tenzor
CAGiversary!
taken from ign
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745457p1.html
Australia, November 12, 2006 - Thanks to a reader from Kotaku, a nasty picture has been painted of the PS3's birth into the arms of eager Japanese gamers. But things did not go as smoothly as Sony would have liked. According to the email story submission, launches in Tokyo were anything but orderly and enjoyable.
With just 80,000 units available for purchase by the wider public, and these units scattered about the various retail venues in Japan, there was always going to be greater demand for the console than was feasible for a national launch of such scale. This caused (as expected) massive lines and flaring tensions.
According to the story, many of the so-called 'early adopters' were in fact of Chinese origin, hired by wealthy Japanese businessmen and families to endure the gruelling lines and constant claustrophobia in order to secure a unit for a small fee in reciprocation. Also outnumbering the 'hardcore' contingent were the foreign resellers who were there to buy up as many consoles as possible for resale on eBay and other auction sites for vastly inflated prices.
Although eBay recently put the clamps down on such auctions, this didn't deter the resellers from turning out in droves. Such numbers were allegedly responsible for pushing and shoving in line as personal space became a pipedream. Police were called by 7 a.m. and after local store employees realised that the Chinese nationals couldn't understand Japanese and this was contributing to the mass chaos.
Ken Kutaragi addressed the crowds as the rain poured down. He spoke to the very first PS3 customer who was unable to answer him, assumedly because of the language barrier. Tellingly, the first twenty sales were of the hardware only, and all refused media interviews.
Obviously, it's easy to criticise the poor Chinese nationals who are only in this endeavour for the financial gain. However, the story rightly points out the inherent flaws within the Japanese launch structure - shamefully small hardware numbers, too many people and no policing for the better part of the wait.
We, as would the writer of the original piece, would like to see such situations dealt with more appropriately by Sony Japan. It is sad to see gamers missing out on enjoying their new consoles due to poor planning, let alone desperate scalpers.
I can only imagine what the US PS3 launch will be like...
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745457p1.html
Australia, November 12, 2006 - Thanks to a reader from Kotaku, a nasty picture has been painted of the PS3's birth into the arms of eager Japanese gamers. But things did not go as smoothly as Sony would have liked. According to the email story submission, launches in Tokyo were anything but orderly and enjoyable.
With just 80,000 units available for purchase by the wider public, and these units scattered about the various retail venues in Japan, there was always going to be greater demand for the console than was feasible for a national launch of such scale. This caused (as expected) massive lines and flaring tensions.
According to the story, many of the so-called 'early adopters' were in fact of Chinese origin, hired by wealthy Japanese businessmen and families to endure the gruelling lines and constant claustrophobia in order to secure a unit for a small fee in reciprocation. Also outnumbering the 'hardcore' contingent were the foreign resellers who were there to buy up as many consoles as possible for resale on eBay and other auction sites for vastly inflated prices.
Although eBay recently put the clamps down on such auctions, this didn't deter the resellers from turning out in droves. Such numbers were allegedly responsible for pushing and shoving in line as personal space became a pipedream. Police were called by 7 a.m. and after local store employees realised that the Chinese nationals couldn't understand Japanese and this was contributing to the mass chaos.
Ken Kutaragi addressed the crowds as the rain poured down. He spoke to the very first PS3 customer who was unable to answer him, assumedly because of the language barrier. Tellingly, the first twenty sales were of the hardware only, and all refused media interviews.
Obviously, it's easy to criticise the poor Chinese nationals who are only in this endeavour for the financial gain. However, the story rightly points out the inherent flaws within the Japanese launch structure - shamefully small hardware numbers, too many people and no policing for the better part of the wait.
We, as would the writer of the original piece, would like to see such situations dealt with more appropriately by Sony Japan. It is sad to see gamers missing out on enjoying their new consoles due to poor planning, let alone desperate scalpers.
I can only imagine what the US PS3 launch will be like...
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