The holiday season each year brings fellowship, food, fun “¦ and fighting?
Thanksgiving used to be simply a time for families to enjoy gargantuan meals and reunite. I would like to know when putting on shoulder pads after dinner to rush retail stores at midnight achieved holiday tradition status. When the clock tolled midnight for Black Friday, hungry shoppers crowded into stores to take advantage of discounts and sales. Try shopping around lunchtime the day after Memorial Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas and notice that everything you may have wanted is no longer in stock. This year’s case in point is the recent release of Sony Computer Entertainment’s Playstation 3 game console that shocked me.
I intern at a production company in La Jolla, and near the end of my shift Nov. 16, the day before the PS3 release, a college intern asked if I could help with some street interviews. I seized the opportunity and headed down to the nearest Best Buy.
The line I witnessed was the kind you might see for a famous rock band, and what I found out seemed odd. Best Buy told the hundreds of consumers outside that only 35 units were available, and yet people stayed. Some argued over places in line, some near the end were confident a miracle would land a unit in their hands and many had been there for days with sleeping bags, lawn chairs, books and games to keep them company.
Eric, the person at the head of the line, said of his sidewalk campout, “It sucks sleeping on the concrete and on the street. There’s all this stuff going on, drama about people cutting in line, and there was almost a mini-riot. In El Cajon, there was all these people that got hurt, so this line had to be escorted by the police. It was just mayhem.”
One might assume that the dedicated customers sacrificing an inordinate amount of time for the PS3 were gamers motivated by revolutionary consoles sure to shape the future of gaming. What I found was the opposite.
Sony released only an estimated 150,000 units to the North American market for the PS3’s debut. The majority of the people I encountered at two different stores in San Diego planned on reselling the limited item for as much as $3,000 on auction sites such as eBay and Craigslist. I did find one man, James, who actually planned to use the console his place in line assured him. When asked for his thoughts on why the release was expected to be extremely successful for Sony, James replied, “It’s due to the games. You can tell there’s a difference [between the PS2 and PS3]. I plan on using it as a Blu-ray player and, well, for fun. The quality is excellent and I step up for it even though I have to spend a little bit more.”
Extensive graphics improvements and the built-in Blu-ray technology add priority to the item’s place on wish lists nationwide, and ease sticker shock from the hefty $600 price tag.
But in many cases, things have gotten so out of hand that you’d think the shoppers were leading riots for civil rights or something of equal importance, not tackling their way to a PS3.
Kevin, waiting in line at Circuit City, said, “I’ve heard of people just going in, trying to rush in and get whatever they can, like, starting fights and whole stores closing down.”
A Los Angeles Times staff writer reported the arrest of two men who robbed a guy in a parking lot after he had agreed to sell them his console.
In Kentucky, Lexington police investigated a drive-by shooting of people in line allegedly perpetrated by a man who may have been disgruntled after failing to obtain a new system.
An employee at a West Bend Wal-Mart in Milwaukee placed 10 chairs outside of the store representing the10 available consoles. For the mob outside, this gesture equaled a signal to run for it!
A Virginia paper described police using pepper balls to disperse an out-of-control crowd that rushed a store at the Tysons County Mall in Springfield.
Fresno police responded to a call from a Best Buy in River Park when a crowd stampeded the store after it announced the availability of only 35 PS3 units.
In Connecticut, two teens shot a man in the chest after he refused to give up his place in line before fleeing the scene.
I can go on and on. And so can the chaos with Christmas still weeks away. So as you set about your holiday shopping, keep an eye out for people arguing over the last newest toy, parking spots and places in line. It’s a zoo out there, so I beg of the reader, get your shopping done early, do not contribute to the madness and enjoy the holidays.
Kenneth Pico, 16, is a junior at High Tech High Media Arts. He hopes to become a photojournalist and/or English teacher. This is Pico’s second column for The Beacon.