PlayStation sellout sets stage for Wii launch Sunday

Brian D. Crecente, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Consider it the calm between two storms.

Friday morning hundreds of thousands of PlayStation 3 consoles sold out in hours around the country.

On Sunday, gamers will get their hands on the Wii.

Today? Today stores get a chance to breathe.

The PlayStation 3 sale "went off very, very well. We had an unbelievable crowd here," said Timothy Price, business sales supervisor for the Best Buy on South Colorado Boulevard. "They were all well-behaved. We tried to take care of them as best we could."

He said Best Buy stores in Colorado sold out of their limited PlayStation 3 stock in about an hour.

The same was true of most retail chains in the U.S. But while those who waited in line in Colorado seemed relatively low-key, albeit cold, lines elsewhere were marred by robberies, fights, a stabbing and at least one shooting.

In California, two people were arrested after a crowd trampled people in a parking lot.

In Indiana, a man was in critical condition after he and a friend tried to rob two men of PlayStation 3s.

In Connecticut, two men, one armed with a handgun, the other with a shotgun, robbed a line of people waiting for the consoles, shooting one when he refused to cooperate.

The man, who was shot in the chest and shoulder, was in stable condition.

Across the country, people were attacked leaving stores or bringing the console into their homes.

While the excitement for the PlayStation 3 launch was genuine, it's difficult to tell how much of that interest was generated by the chance to make a quick buck.

By Friday evening, 832 of the $500 to $600 consoles had sold on eBay for an average price of about $2,900, and another 2,418 of the consoles were listed for sale, according to the auction site.

And it's not just a PlayStation 3 craze; already more than 2,633 pre-orders for the $250 Wii have been sold on the site for an average price of about $570.

While the Wii, which goes on sale Sunday, might be more plentiful, with Nintendo hoping to get 4 million consoles to stores around the world by the end of the year, sellouts still are expected.

The anticipation for the Wii started Friday, said Jill Hamburger, Best Buy vice president for movies and games.

"(Today) is kind of like a breather. There is a ton of excitement for the Wii; it's a new gaming experience," she said. "It's a broad base. It will appeal to moms and kids and hard-core gamers.

"Our anticipation is that the excitement we saw for the PS3 we will see for the Wii."

Colorado Best Buy stores will start letting people line up for the Wii about 24 hours before the 9 a.m. opening of the stores on Sunday.

Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing and corporate affairs, said the company expects the console to sell out Sunday.

crecenteb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2811. The Associated Press contributed to this report.