Man. You know I was sort of joking about the 15th but it now appears to be a free floating meme. And that spells such an enormous amount of disaster.
Whenever I've waited in line for something, usually I judge by reconnaisance, and most people I know do the same. They drive past every few hours, ready to sit down whenever the crowd goes past a dozen or so. So, seeing as we're now only in September, by the time November rolls around people will already be like "No, man, I heard some people are camping out on THE FIFTEENTH" not to mention you KNOW that kind of shit always makes the evening news. So, by the 17th, so could conceivably have TWO DAYS worth of people in line at your local Best Buy.
So, when does the rioting start? Is it on the morning of the 16th when the manager comes out and breaks the news that only 10% of the people who have been waiting TWO DAYS EARLY are getting a system? Is it the morning of the 17th, when everything starts to unravel and people start sauntering up to the front of the store the way they did at my local 360 launch, trying to sneak in? And what about the List that went around the night before? It was hard enough keeping that thing valid for just 13 hours. How is it going to hold up over the course of two days?
Now multiply that by every electronics and game retail store in the country. And divide it by 400,000.