I grabed my Wii!!
Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:05 am
This morning, I woke up after a restless night, dreaming that I was in line at the store. And that I was close enough in that line to get a Nintendo Wii. I sprung out of bed at 5:15 and rushed down to the Walmart. Just to find that I was the 18th person with this notion. I asked the people ahead of me how long they had been there. And they were only ahead of me by a few minutes. And the person in front of him, the same... This Walmart was to open at 7:00 AM. Some suspicions about Walmart's stock on hand was stimilated by knowledge of the surrounding Walmart's selling their stock at a minute after midnight un-announced.
At 6:45 AM, the manager for Walmart would start to hand out tickets to each person in line. Starting with #1... He got to #4, said one ticket per person. Then he came to #12 and said, "You're together? OK." and skipped past the next person. I could see that this tickets were running out and I started to worry. The 16th person joked, "I'm the last one!" Thankfully, they had 20 Wii's to hand out and I was 18th. Sadly, about 9 people had to be turned away.
At 6:59 AM the manager came back to remind us all that they reserve the right to refuse to sell a console to anyone who pushes, shoves, runs, or other. And reminded us that we will get a console, we have a ticket for every system that they will sell. Hey, we're not PS3 idiots in line here! Everyone was in great spirits and there was no problems. Another 8 people would try to make the 7:00 AM opening only to find that all the console systems had been spoke for. At 7:00 AM, the door opened and we all walked upstairs to the back of the store to buy our consoles.
A bit of bad news... Nintendo somehow had messed up the accessories shipment. The store had 20 game systems and plenty of games, but no spare controllers. This was a problem as I wanted 4 controllers in total for my family. I would find them at another store. But happily left Walmart with a Nintendo Wii, Happy Feet, and GT Pro Series. (I'll save purchasing the good games for X-mas!)
I got home at about 7:45, the kids were all out of bed bouncing up an down. They knew that I was getting something good - mom dropped the clue. But they had no idea - I could have come home with a dozen of donuts for all they knew! "Close your eyes" I told them! They obediently did and I un-bagged the console and games behind them. "Ok, look!" I was lucky that I have vaulted ceiling in my living room, these kids were jumping for joy.
Hooking up the Wii was a cinch. But the system required some configuration when it first detected power. Date, time, screen aspect all had to be set. I then connected it to my Wireless Network - time to download a system update all ready? (A process that would several seconds, but was longer than to eager kids could stand!)
We played Happy Feet for 2 hours and got about half-way into the game before it was time for the other stores to open so that I can attack stock somewhere else and find some extra controllers! I headed to Target... They had plenty of spare "Wii-motes" but no Nunchuc's (An accessory needed only for the Wii Sports - Boxing option.) I tried a few more stores in my area, and all of them were sold out of accessories. Oh well, I had enough for all 4 of us to play Tennis any way...
Returning home, we ejected the Happy Feet game and checked out some of the downloadable games. Didn't see any worth downloading there. Then checked the Wii News - nothing. And finally checked the Wii Weather channel. Nothing. We each them made a "Mii" (pronounced Me) Which is an in-game character persona / avatar for you to use. And we started up the Tennis option of Wii Sports. This game was in instant hit! We played it for 7 hours before we all realized that we were starving! We had a Pizza Party for my daughter's Soccer Team at 5:30 PM, and then rushed back home for more play.
Was the Wii worth it? Heck yeah! I just needed the console and the 3 extra Wiimotes and we had a great time. Wii Sports is a Killer App for Nintendo. It's another hit title in their long list, and it comes with the system.
At 6:45 AM, the manager for Walmart would start to hand out tickets to each person in line. Starting with #1... He got to #4, said one ticket per person. Then he came to #12 and said, "You're together? OK." and skipped past the next person. I could see that this tickets were running out and I started to worry. The 16th person joked, "I'm the last one!" Thankfully, they had 20 Wii's to hand out and I was 18th. Sadly, about 9 people had to be turned away.
At 6:59 AM the manager came back to remind us all that they reserve the right to refuse to sell a console to anyone who pushes, shoves, runs, or other. And reminded us that we will get a console, we have a ticket for every system that they will sell. Hey, we're not PS3 idiots in line here! Everyone was in great spirits and there was no problems. Another 8 people would try to make the 7:00 AM opening only to find that all the console systems had been spoke for. At 7:00 AM, the door opened and we all walked upstairs to the back of the store to buy our consoles.
A bit of bad news... Nintendo somehow had messed up the accessories shipment. The store had 20 game systems and plenty of games, but no spare controllers. This was a problem as I wanted 4 controllers in total for my family. I would find them at another store. But happily left Walmart with a Nintendo Wii, Happy Feet, and GT Pro Series. (I'll save purchasing the good games for X-mas!)
I got home at about 7:45, the kids were all out of bed bouncing up an down. They knew that I was getting something good - mom dropped the clue. But they had no idea - I could have come home with a dozen of donuts for all they knew! "Close your eyes" I told them! They obediently did and I un-bagged the console and games behind them. "Ok, look!" I was lucky that I have vaulted ceiling in my living room, these kids were jumping for joy.
Hooking up the Wii was a cinch. But the system required some configuration when it first detected power. Date, time, screen aspect all had to be set. I then connected it to my Wireless Network - time to download a system update all ready? (A process that would several seconds, but was longer than to eager kids could stand!)
We played Happy Feet for 2 hours and got about half-way into the game before it was time for the other stores to open so that I can attack stock somewhere else and find some extra controllers! I headed to Target... They had plenty of spare "Wii-motes" but no Nunchuc's (An accessory needed only for the Wii Sports - Boxing option.) I tried a few more stores in my area, and all of them were sold out of accessories. Oh well, I had enough for all 4 of us to play Tennis any way...
Returning home, we ejected the Happy Feet game and checked out some of the downloadable games. Didn't see any worth downloading there. Then checked the Wii News - nothing. And finally checked the Wii Weather channel. Nothing. We each them made a "Mii" (pronounced Me) Which is an in-game character persona / avatar for you to use. And we started up the Tennis option of Wii Sports. This game was in instant hit! We played it for 7 hours before we all realized that we were starving! We had a Pizza Party for my daughter's Soccer Team at 5:30 PM, and then rushed back home for more play.
Was the Wii worth it? Heck yeah! I just needed the console and the 3 extra Wiimotes and we had a great time. Wii Sports is a Killer App for Nintendo. It's another hit title in their long list, and it comes with the system.