While I was at my local Gamestop/EB on Friday to pick up my copy of Harvest Moon DS and Cooking Mama, I found out they would begin taking reservations for PlayStation 3 and Wii starting Monday the 18th. The catch was that it required a $50 deposit which had to be done through Trade-Ins. The trade-in limitation posed a problem for me, since I only buy games that I know I want to keep. I decided to trade-in some 360 stuff since I barely play it -- I decided on an extra 360 controller, Burnout Revenge for the 360, and Musashi Legends for PS2 (which I had gotten for free at a Final Fantasy XI party down here).
Now the interesting part is that a lot of people online began hearing about this deal, but there was confusion as to whether or not it was true, due to the fact that no one could find a store that knew about it. The reason is because the company is doing a test run on its Hawaii stores only. There are 14 stores on Oahu alone, and the island is only about 40 miles square. In fact, one mall has two Gamestops in it and one in a shopping center across the street. Considering there is no other store or chain of stores on the island that have any clue about video games, it's no surprise that the company does very well here on the islands. It's also a nicely isolated and easily monitored section of stores, which makes it perfect for doing a test run of a new program like this.
There was also a lot of comments made online about the flyers which said the reservation did not guarantee a system before Christmas. This is due to the fact that both Sony and Nintendo have not given stores 100 percent guarantees on how many units they will be able to ship. For example, usually with the launch of a game or system, a company will say "We can promise Wal-Mart 100,000 units, Best Buy 75,000 units and Gamestop/EB 50,000 units". Then the companies take the number of available units and divide it by number of stores they have (sometimes allocating more/less to higher/lower selling stores), and are able to provide that many reservations per store.
In the case of the PS3 and Wii, no one knows how much they are getting. If you have heard an employee say something like they will be getting in 'x' amount of PS3s or Wiis on launch, it's something that was made up. Companies might get an estimate of roughly how many systems will be available to them, but individual stores won't know their exact allocations until one or two weeks before launch. The Hawaii Gamestop/EB reservation system is going to work pretty simple. Let's say that the store gets 10 systems on launch. Reservations 1 through 10 will be notified and have 48 hours to pick it up. Let's say 9 people pick it up, but someone misses the 48 hour deadline. The 11th person to reserve it is then offered the system. Then, if the store gets in 5 more units, the person who didn't pick theirs up the first time is notified along with customers 12 through 15. It's possible that a different system could be used in the mainland, but the Xbox 360 launch was also handled this way.
I headed to school on Monday morning like normal, and left class early so I could be at the store when it opened, reserve my Wii, and get back to school. I wasn't really worried about other customers because the stores didn't even know they were going to take reservations until three days earlier on Friday, and I also figured that the $50 trade-in requirement would cause most casual gamers or potential eBay system sellers to stay away.
I casually made my way to the mall and up the escalator when I was surprised by something I was not expecting. A large crowd of about 30 people was crowded around the doors, all carrying huge bags of games and systems. The store didn't even open for another 25 minutes. I tried to listen in on conversations to get a grasp on who was there for PS3 and who was there for Wii. Three of my friends were in line for a Wii, but other then that it seemed about 50/50 from what I could tell. As the doors opened, the crowd began to merge into a single file line leading up to the register at the front and going out the door in the back with me somewhere in the middle. There were two employees ringing people up, but it still took a long time to do each transaction since everyone was trading things in. Each disc had to be checked and looked up in the computer individually, and if a console was being traded in it took even longer due to the fact that the unit had to be tested. It took me an hour and a half to finally get to the front of the line and reserve my Wii. I found it kind of funny that most of the people ahead of me traded in systems and 10-15 games, while I only had to trade in three items.
It's my personal opinion after witnessing what happened, that Gamestop/EB stores in other regions across the mainland will start implementing this program soon. If you really think about it, instead of passing out flyers about the trade-in program or simply trying to tell each customer about it, what could be better than having 50+ people lining up outside your doors with at least $50 worth of trade-ins, if not more. The company often puts heavy emphasis on its trade-in program, which is understandable considering the large profit margins involved (where as brand new games have a very small profit margin). There isn't really a downside for them, since it also benefits the stores to have reservations to persuade companies into giving them more systems, as well as providing a relatively easy way to manage the distribution of systems to customers.
It's probably best to try and reserve it at as many different companies as you can, but based on my personal experience, I have had the best luck reserving and actually getting things at Gamestop/EB. Although, I do also understand the hesitation involved with trading in $50 worth of stuff. But if and when this program begins near you, I'd recommend showing up as early as possible.
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