The Richter Scale^®

I found myself in San Francisco this week for a patent conference. During a free moment during the early part of the week I wandered over from my seminar to the Metreon - a Sony owned and operated facility which features Sony’s only west coast “PlayStation” store. On a whim I asked them if they had any PS3s, and got the expected response - “No”. But, I also got a “but, we had two shipments last week and expect at least one this week”. They gave me a phone number to call and invited me to call back during the week to check if any had come in.

Being the obsessed gamer I am (or at least, can be), I called the PlayStation store several times daily. Thursday morning, around 10:45am I heard what I had hoped - “They have arrived, get here quickly.”

Alas, I wasn’t that quick apparently, since when I arrived the line for people waiting to buy a Sony PS3 was already snaking outside the building. I estimate there were already 100 people there ahead of me. The store had not actually started selling the PS3s yet, so we all just waited. I had called my friend Ted Pollack (he runs an investment fund called the Electronic Entertainment Fund or just EE Fund) to see if he could join me and maybe even help me buy a second PS3, although with the line as long as it was, it was not clear if I would be able to buy even one PS3.

After a while a store employee came out to make an announcement which those of us in the rear could not hear. Turns out he had given stickers to people at the head of the line, and had run out about 15 people ahead of us. The stickers were effectively a guarantee that there would be a PS3 for each sticker holder. Discouraged, but not beaten, Ted and I pulled out of line, went inside near the front of the line, and I asked in a loud voice if anyone would want to sell their sticker and place in line for $200. Seconds later I was number 33 in line with a sticker.

The $200 figure was the premium I had earlier figured I would be willing to pay to get a PS3 before the end of the year. Capitalism is a wonderful thing.

I had several more offers to buy stickers from others in line, but I was tapped out, and Ted had to leave (and there was a strict policy of only selling one PS3 per person - they even did name matches with driver’s licenses to ensure that the same people could not buy more than one PS3 at that store, ever - or at least until supplies were no longer restricted).

And even as #33, I still waited. A cheer suddenly erupted from the front of the line - they had seen several carts of PS3s being wheeled into the store. The folks in line were all generally in high spirits - it was something of a party atmosphere. Names were exhanged, as were business cards. Some of my fellow PS3 squatters worked for the same local company (not mentioned here to preserve their jobs) and were all skipping work to stand in line. Others were students skipping class, much as I was skipping a session on Examiner Interviews at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But we were all in this together, even I as the sole sticker-buying interloper. We did all share in one consternation - the PlayStation store employee had apparently told those in line that only the first 26 were guaranteed 60GB PS3s (which have a few more capabilities than the 20GB models). I figured any PS3 would be better than none, although I certainly would have preferred a 60GB model myself.

But, my concerns were for naught, as another store employee came out a short while later to announce that all the incoming PS3s were 60GB models. More cheering commenced.

After about a half hour, the line finally started moving, with the store employees taking sticker-holding squatters one at a time, offering them a range of games (a rather meager selection, sadly) and accessories, and then taking payment. The whole process, while excruciatingly slow, was very well managed, ran smoothly, and everyone was exceedingly friendly and nice.

So it came to be that about two hours and a missed seminar later, I was the proud owner of a new Sony PS3 60GB system with seven games, three extra controllers, and a reader for PS2 and PSX game cards.

Goes to show that some lines are better than others. Photos from my line squatting journey can be found Here.

My next stop was FedEx so I could send my hard earned gains home to Bonaire, as I was continuing on to the orient before going home myself. But when I get home, I will have my PS3 waiting for me. Now to go buy some Blu-Ray DVDs on Amazon…