PS3 is going to do horrible in Japan
well, as much as we love it, they still only shifted 50k units. They need some 2nd phase units and , more importantly, some second phase games.
Anyways, not sure if the Tsutaya stories have been related, so i'll tell it anyways.
Tsutaya : Basically, we (me, Reno, John Tv, Adrinasang, Fowler) all hit Shibuya around 12-ish . We hooked up with Gameboy Jason , Jonnyram and our friend Alan for some Shakeys, then we mulled over our plan. Jonny (and myself for that matter) had units guaranteed elsewhere, but i wanted the fun of the queue and , of course, it would also mean i could guarantee my wife a unit too.
So , as we mulled our plan near the Shibuya crossing, wondering whether we'd go to Yurakucho or Shinjuku, we thought "well, f*ck it... why not just queue here at Tsutaya?"
We went and inquired about the queue, and we were told that we weren't to queue - but confusingly, if we did , they'd have to find a space for us etc... so we told them we were going to queue and we were going to do it at the -traditional- queue point (ie: WHERE EVERY QUEUE EVER for a tsutaya launch is formed)
When we got upstairs there were a couple of people already in the queue - one guy who had been there from midnight (thursday) and a girl from a japanese television station.
We joined the queue and waited
Pretty quickly there were around 15 people in the queue, but for quite some time the queue didn't get any bigger.
The Tsutaya security/manager would pop out every hour or so and tell us we couldn't queue where we were. In the light of them being able to offer us anywhere else to go, and plus the help of a Japanese guy - who will simply be referred to from now on as "The Purple Suited God" - who demolished (politely and calmly) the security guard and the managers suggestions - pointing out that there was no way we were going to move out now (after 5 hours at the time) to come back tomorrow.
Anyways, beyond this - the whole night/queue was extremely enjoyable, we celebrated Reno's birthday, popped open some champagne, ate cake, played games, chatted, and attempted to sleep. Looking back, it all seemed to whizz by and the experience was pretty damned good all things said.
However, there was one moment of drama that we were worried would scupper everything. We were told that there was possibly only 10 units at Tsutaya (so people were a little nervous). As we were numbers 4-8 in the queue , we were fairly happy that even with 10 units, we were safe. Anyways, some people started milling around the front of queue at about midnight... we tought nothing of it at first , just that it was people waiting to meet other people (Tsutaya is a popular meeting place after all). Then there seemed to be a bit of a "square up" between a couple of the guys. We were wondering what was going on. That's when it all came out.
There was a group of 4 japanese guys who had put themselves at the front of the queue. I mean... simply just walked to the front of the queue. The 4 guys to the right of them, who also hadn't been in the queue, also claimed to be part of the queue too. Now, tempers were beginning to fray, and in no part helped by this stupidly ballsy move and the fact that the ringleader was a fat, smarmy, smirking cocklord. Thier argument , apparently, was they went to some event a few weeks back and they were told that the queue would start from 11pm .... so ... after getting there at 11, and being wrong with their assumption, thier take on it was was that the 70+ people who were already queuing were simply going to have to take it that the "Smarmy Army" were going to the front of the queue. Awesome retarded thinking.
It became apparent that people weren't going to stand for it - the french guys behind us were riled, we were riled , and the Purple suited God wasn't having any of it either. All the while the negotiations are going on, Mr ****ing-Smarm-a-lot is looking up at us with his stupid smarmy ****ing smile plastered over his face. What was even more annoying was that the inital ranks of eight people had suddenly swollen to around 25!
Now, just taking a pause here, and trying to look at it from their point of view - EVEN if it was true, that the queue was starting at 11... and they formed a queue GOD knows where, would they not think to check elsewhere? How could they tell that we'd not been queuing there since 11?! We were obviously there for TEN HOURS before. The only thing i can think of is that they were too stupid to check for a blatantly obvious queue or they were simply being total wankers and trying to 'beat the system'
regardless , much to our amusement, the Purple suited God, John Tv, Jason the French guy, and a few others put the case to the security and tsutaya manager. They returned with a ' This is the start of the queue' sign and two of the biggest meathead looking Japanese staffers. The simply just pushed through the throng of 25 queuejumpers and stuck the sign at the point where the first guy was when we arrived. Defeated, Smarmy and co. trudged to the back of the queue.
In the end, with around 250+ units, it didn't matter. But seriously, these are the sort of siutation in Japan where if you don't have the right people there or the staff of the store aren't switched on , then you end up with trouble. There was absolutely no way that those guys would have been allowed to leave with those units if there was only 10 - they would have been linched.
Anyways, not to worry - the units are all distributed and all we can hope for is that they are cursed with diskread errors for the rest of eternity (i'd wish them all to have thier cocks shrunk but i think God beat me to that one some many years ago)
HUZZAH!