R.I.P. Fun

Much has been made of the "peaceful" Wii fans but I am sad to say I have something different to report.

Adriana and I waited in line for two hours yesterday for our Wii at the Nintendo Store, but the experience was anything but peaceful. The Nintendo World employees were anything but polite. Instead, they were mocking the folks in line, reporting with glee that we had little chance of getting in the store, and a friend told me that some of the employees were bragging about preferring the Xbox 360!

After we had waited in line for almost two hours, Nintendo World closed the store early (at 5:30) and instead of making the announcement themselves, the Nintendo World employees sent Rockefeller Center security out to intimidate the crowd into dispersing. It was surreal - on what should have been Nintendo World's finest day, they were closing early and sending out fake police to scare away their customers.

A little background here - Nintendo World used to be the Pokémon Store, which was primarily devoted to Pokémon games, cards and dolls. As that trend faded Nintendo made the decision to stop managing the store. They contracted a third party to run their retail operations and rebranded the location as Nintendo World. This makes a lot of sense, but the reality is that the store (which he visit 3 or 4 times a year) is simply less fun than it used to be.

There were definitely some mitigating factors. Adriana and I were polite and quiet, but we felt many of our compatriots in line were loud, disrespectful and obnoxious. It's not surprising that we've grown out of the "first day video console" crowd, but it's a little sad. I understood why the Nintendo World employees felt antagonistic about the loudmouths in line, but they handled the situation very poorly - arbitrarily letting people skip the line, and mocking people who remained in line. If Nintendo wants to be the console choice for adults, they should treat their fans as adults.

Adriana and I showed up at the store again at 9 morning, enjoyed complimentary coffee and donuts, and left with our wii, extra controllers and the choice games about thirty minutes later. It was orderly and pleasant, and most people in line were wearing pearls or a suit and tie. It was 180 degrees different than our experience on Sunday.

Make no mistake. Nintendo and Sony fans are equally capable of being loudmouthed boneheads, and fun is not necessarily written into their DNA. I am also psyched to play Zelda tonight, so no hard feelings.

Comments

[Scott]

I walked past that line at around 4:30, and it was way too long even if they had closed at their normal time of 6. They should have proactively cut it off even earlier than that.

[David]

Exactly. If at 5 o clock they had gone through and said "Look, we have one hour left, and we can only sell 2 wii a minute, so only the next 60 people will be let in," everything would have been fine. The problem is that a) there was a rude unruly mob b) Nintendo responded by shutting it down, instead of being firm about their constraints.

[CPFace]

Sorry you had such a bad experience, but glad you got a Wii in the end.

Yeah. I guess I sort of grew out of experiences like that too. I can wait until stock is a little easier to come by. I mean, hell, I just got Elite Beat Agents, I couldn't possibly be bothered to put that down just for something like a Wii.

[melissa]

i'm sorry to hear about the poor service that you went through. at least u got ur wii.

as for me, i'll probably get another ds but i want the ds light instead.

[Stephen Wang]

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with all that.

I'd like to ask, however, if your experience was marred by those in line around you, or by the employees of the store? The latter seems to be the case. I think the point Kottke (and many others) make about the Wii launch in contrast with the PS3's is that the types of people who go to the two different launches sharply contrast.

At this point it seems to be the fault of the employees and not of the customers. The employees may have been mean (and the store isn't even run by Nintendo, as you said), but they don't necessarily qualify as fans in the same manner as those who waited in line for the Wii. And so I think Kottke's point still stands. Perhaps Nintendo is just as "mean" as Sony and Microsoft, but many of the fans of each can be characterized as they have been.

[David]

The employees acted poorly, but they were definitely egged on by knuckleheads in the line. These guys (all the jerks were guys) were screaming and begging like little babies every time someone wearing the company uniform came out the front door. They weren't violent, per se, but they were acting violently juvenile, enough so that the Nintendo Store employees closed down the store with their rent-a-cops.

[Armastevs]

I have found that the wii is a pretty great console, but if you want to go old school you can play Arcade games at http://www.armastevs.com

[Nintendo Wii Console]

to the girls who had the bad experience in the Wii store, consider buying your next item on-line. Wii rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!

[immo ardennen]

It looks interesting however I don’t have a right Comment on this topic at this point of time.

[snes roms]

I buy all my games online you can usually get them cheaper that way :)

Sorry you had to wait so long !