jevvim's Journal: Wii Launch: Target; Irvine, CA

The Wii launch line experience was pleasant for me. I arrived at 9:30pm on Saturday evening, after I had finished with other obligations for the day. There were roughly 100 people in line, and this store had been reported online as having over 200 units for launch. Around 11pm, a Target "security guard" came around to make a line list "in case there are problems like the PS3 line had."

The evening had no significant events, but there was a lot of conversation among those in line. Everyone I spoke with said they were getting the Wii for themselves or as a gift for a relative.

Ninety minutes before opening, store management started distributing stuff. First was a card with game and accessory options, so we could had it to the cashier, who would hand it to an associate to pull the items we wanted. The next pass was to distribute Wii t-shirts to everyone in line, though they only had large adult size and one child's size, which I didn't ask about. And, finally, they passed out hardware tickets, and I ended up with number 94.

At opening, they took groups of 20 ticket holders into the store to purchase. The "express check-out" lanes (an island with 8 registers & walking space in the middle) had been converted to Wii purchase central, with 4 registers operating on one side and other associates stocking and pulling items. Each group of 20 took about 10 minutes to serve, and again some associates mentioned how much nicer the Wii crowd was, and that we were actually buying accessories.

I had walked to the store (since it's basically a two-minute walk from home), and felt reasonably safe walking home with my unit. I did, however, keep myself very aware of my surroundings, but there was no one else around at 8:30 on a Sunday morning.