Our long search for a well-priced Nintendo Wii has finally come to a happy end. With no interest in satisfying those eBay scumbags by paying more than $400 for something that only cost $250, we were forced to find an ol’ brick and mortar establishment. Having never ventured out on Black Friday before, I figured – what better time to go track down a Wii? Some quick research on the net Thursday night uncovered the fact that few retailers were going to have Wii’s in stock on Friday morning. K-mart, for whatever reason, was open Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, they also sold their stock of Wii’s that day… which meant no Wii’s on Friday.

Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Sears… none of them were advertising any Wii availability during their Friday sales. Many other retailers indicated they would not have Wii’s in stock for Friday morning. However, I uncovered an online flyer from GameStop (aka EB Games) which was advertising the Nintendo Wii for $249.99 (of course, with the tagline “limited quantities”). This was our shot. With the store opening at 7am, we figured getting there an hour or two early would suffice. We now knew the store, the last remaining question was which one do we go to? There were two locations inside our local mall and one location in an outdoor strip mall just across the street from the mall. Hmmm, what to do? So off to bed we went.

A mere four hours later, the alarm clock struck 4:13am. By 4:55am we were standing in front of GameStop. No, not inside a nice warm mall… outside in the brisk morning breeze. All of the people in line were really nice, many having been there for hours. My wife and I were 11th or 12th in line and a sign on the door indicated that there would be 23 Wii’s available Friday morning. WooHoo! During our time in line, even when there were only 15 or so people, cars would drive up and look at the line… and then proceed to drive away. If only they parked and got out of their car – they’d be the proud owner of a Wii!

Fast forward past the 2 hours of trying to keep warm and there we were, asking the cashier for our share of Wii. Some tips for waiting in line next year… bring a hat, gloves, warm clothes, comfy shoes, a hot beverage, and something to occupy the time. Oh, and we came to find out the lines at both GameStop locations inside the mall had over 100 people.

Ok, off to play…

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.