XBox 360: November 2005 Archives

I've been scouring message boards for a week since the XBox 360 launch, looking for evidence of a second shipment. Lots of people said that today (Tuesday) would see a second shipment of 360s arriving in stores. I found one such case on IGN 360 boards: this fellow walked into a Target in Minnesota as the clerk was restocking the shelves. Lucky bastard picked one up; I think I would have bought two. Other nerds are stalking Best Buy stores with such frequency that they may have to file restraining orders. J.C. Penney might have tried to sell the XBox 360 premium for $800, although it has been removed and looks bogus to me. One fellow said he ordered the XBox 360 from Sears.com on Thanksgiving Day and he has received it already.

I had a big dilemna this morning: go to work or check out Target? In the end, work won, I need a paycheck for the 360 and the plasma TV. Let me know if you find evidence of second shipments. Nuff said.

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OK, I said before that getting an XBox 360 now is totally not worth it, and anyone with brains would wait a year from now--when Halo 3 is out and they've got bundles at a good price. I should have known my early adopter mania would overwhelm me at the last minute. A few things happened between then and now. I read all the XBox 360 hype on IGN, Gamespot, and Team XBox. I actually played XBox 360 at Circuit City on an HDTV and saw how great the graphics were in action. Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo, and Call of Duty 2 are all top-notch games. In particular, I was blown away by CoD2--I didn't really expect this to look so great, but it does.

And the third thing that happened...suddenly my wife wants to buy a new Plasma TV. Shock follows shock, as Stan Lee used to say. She usually doesn't want to buy things like this. But she wants to do some furniture rearranging and a flat screen TV will make this all work much more smoothly. Whatever the reason, I'll take it!

So what happens to people who didn't pre-order a 360? Unless you got in line today (Monday 3/21) at around 12 noon, you might be screwed. After calling the local stores, I found the following store openings and inventory levels:

• Best Buy: Opens at 8am with 64 consoles
• Wal-Mart: Opens at 7am with ~30 consoles
• Target: Opens at 8am with 16 consoles
• Circuit City: Opens at 10am with 19 consoles

Most of these are the $400 consoles with the hard drive. It would be crappy to be last in line and have only the $300 package to buy. I'll buzz around these places in the morning and see how long the lines are.

Whatever happens, I won't buy the XBox 360 on EBay. No way! I can imagine the prices will go from $500-$1000 in the first two weeks. Nuff said.

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