Pre-orders aren't policed. You don't even get a number on the ticket in most places. You used to see it all the time where a store will flip a system for the sale and leave the pre-order buyer waiting -- I don't know how bad that is now, but I have no doubt that it happens.
And pre-orders have nothing to do with allocations, so the stores that do take pre-orders are usually (as they are now) booked long past what they'll actually receive. Meanwhile, if you're lucky, you could head over to a Target or Wal-Mart or other mass store and walk out the door with one while everybody else is figuring out what to say to their crying kid on Christmas Day.
I wouldn't call pre-ordering a scam (now bundling, there's a scam), but it's not really what people think, that you're putting money in to be the first to own it. You are simply a number on a list for one store or outlet, and that list can be easily circumvented by shopping around.
Oni Jazar said:
So we should've PRE-ORDERED THE PREORDER. There's no 'opening day' they take your money whenever you want to give it to them.
Yeah, actually. A lot of stores will take your pre-order, but then they have a different system for the actual deposit.