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[Sub_Level]

Came across this video uploaded September, 2007. Some of our posters here were kids.



That was a very different time. Midnight launches were quite a thing from 2007 to I wanna say 2013. I went to an MGSV midnight launch in 2015 and barely anybody was there (although I won a poster because I got every trivia question right). We see plenty of successful games nowadays but I don’t see many with this kind of hype.

 

[Faust]

I miss this era of gaming. Sadly it all feels like we have went downhill tremendously around 2012-2014.

 

[Jesb]

Those feels. I remember taking part in one of those. I think it was halo 2. I think the 360 era was the prime of the industry. You had E3, midnight launches, Rockband was crack back than. Gears of War felt like such a huge generational leap.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

As gone as arcades. Even if midnight launches were still a thing, hard to imagine anything recapturing the buzz of Halo 3. Hell, 7-11 would try to sell you the game even if you were just getting gas.

I remember being super hyped for it and then I played the CoD4 beta and decided fuck Halo.

 

[nush]

I remember wanting that game so much but I was living in China and this was the days before Xbox full game downloads were a thing. I had to wait for a colleague from America to make a business trip and bring me a copy.

 

[Faust]

Those feels. I remember taking part in one of those. I think it was halo 2. I think the 360 era was the prime of the industry. You had E3, midnight launches, Rockband was crack back than. Gears of War felt like such a huge generational leap.

Gaming journalists still talked about and loved games and the medium. There wasn't constant attempts to silence and ruin people's lives. G4 was popular and you could watch Ninja Warrior, X-Play, Judgement Day, and AoTS where beautiful women did some pretty fantastic stuff while geeks nerded out over the latest news, tech, and movies.

Oh and Warcraft was just hitting its stride with the release or soon to be released second expansion.

Can someone build a time machine so I can go back?

 

[Vyse]

Those were crazy times!

 

[Syphon Filter]

As gone as arcades. Even if midnight launches were still a thing, hard to imagine anything recapturing the buzz of Halo 3. Hell, 7-11 would try to sell you the game even if you were just getting gas.

I remember being super hyped for it and then I played the CoD4 beta and decided fuck Halo.

Halo 3 > COD 4!

 

[DR3AM]

Midnight Halo 2/3 at GameStop was peak gaming for me.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Midnight launches were so fire

 

[The Inventor]

Great video, man

 

[Syphon Filter]

Midnight Halo 2/3 at GameStop was peak gaming for me.

Halo 2 is when I first realized people line up for games. I didn't go to it but I remember coming out of night school and seeing the line for Halo 2, it blew me away. Till this day that memory is ingrained in my head and when I pass around that area these days(even though that gamestop is gone now) I get flashbacks of that time. That is how big the impact was with Halo 2.

 

[pqueue]

I got to go to the Xbox 360 Zero Hour launch in the Mojave desert. Held in a huge aircraft hangar decked out in all things Xbox.

was freaking amazing.

still have my hoodie from the event.

 

[begotten]

Midnight launches were the shit.

Nothing will ever top GTA4.

 

[Pop]

Makes me really miss those days

H3 is my favorite game of all time

 

[MagnesD3]

It was the end of the older era, gaming was just beginning to enter the mainstream market for real, the taint of money hadnt settled in yet.

 

[Sub_Level]

It was the end of the older era, gaming was just beginning to enter the mainstream market for real, the taint of money hadnt settled in yet.

I’d argue gaming for adults was already mainstream & socially accepted by 2004 at the latest (probably years before that tbh). Halo 2 and San Andreas were definitely normie-core. Halo 2 even had ads in the movie theatre.

Halo 2 trailer to invade cinemas

To help heighten the building frenzy around Bungie's Xbox shooter sequel, Microsoft is attaching a preview to major summer blockbusters.

www.gamespot.com

 

[MagnesD3]

I’d argue gaming for adults was already mainstream & socially accepted by 2004 at the latest (probably years before that tbh). Halo 2 and San Andreas were definitely normie-core. Halo 2 even had ads in the movie theatre.

Halo 2 trailer to invade cinemas

To help heighten the building frenzy around Bungie's Xbox shooter sequel, Microsoft is attaching a preview to major summer blockbusters.

www.gamespot.com

Mainstream is when your not shamed really at school for playing games, that was still a very real thing back then when I was a teenager. Now gaming is just like watching movies. 360 is really when the mainstream audience started to come into its own. Ps4 era solidified it.

 

[Syphon Filter]

Mainstream is when your not shamed really at school for playing games, that was still a very real thing back then when I was a teenager. Now gaming is just like watching movies. 360 is really when the mainstream audience started to come into its own. Ps4 era solidified it.

I disagree, i remember non gamers talking about halo and san andreas at the time. also even now there is a stigma that gamers are nerds and losers,etc. there will always be a group that thinks that way is my point.

 

[MagnesD3]

I disagree, i remember non gamers talking about halo and san andreas at the time. also even now there is a stigma that gamers are nerds and losers,etc. there will always be a group that thinks that way is my point.

At my school they would talk with you about it while you were in certain crowds but alot of kids if they were in thier natural clic environment or in a typical school environment where they didnt feel safe talking about it they would absolutely pretend they didnt just have a 2 hour conversation with you about halo yesterday lol. The shame was still there in a big way. Now like 15%-20% of the girls on a dating app have gaming under thier interests lol. Anime is just as high.

 

[Gamerguy84]

Yea midnight launches were awesome.

I went to one at GS for Spider-Man on PS4. The midnight thing wasn't cool I was there by myself but wanted to play for half the night.

Ever since I would go to my local Walmart electronics and make them dig it out of the stock boxes. They got a little irritated with me but whatever.

 

[TikiLagoonSam]

Fukin Halo needs to make a glorious return. The fire still burns inside many of us. We just need a developer who can bring back the magic of Master Chief. *plays the Halo theme song….chills*

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Listen to the excitement of everyone in line ... so awesome.

 

[Sleepwalker]

As gone as arcades. Even if midnight launches were still a thing, hard to imagine anything recapturing the buzz of Halo 3. Hell, 7-11 would try to sell you the game even if you were just getting gas.

I remember being super hyped for it and then I played the CoD4 beta and decided fuck Halo.

There was a midnight release recently in my city, I think it was for Super Mario Wonder + Spiderman 2. I wonder how that went...

But yeah, the magic is mostly gone, we would spend every weekend playing World at war, Black ops, Halo, FIFA. Remember going away on vaca with friends and taking the 360 and just smash FIFA and resident evil 5 coop at night after spending all day at the beach. I was never that much into Halo but we stil played it from time to time.

Nothing will ever come close to 4 player local multiplayer.

But also a lot of magic had to do with us being teens back then. You can still get plenty of great multiplayer experiences. I just hopped off a 3 hour session of Helldivers 2 with the boys.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

There was a midnight release recently in my city, I think it was for Super Mario Wonder + Spiderman 2. I wonder how that went...

But yeah, the magic is mostly gone, we would spend every weekend playing World at war, Black ops, Halo, FIFA. Remember going away on vaca with friends and taking the 360 and just smash FIFA and resident evil 5 coop at night after spending all day at the beach. I was never that much into Halo but we stil played it from time to time.

Nothing will ever come close to 4 player local multiplayer.

But also a lot of magic had to do with us being teens back then. You can still get plenty of great multiplayer experiences. I just hopped off a 3 hour session of Helldivers 2 with the boys.

I think the last big one I remember going to with the crew was GTA IV. But yeah digital has pretty much killed it.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Went to a bunch of midnight launches like Halo 2, Halo 3, Gears 2, MW2, GTA4, GTA5, Wii, PS4, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. I know a lot of people scoff at the idea but it really was a lot of fun hanging out for an hour or so with buddies and strangers all hyped up for some new game or console. Shame they've been replaced by everyone just preloading digital versions.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I miss this era of gaming. Sadly it all feels like we have went downhill tremendously around 2012-2014.

During that gen there were so many great games on consoles, it was awesome gaming. Ok, the loading times could be unbearable if it was a big games like RPGs, but the variety of games was solid.

What killed gaming to a degree (even as a big COD fan myself back then) was COD was too successful. It was a series of games that looked good, played at 60fps, tons of modes and got $15 map pack mtx up and running selling millions of packs. Every company took notice, so many shooters tried to COD-ify itself in some way and then game makers soon after jammed in endless mtx, battle passes, skins etc....

Another thing that hurt console gaming (for anyone who hates all the downloadable stuff like mtx, patches etc...) is that consoles amped up with big HDDs. With 360/PS3 systems, you could only hold so much downloaded content and XBLA/PSN games, so a game studio can only do so much downloadable nickel and diming or big patches because half the gamers had tiny HDDs. PS4/X1 get big HDD, downloading and installing everything becomes a norm and the systems can even use external HDDs for more storage. Most gamers have so much storage space, they dont care about about amping up buying stuff as they got the space. On the other hand, anyone with a 360 20gb Pro system you could only download so much stuff.

 

[ahtlas7]

I need to find a place that will do a midnight release for Switch 2 and introduce my kids. A rite of passage.

 

[RPS37]

What a Time To Be Alive.

 

[Neolombax]

Lived through that era, but didn't participate during in any midnight launches. Thinking back, I really really should have. I was in uni at the time, and the engineering degree really sucked the life out of me.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I miss this era of gaming. Sadly it all feels like we have went downhill tremendously around 2012-2014.

Around 2012 is when social media started to gain critical mass around the world

The world started really going to shit around 2012

This is not a coincidence

 

[Joshmyersbv]

I remember the MW2 midnight launch and there was so many people. It was the craziest midnight launch I ever went to.

 

[Brigandier]

I miss the days when Halo 2 and then 3 were the kings of Xbox live.

Same could be said for Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, All of them so much better than COD and the crap that's out now.

 

[SCB3]

Gaming journalists still talked about and loved games and the medium. There wasn't constant attempts to silence and ruin people's lives. G4 was popular and you could watch Ninja Warrior, X-Play, Judgement Day, and AoTS where beautiful women did some pretty fantastic stuff while geeks nerded out over the latest news, tech, and movies.

Oh and Warcraft was just hitting its stride with the release or soon to be released second expansion.

Can someone build a time machine so I can go back?

Yea that whole "Gamergate" stuff really ruined gaming in a lot of ways

I remember going to my local Game after I finished work at the Local Cinema at midnight and grabbing the Legendary edition with the Helmet that is still on my shelf alongside the Reach Statue to this day

 

[adamsapple]

I think the last big one I remember going to with the crew was GTA IV. But yeah digital has pretty much killed it.

I don't think I've ever been to a midnight launch but I have been to a few of Gamestop's 9PM game-releases.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I much like the modern day of pre-loading a game to play it in my house the second the clock strikes midnight rather than feeling the need to Game for a silly midnight launch to play a game as soon as possible.
Not that I ever really went to one due to work and more so being perfectly happy to wait for the next day delivery.

I do miss the days of E3 mind

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

This was an awesome time period in gaming and probably the last gen of console launches that I was actually hyped for all around. I wasn't at the Halo3 midnight launch, but this video brings back tons of similar memories from the 1999-2009, or so, era where gaming was evolving at a crazy pace and was really starting to come into it's own.

 

[STARSBarry]

Man the midnight launches where fire, I remember the Gears 2 one, everyone was excited. I bought the giant plastic lancer which in the UK was spray painted gold, because the original paint job looked too much like a real gun so was banned.

I remember later when Space Marine came out, no midnight launch but I had preordered the only PC edition in the shop (yes they had a single copy) and it came with like 4 exclusive chapters for multiplayer. I was there at 8:30am and by the time 9 rolled around there was like a queue for 10 people, all surprised that we where all here for Space Marine, like this niche game would not attract anyone, so we where all talking about our 40k armies and laughing at our terrible 40k injokes. Anyway ended up snagging the PC copy, the next 2 where 360 so no problem, but the 3rd guy after me gave me the dirtiest look ever when he was told there was no more PC copies.

Iv never had that feeling recently because buying a game feels mechanical, quite often digital like with Helldivers 2, and that's a shame.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

360 peak!

 

[Kokoloko85]

Good times. I remember buying the special edition halo 3 console too. What a great game, played with my brother on Coop

Last midnight launch for me was GTA5 or TLOU.
I cant remember if PS4 or PS5 console

Most games after I got for midnight were digital. I was waiting till the next day for Bloodborne lol

 

[NeonDelta]

I remember you could go to Sainsbury’s and get fifa / call of duty for £25 on release day provided you spent £20 on groceries.

 

[Team Andromeda]

This was an awesome time period in gaming and probably the last gen of console launches that I was actually hyped for all around. I wasn't at the Halo3 midnight launch, but this video brings back tons of similar memories from the 1999-2009, or so, era where gaming was evolving at a crazy pace and was really starting to come into it's own.

I still love a console launch to this day. But when you're older the excitement is never going to be quite the same which people always overlook.

That said the launch of the One X was one of my best-ever Pal console launches I even booked a day of work for it and utterly loved that day I was so hyped for the system.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

Came across this video uploaded September, 2007. Some of our posters here were kids.



That was a very different time. Midnight launches were quite a thing from 2007 to I wanna say 2013. I went to an MGSV midnight launch in 2015 and barely anybody was there (although I won a poster because I got every trivia question right). We see plenty of successful games nowadays but I don’t see many with this kind of hype.

 

[Quantum253]

Man, so good!
It was so hyped, the believe diorama, everything was on point. Almost as good as Halo 2..... Finish the Fight!

I'll leave this here for the nostalgia

 

[eNT1TY]

I still have my line buddies on my friend list; out of the 4 randos i met in that midnight line 3 of em are still active though i only talk to one on a semi regular basis when i hop on to play destiny. For a while though we all played every halo together at least for 1 legendary play through. The streak was broken with Infinite sadly after we mostly drifted apart long before.

 

[Havoc2049]

Cool video, thx for posting. I was there for the midnight launches of Halo 2 and Halo 3. Great times to be a gamer.

 

[Sybrix]

it's such a great video, gaming during the 360 days was just so epic and let's be honest, it hasn't been topped.

This footage has captured a moment in time that will never be experienced again, the game, going to the store to buy it physically at a midnight launch, a buddy 4 player local co-op.

 

[IDKFA]

Man, so good!
It was so hyped, the believe diorama, everything was on point. Almost as good as Halo 2..... Finish the Fight!

I'll leave this here for the nostalgia

Probably the best gaming ad of all time.

The ODST one comes pretty close.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Midnight launches were the shit.

Nothing will ever top GTA4.

It was magical, indeed.

Too bad the world has gone straight pussy.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

My last midnight launch was Animal Crossing New Horizons. It was only memorable because everything was closed down due to COVID. Everyone buying the game had to just park in the lot. The store owners came around and handed out the game to each car. The parking lot was packed!