using up all those vaction days, I guess.

[jge @ Nov 9th 2006 2:18PM]

Don't know why more than 3 people would bother waiting in line unless they hope to move up through attrition.

[electro^plankton @ Nov 9th 2006 2:58PM]

haha, I live right by that Best Buy. It's in Burbank at the Empire Center.

[Jeff @ Nov 9th 2006 3:12PM]

I really hope you're right, and they're only there because they thought the PS3 launched on 11/7, which, based on the font Sony used in the television commercials is an entirely understandable mistake. Sitting infront of BestBuy for two weeks intionally, on the other hand, is NOT believable, which bring me back to my original point: I really hope you're right.

[ark_v2 @ Nov 9th 2006 9:40PM]

That's sad...:(

[Carmine @ Nov 9th 2006 3:17PM]

But where do they go to the bathroom?!

[Karl Viklund @ Nov 9th 2006 3:18PM]

Idiots...
Spend all your money on an incredible expensive Console and then game. That's really something constructive.

[eoin @ Nov 9th 2006 3:46PM]

a) this photograph is clearly missing the 10 second photoshop job required to put cartman in there going "cmon cmon".

but being dead serious:
b) i dont know about this PR theory... i mean with so little PS3s, there is no point in creating hype, they will sell every single they ship until next summer, due to minuscule availability (huge demand isnt that necesary).
i would rather argue that these people stayed up all night for preorders but were placed around 30th, missed the preorder and decided "well im going to go well in advance for launch"

make no mistake i dont condone this behaviour, this is terribly stupid

[Cody S. @ Nov 9th 2006 8:13PM]

No need to get on the offensive KnowItAll. I mentioned nothing of hate towards your obsession. All I'm saying is that it's been very difficult to find a copy of GOW, and alot of people are talking about it outside of the internet.

Regarding the second tier comment, you're the likely candidate for the title of "fanboy". The 360 will be well ahead of sales for atleast a year due to availability problems and the head start. Also, if you consider something more technologically advanced a "higher tier" of product then you're still wrong because you seem to think that the xbox was somehow inferior to the PS2 when reality is quite the opposite.

Thanks.