Thousands Line Up At Midnight For Sony's PS4
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Thousands waited for hours to get their mitts on a PlayStation 4. (Neon Tommy/Jenna Pittaway)
The launch queue always starts the same way.
A true-and-tried brand loyalist arrives hours before midnight; gradually joined by a chorus of excited gamers antsy for the next, big thing. Just before the anticipation reaches a fever pitch, a sales clerk unlocks the door. A horde of enthusiastic gamers storm the cash registers, eager to hand over hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to purchase a box (along with all of its accessories and wares) that will consume the next several hundred hours of their life.
Welcome to the wild world of video games.
Tonight's Console du Jour is Sony's PlayStation 4. What's on the menu next week? Why it's Microsoft's Xbox One, of course.
But for tonight, the PlayStation 4 is the reason for the season.
Maximillian Kaan is a professional when it comes to midnight launches. He arrived at the Best Buy in West Hollywood at 4 a.m. to begin an impressive 20 hour-long wait for the PlayStation 4.
"If it’s less than 24 hours, it’s easy, it’s nothing," said Kaan, who resells sneakers online for a living. He waits in lines for the limited edition kicks and then sells them online for thousands of dollars.
Tonight, he braved the line for himself. Kaan won’t sell the PS4; he says he’ll probably play until he can’t play anymore.
"I’ll probably fall asleep playing," he said, smiling.
Kaan is not alone. Thousands of eager gamers joined the savvy launch veteran in long lines at retailers nationwide, all part of a long-standing rite of passage. For enthusiasts, it's more than a product launch - it's an event.
David White is one of the hardcore devotees that has purchased every iteration of PlayStation since he could pick up a controller. The 22-year-old was in line outside the GameStop on Universal CityWalk three hours before midnight. Even though White has been to 56 midnight launches, the prospect of a new Sony console was too tempting to pass up.
"I've been with Sony since the original PlayStation. I've grown up with Sony. I've been through the hard times. I'm excited," said White.
White, like others we interviewed, had already made plans to skip work the next day.
In front of the CityWalk queue stood John Madrigal, who arrived at 9:30 a.m. with a collapsible quad chair and an army of battery-powered electronics. Madrigal ran out of juice long before midnight, but it was a sacrifice he deemed necessary simply because he forgot to pre-order the PlayStation 4 in advance.
Like White, Madrigal is a brand loyalist; a proud Sony consumer since the original PlayStation. But unlike years past, Sony's slipping fortunes forced the PlayStation booster to investigate Microsoft's Xbox One. Madrigal came to a somewhat predictable conclusion:
"I ain't switching."
The Playstation 4, which retails for $399.99, is considered something of a comeback for the tech giant after Sony lost considerable ground to Microsoft in the last console cycle. But gamer after gamer praised Sony for listening to consumers and learning from past mistakes. Many also accused the competition of being tone deaf.
Shipping with a 500GB hard drive, a single DualShock 4 controller and a mono headset, the PlayStation 4 is an attractive package. Like its predecessor, the system will be able to play Blu-ray discs out of the box. Gamers will also have their choice of over a dozen retail titles at launch, and even more via the PlayStation Network.
SEE ALSO: Sony's PS4 A Hit With Indies
Analysts are predicting the PlayStation 4 to be one of the largest consumer electronic product launches of the year. That jived with what retailers reported at launch.
Kristen Delgado, a GameStop employee in West Hollywood, didn’t know how many units they received at the store, but said they sold out earlier in the day. Likewise, word spread to patient customers at the GameStop in Universal City that any consoles not allocated for pre-orders had sold out well before midnight.
If all goes according to plan, Sony expects to sell nearly 3 million consoles before year-end. The stock market seems inclined to agree.
Shares of Sony Corporation went up almost 4% ahead of the PlayStation 4 launch this week and SCEA CEO Jack Tretton told Bloomberg that Sony is "very comfortable" with its sales projections. Sony expects to sell a total of 5 million units by the end of its fiscal year, which concludes in March of 2014. Early reviews of the hardware have been glowing, with the press calling the PlayStation 4 launch "a hell of a start."
But there may be problems ahead.
Rumors have been working through the blogosphere about an abundance of faulty units, something Sony was forced to formally address via Twitter on Thursday morning. Early reviews of the PlayStation 4 consistently point to a startling lack of compelling software at launch. And Microsoft is hot on Sony's heels; the equally-as-formidable Xbox One hits retail shelves just seven days later with even more games available at launch.
None of these issues are on the minds of early adopters however. As the Red Bull-fueled high begins to wear off, and daylight begins to break, it is only the silent hum of a precious new console that matters to the Sony faithful. The endorphin rush that comes with buying something new now inexorably gone, case fans become the lullaby of PlayStation 4 owners everywhere.
It might be another decade before they ever feel this content again.
