your experience with midnight launches?

L

Lkr

Member
Just wondering the crazy shit you guys have done to get a console/game asap. I camped out for a Wii pre-order and waited in line at Gamestop about an hour before midnight. It was a harsh Florida winter(meaning 50s:lol ), so it was fun. Played DS games with people in line. At this point, I can't wait until the next generation(or even the 3DS) just to camp out for it. It makes the wait that much more fun.
 
The 2 midnight launches I went to this year (FFXIII, RDR) were uneventful. Got to the store at 11:00, and got my game by 12:10.
 
I didn't get to a midnight launch for a Wii. But on December 17th 2006 they had Wii's. I think me and my mom went there at like 3 AM and I sat in a chair by myself waiting for one. I would've been able to get one if Best Buy (those assholes) didn't allow people to buy more than 1 console in the line.

My brother went online and paid $500 for one at that point >_>;

Anyway, the only Midnight launch I went to was for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I ended up staying up until 5 AM playing the game, lol.
 
Sometimes it just depends on the game and your region.

I've been to launches with cool normal friendly people, and others that are filled with super nerds. It'll either be fun or very embarrassing for you. Maybe wear a disguise just in case.
 
I went to the MGS4 midnight launch because a friend of mine wanted me to come with him. Although i have never really played a MGS game it was fun. We ended up shooting the shit and talking a load of shit about this and that. I got a signed game and sold the game and kept the Kojima signature. Which is somewhere. The friend i was with was the first person there, thought fuck this i ain't sad enough to be waiting at Zavvi/ Virgin Megastores all bymyself for a few hours. Came back and was like number 3, he then found out that the person who was number 1 got a 6 foot, old, life size, Soli Snake statue.:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol That guy was a gaffer and i introduced im to the site. Unfortunately he is banned for a pretty minor joke and i suppose there is nothing i can do to unban him. :(
 
Only been to one midnight launch and that was for GTA IV. Went well, although I went for a few pints beforehand which meant I thought it would be a good idea to arrive 15 minutes early. I got there and the queue was halfway around the city centre :lol Got the game though so it was worth it :) Not the best group of people though. If you can imagine what the average person in Belfast that is into GTA looks like then you'll know what I mean :P

Probably going to go to the Black Ops midnight opening next week too.
 
My experience with midnight launches is be prepared for plenty of neck beards and sweat pants with lameo anime shirts.
 
I wanted to see the PS2 midnight launch in Paris on the Champs Elysées, out of curiosity.. but it was too crowded and I went home. Too bad, I could have seen this debacle happening :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7khAaI36Z4
Talk about bad organization... "let's put all the consoles in the middle, with a single row of clerks to contain the crowd."
 
I used to go early for fun... lately I just go at 12:00 and the line moves fast enough that I don't have to wait 3 hours in the cold.

yay for pre-orders.
 
I actually saw a ~14 year old kid with his mom in line for the midnight launch of GTA4. It was pretty funny that she knew it was a game with a bad media reputation that he couldn't buy without an adult but didn't care.
 
Went to a midnight launch for MW2, my first and only one every at this point. It was in a mall, and it was wierd and kind of creepy since the only store open and with lights on was GameStop and the line stretched out far beyond that into the darkness. There was no free food or anything, and the guys working the cash were insanely slow, also way too many annoying kids. Wasn't worth it.

I imagine the crowd and festivities would be a lot better at a console midnight launch
 
I went to the midnight launch for Smash Bros Brawl. Lost count how many times people made stupid barrel roll jokes. Needless to say I'll never go to a midnight launch ever again.
 
lethial said:
My experience with midnight launches is be prepared for plenty of neck beards and sweat pants with lameo anime shirts.
Click to expand...

Pretty much my experience with midnight launches. Nothing eventful. Just some buddies and myself shooting the shit and waiting.
 
  • GameCube: Stand in line, get an unit with Luigi's Mansion; leave the store. (with my parents; was fun) [Toys R Us]
  • Wii: Stand in line, get an unit with Twilight Princess; leave the store. (with friends, was fun. Came back to my house to set it and play till early in the morning) [Gamestop]
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Was there at 10PM, watch other people play. Stand in line, get the game, leave and play till early in the morning. (alone) [Gamestop]
  • Halo Reach: Was there at 10PM, watch other people play. Stand in line, get the game, leave and play till early in the morning. (alone) [Gamestop]
 
its been my experience that midnight launches are by and large a complete waste of time. the only system i did it for (360) was basically me and my girlfriend standing in a gamestop with a bunch of awkward looking dudes for 10 minutes waiting for the clock.
 
MW2 launch at my local ASDA thought i'd roll up and be in and out in 5 mins but word spread that you could get the game for under £30 had spread and the line was absolutely ridiculous. 2 1/2 hours later i finally got my game when i walked out the line was still leading all the way outside. :lol
 
My last midnight launch was for the DSi. It wasn't very fun.
Now that I have a baby I'm probably not going to be doing any midnight launches any time soon.
 
Zzoram said:
I actually saw a ~14 year old kid with his mom in line for the midnight launch of GTA4. It was pretty funny that she knew it was a game with a bad media reputation that he couldn't buy without an adult but didn't care.
Click to expand...

In the queue I was in for GTA IV, the majority (not exaggerating) were schoolkids who were definitely under 18. They all got served OK though :lol
 
Halo 2 is the only midnight i've been too, had the LE tin reserved and waited about 2.5 hours outside of a GAME store, at the till (finally) I realise that all the standard orders were getting a cool and huge poster which us CE people did not, it was a GAME printed one so not one you could buy, was rather annoyed at that because it looked good.

I don't bother with midnight launches any more, might as well get a good night sleep and play it in the morning, plus I order from online more then ever so it can come a day early.
 
Most game launches are very unexciting, very few people seem to show up in my area.

My buddy and I slept outside for a second shipment Wii, and had some cool-ass middle aged fathers in front of us. I though they were the most awesome dudes, sitting out there in their camping chairs, just to see the huge smile on their kids faces. We chatted with them, and time went pretty quick. We took turns napping and it worked out very well.
 
Wasn't a midnight launch but I camped out all night for the Xbox 360. Froze my ass off for 8 hours outside a local Toys R' Us.

Never again.
 
I've been to midnights for Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV.

GTAIV and Halo were a bit more eventful. Trivia and other goodies were to be had.

FFXIII and ME2 basically just were come in and pick it up affairs.

I've never showed up that early for any, 30mins at the most.
 
Went for Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. Halo 3 I showed up about an hour early and just shot the shit with people, alright time. Best part was when we saw some moron tearing through the Best Buy parking lot in his car at like 11 at night, no lights around and SMASH! Ran right over a concrete divider that he didn't see going like 70km/hr if not faster. The entire car just shudders to a halt, and we see 4 guys get out, start walking around the car and looking underneath it. Then 3 of them start pushing it out of the parking lot towards the road where they sit for like 20 minutes until a tow truck shows up. Not sure what broke but it was hilarious to see happen. My roommate and I then played the shit out of the game and managed to beat it on legendary before our 8:30 class, good times. Halo: Reach I literally left my house 10 minutes before midnight and walked right in, maybe 25 people ahead of me. Nothing noteworthy about that one.

Also tried to go for the Wii launch but the store decided against doing a midnight launch in spite of doing one earlier in the week for the PS3 (not enough demand), so I just hung out outside until 6AM when they did an early opening instead. Was like 8 hours of standing around, playing my PSP and watching family guy off some guys portable DVD player. We also had a 24 hour grocery store in the same plaza where my friend's younger sister was working the graveyard shift, so anytime I got cold I just went in there and hung out, grabbed some snacks, and warmed up. It was an alright night but it dropped to like -10C (damn Canadian Novembers!) so I spent far more time in the grocery store than the line. Luckily people were pretty cool about holding your spot and not bitching you out if you went to sit in your car or grabbed some food.
 
Never really (does a 6:00 AM for the Wii count?) knew a midnight line but I intend to be on the Champs-Elysées for the 3DS launch. Just for the fest, I will import a japanese one few weeks sooner.

I think constuctors needs to do a better use of those events in term of hardware image.
Wii line in Paris was funny and overcrowded but it was just people waiting in the cold winter for a stupid store to allow them entering. There is certainly some way to really improve it.
 
JustAnotherOtaku said:
In the queue I was in for GTA IV, the majority (not exaggerating) were schoolkids who were definitely under 18. They all got served OK though :lol
Click to expand...

I got GTA:IV the morning after launch and their were loads of mums buying it for their little kids. :lol
 
GTA 4 and Halo reach have been the only two I've been too and i just sit in my car till everyone is gone then i go in a grab a copy. COD black ops is next on my list for midnight launch.
 
Game midnight launches have been pretty uneventful.

I did camp out inside Walmart for a PS2 with a couple of friends back in college. It was a horrible experience, mainly because we had to drive about hour to get there and then just wait in line for hours.

I do like midnight game launches, but for consoles I don't think I'd do it again.
 
GCN: I showed up at Wal-Mart at 6 PM, and was first in line. They gave me a numbered ticket around 6:30 and said I could come back at midnight. I did so and got my GCN first out of everyone. I played Rogue Leader until about 3 AM.

Wii: After the insanity that was the PS3 launch and everyone knowing that Wiis were limited in number, I showed up to the store around 8 AM. If no one was waiting, I would come back at noon, but if even ONE person was there, I would stay. One mom was already in line, so I decided to stick it out. The store only had about 25 Wiis, so by 11 AM enough people showed up. They didn't hand out any tickets or anything, so I had to wait all day inside the sporting goods section of Wal-Mart. It was pretty fun though, the people were nice and we played cards, DS, and dominoes. I got my Wii (which actually turned out to be defective after about two weeks), and played Wii Sports and Zelda until about 3 AM.

Brawl: I wasn't planning on going to a midnight launch, but my friends had to go to Wal-Mart so I decided to check it out. Sure enough, people were in line. I got there around 11 PM so I just waited in line for an hour and bought the game (and also bought my friends some of their groceries since they had to stay so long). I played Brawl until about 3 AM, went to bed, started playing at 11 AM, stopped playing at 11 PM. Then I saw through time.
 
Got Halo 3 at a GameStop down the street from where I used to live. I was able to essentially "preorder" it by paying for it at 10pm that night. Line was long but they don't attempt to shove strategy guides or scratched disc replacement plans down your throat with a crowd like that so things moved at a brisk enough pace.

Got GTA IV at Blockbuster. Only a few people there. I was back home playing the game by 12:15 AM. They gave out framed photos of Niko Bellic as well. Much better experience than GameStop.

I don't get as many games at launch these days, and order from Amazon anyhow, so I won't be having any crazy experiences in the future.

edit - not a midnight thing, but the funniest instance was Circuit City pulling a bait and ditch with COD4. They were supposed to be giving out copies of COD3 with each purchase, but they had none to begin with and people were flipping the fuck out. :lol
 
Only midnight launch I've actually gone to was for Wii at Toysrus. Showed up at like 11:55 because I had already camped out for 8 hours to get a preorder whenever they had them. The nonpreorder line was around the building though.

Did have to camp out for a PS2 at launch though (no midnight launch, 16 hours out front and my mom made my dad come for a few hours at night :lol ). Sat next to a teacher who called out sick and a crazy Madden fan.

And finally, preordered a gamecube at GS, they opened like 7-8am so afterward I went over to Best Buy to hang out with a friend since he was camping out waiting to get one there.

All good times though, if a bit too cold.
 
My best was the PS2 launch. I got to Wal-Mart at about 5pm the night of launch... I was 6th in line, my gf was 7th.

And they only decided to start passing out numbers when we got there, and it was the people in line first that decided it, not wal-mart, but we were down.

However, as the line started to grow, wal-mart did help us out by bringing over stools and boardgames for us while we waited. It was all pretty cordial, nice environment.

By the time 12 o'clock got there, the line was about 200 strong... and they had something like 30 PS2's. I got mine and made it out un-mugged before the stock ran dry. :)

With no games, :lol I played up-rezzed PSOne games that night, watched Being John Malkovich w/my gf on the new-to-me DVD and rented Smuggler's Run the next day, yay!
 
Only midnight launch I went to this year was for FFXIII and it was pretty boring except for a couple of drunk teens in front of me. Last one before that was GTA4 and I got there at midnight and didn't get it until 2am, for some reason I didn't think it was going to be big. :lol
 
I've worked midnight launches for Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, and Halo: Reach.
 
Only time I've ever done it, or ever will was for the Wii... and that was because I knew that I didn't have a chance in hell of getting it before xmas (I was giving it as a present) without paying stupid money for one.

Was fun though, fairly diverse collection of people, though I guess the fact it was in a supermarket helped with that.
 
ZealousD said:
I've worked midnight launches for Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, and Halo: Reach.
Click to expand...
I didn't work the night at the 360 midnight launch but I was there to enjoy it, quite a few people turned up and my boss made this huge party out of it. Shit was hilarious
 
i used to have to work them. we light flares for call of duty mw2, bad idea that shit smells haha

i also worked every halo since the 2nd one. I worked every wow expansion (those were the biggest until mw2), GTAIV was a HUGE one.
 
Eh, nothing really happened at the ones I went to. The most recent ones I can think of are for FFXIII, NSMBWii, and God of War 3. Was pretty boring all 3 times.

I would like to camp out for a console though. I imagine that would be a lot more fun. Kind of did that for the Wii pre-orders (aka arrived at 6 AM) and talked to some cool guys.
 
Never done one, only thing close was showing up at like 6-7am at a Circuit City a week or 2 after the Wii came out to get in line and get one. At this point almost all my game purchases are done online through Amazon, since I get release day delivery through Prime. Hopefully Ill be able to preorder the 3DS from there as well because I really dont want to have to line up for that.
 
I've been to midnight launches for the following:

Halo 2
WoW: WLK

I've worked the following (Gamestop)
Halo 3
WoW: BC
Final Fantasy XII
PS3

My favorite was Halo 3. We set up a grill around 8pm and grilled for all the people there and had quizzes with people winning Halo 3 swag. We also had one of the tvs set up in the store playing Red Vs. Blue on repeat. Everyone who worked that launch was friends so it was like a big party.

Weirdest was Halo 2. I was living in Philadelphia. My future wife and I walked down around 10ish and there was a pretty long line. No one talked, and because it was so cold South Street was dead. Don't even remember any homeless people that night.
 
It used to be fun and exciting. Now it's just a sad night outside of a GameStop with a bunch of 13 year old kids that don't shut the hell up. The people that show up nowadays probably couldn't pass a grade school reading exam even if they really gave it their all. Bleh.
 
Once - GTA IV. Turned up at 12:30 and avoided most of the line. Won't do it again - I only played for an hour, I had to work the next day!
 
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