I just went to Toys 'r' Us for the start of the buy two get one free Wii game promotion. The TRU near me opens at 9:00 am on Sunday, so I got there at 9:00. The doors were not yet open and there were 150+ people lined around the building. Apparantly these people knew they had Wii's in stock, and there was a TRU employee outside handing out barcoded tags to the people in line. I was the only person there who did not buy a Wii console. Almost all of these people called friends and told them "They have them in stock now, get up here". I knew there was a large number of people looking for Wii's, but did not expect this.
Every person in line bought 3 or 6 games with their Wii, almost all of them had Wii Play in the mix. Tons of nunchucks were selling, as well as handfuls of GHIII, DDR Wii, Mario & Sonic, Mario Party 8, Zelda, Mario Strikers, RRRR1&2, Sims, Madden, Tiger Woods, Harry Potter, Big Brain, SPMario, even shovelware (Bee Movie, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, Barbie, Disney Princesses, etc). They completely sold out of both Tony Hawk titles, MOH:Heroes, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil:UC, Lego Star Wars, Legend of Spyro (why?), Playground and more. They had already sold out of Galaxy, or every person in line would have bought that as well. The most asked about games seemed to be Lego SW, Galaxy, Carnival Games, WiiPlay, Zelda, GHIII.
I saw 2 great games get passed on by most (Zack & Wikki, MLB Power Pro's). I directed a few people to them based off what they had in their hands, so they moved 3 or 4 of these titles each. It was like a TRU Black Friday, but it was all Wii.
Lots of DS & GBA games were picked up as well.
I went with 4 games in mind (2 for my kids, 2 for me) and had my Galaxy $25 gift card in hand. I wanted RE:UC, MOH:Heroes for myself, Mario & Sonic, & DDRWii for my kids. Most games sold out before I got to them (RE:Uc & DDR were snapped up quickly. I did get MOH:H, & Mario & Sonic. I picked up RRRR2, but plan on exchanging it when they get some more titles back in.
I was there for an hour and 45 minutes (in line) and saw not one Ps3 game sell, and only 1 360 title. No other consoles sold. Funny, not 1 copy of Wii Tomb Raider sold either (but Spyro did, go figure).
If there is a mass of stock like this in the next few weeks the numbers are going to be insane. It did make me sad to see people picking up crap games like DDBB over Z&W, but these were obviously not informed buyers.
What struck me talking to a few of them is that most of them had been looking for a Wii for almost 3 to 6 months, almost every one of them left almost skipping in happiness.
The Wii "fad" is nowhere near ending. Especially with the good games that just hit the market, and are coming. WiiFit is going to bring a whole other type of consumer in the mix. I'm already a believer, but even the most bitter non-believer fanboys would have to concede the excitement is there if they witnessed the Wii Chaos today.
There were 50 people behind me in line when I left, there were not enough Wii's for them all, but many were buying games at the sale price because they planned on getting a Wii before the holiday.
Wii Code 3456 7941 4060 2924
