In the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving is known as "Black Friday." It's one of the busiest shopping days of the year because most people have the day off from work and many retailers offer doorbuster deals.
The above photo shows a father and his two daughters playing the Wii at a Nintendo kiosk set up at the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, California. I found the picture when I searched the Getty Images database, a supplier of stock photos. This one, and the photo below the jump, were the only video game-related pictures I found taken during Black Friday when I searched for "Wii." Various combos of Xbox 360 and PS3 didn't turn up any Black Friday pics.
Perhaps this is because the Wii was the most sought-after console during the holiday shopping weekend. eBay reported that it sold 3,171 Wiis and 1,059 copies of "Wii Fit" on its site. (Or maybe there weren't enough Xbox 360 bundles to go around -- there was one video of a gaggle of shoppers accosting a stack of them at a Wal-mart.)
Did you try your luck for a cheap console at the store or online over the weekend? If so, did you run into any problems or was it smooth shopping?
(And make the jump to see Santa Claus behind the Wii wheel.)
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Are you not sure what game to buy? Perhaps we here at Multiplayer can help.
Since August, I have played through:
- Too Human
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
- Spore
- LEGO Batman
- Lock's Quest
- Bothers In Arms: Hell's Highway
- Dead Space
- Fable II
- Gears of War 2
- Resistance 2
- Mirror's Edge
- Call of Duty: World At War
And I have played several hours of:
- Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise
- Wario Land: Shake It
- Wii Music
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
- LittleBigPlanet
- Fallout 3
- Left 4 Dead
- Tomb Raider: Underworld
- MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
- de Blob
- Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Plus, Patrick and Tracey have played a ton of games, even those music ones!
So... what do you need to know to make your shopping decisions easier? We can help.
Photo: Brad Barket/Getty Images
Long promised and finally delivered, the Nintendo Channel was made available for North American Wii owners some time after I went to bed last night.
I downloaded it this morning and tried it out.
As expected, the channel features promotional videos and a deep index of Wii and DS games to better inform purchasing decisions. It can also zap demos of DS games to my handheld.
But it can do other stuff I did not expect, and it shows that Nintendo may be craftier about online networking than many people gave them credit for:
The channel lets you buy games and anger GameStop at the same time: You'd think some other company than Nintendo would be the first to let consumers buy a new disc-based game via their console without taking their hands off a controller. Nope. It's Nintendo.
I loaded a promotional video for "Wii Fit and clicked an option to buy the game. The Wii Internet Channel loaded and offered me a selection of stores to choose from: Sears, Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Toys R Us, Target, Amazon, Best Buy and K-Mart.
Who wants to be the person to tell GameStop that they didn't make the list?
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Remember that Wii rain-check program Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime announced on Friday?
Kotaku dug up the official details today and figured out that Reggie mis-spoke.
The program will not be running on Dec 20 and Dec 21, just on Dec 21.
People anxious for a Wii but willing to wait until January to receive a guaranteed unit can pay $249.99 at any GameStop or Electronics Boutique for a reservation. They'll get a DVD box that proves the Wii is coming. Systems must be picked up by January 25.
According to the official release:
A limited number of reservations will be available at each store and only one reservation can be made per household.
Exactly how many of these rain checks /reservations will be available? Last week, Fils-Aime said "many tens of thousands" would be available. But he said "Dec 20," too, so I double-checked with GameStop today.
The word I got back from Chris Olivera, divisional vice president of corporate communications at GameStop is:
We are not releasing the number of units that will be available, but Reggie’s comment that it is in "ten of thousands" is as close of a number that we are communicating.
There you go. Start the stampede. Or just wait.
