Post by .Bunk. on Mar 22, 2007 9:14:42 GMT -5
Player Two: Good Wii Hunting? One Father's Desperate Search For Nintendo's New Toy
At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. We've often discussed games with our colleague David Noonan, Newsweek's senior editor for Health & Medicine. So when he casually mentioned his struggle to procure a Nintendo Wii for his sons, we asked him to blog about it, and he graciously agreed. Here is his story:
With two sons, now 16 and 19, I consider myself a savvy veteran of the annual holiday gotta-have-it gift wars. One soggy Christmas Eve in the early '90s--after days spent scouring what seemed like every toy store in Southern California--I purchased black market Mighty Morphin Power Ranger action figures out of the back of a beat-up van parked in an abandoned gas station in Burbank. I didn't dare ask the guy how he came to possess a truckload of the precious objects; clearly he was part of a sinister toy smuggling operation that wouldn't hesitate to ice a too-curious dad. More recently, I went on eBay and paid more than $100 over retail for a Nintendo Gamecube when that now-dated system was at the top of the boys' Christmas list. (They're good kids, they study hard and my wife and I think they deserve a little special attention now and then. Especially around the holidays.)
So I wasn't too concerned when I found out in mid-November that the Nintendo Wii was this year's must-have in our house. For one thing, the list price of $250 seemed reasonable. My first idea was to hit our local game store early, before Thanksgiving, and pick one off before the real mania took hold. Yeah, right. My second idea--which, come to think of it, wasn't much of an idea at all--was to call around to a bunch of other stores within 30 miles or so of our New Jersey home. Strikes two through eight. My third idea was to buy one on eBay. But prices were running higher then I expected--well over $400 with shipping. A few years ago, I would have paid the premium gladly to ensure the kids that whole Christmas morning experience. But now that they were older--one's in college, for God's sake--I didn't feel the sense of urgency I once did. So I leveled with them and explained the situation. I promised to keep searching but warned them that the Wii might not be under the tree. It wasn't.
We all assumed that by the end of December the cool white boxes would be as easy to find as half-price Christmas cards. Wrong again. We are now three weeks into the New Year and still no Wii. The piece of paper with the list of stores and their phone numbers is floating around the house, but we don't bother with it much anymore. When my oldest popped into Nintendo's flagship store in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center last week, he was told there would be units available...in March. A month ago I figured we were caught in some sort of global marketing strategy--create demand by limiting availability before Christmas and Hanukkah. It was annoying, but what the hell; that's the way the industry works. Now, it feels like good old-fashioned corporate incompetence, with a healthy dash of contempt. I'm sure that eventually we'll end up with a Wii and it will be everything the boys expect it to be. But Nintendo should know that this is a crappy way to treat its loyal fans.
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At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. We've often discussed games with our colleague David Noonan, Newsweek's senior editor for Health & Medicine. So when he casually mentioned his struggle to procure a Nintendo Wii for his sons, we asked him to blog about it, and he graciously agreed. Here is his story:
With two sons, now 16 and 19, I consider myself a savvy veteran of the annual holiday gotta-have-it gift wars. One soggy Christmas Eve in the early '90s--after days spent scouring what seemed like every toy store in Southern California--I purchased black market Mighty Morphin Power Ranger action figures out of the back of a beat-up van parked in an abandoned gas station in Burbank. I didn't dare ask the guy how he came to possess a truckload of the precious objects; clearly he was part of a sinister toy smuggling operation that wouldn't hesitate to ice a too-curious dad. More recently, I went on eBay and paid more than $100 over retail for a Nintendo Gamecube when that now-dated system was at the top of the boys' Christmas list. (They're good kids, they study hard and my wife and I think they deserve a little special attention now and then. Especially around the holidays.)
So I wasn't too concerned when I found out in mid-November that the Nintendo Wii was this year's must-have in our house. For one thing, the list price of $250 seemed reasonable. My first idea was to hit our local game store early, before Thanksgiving, and pick one off before the real mania took hold. Yeah, right. My second idea--which, come to think of it, wasn't much of an idea at all--was to call around to a bunch of other stores within 30 miles or so of our New Jersey home. Strikes two through eight. My third idea was to buy one on eBay. But prices were running higher then I expected--well over $400 with shipping. A few years ago, I would have paid the premium gladly to ensure the kids that whole Christmas morning experience. But now that they were older--one's in college, for God's sake--I didn't feel the sense of urgency I once did. So I leveled with them and explained the situation. I promised to keep searching but warned them that the Wii might not be under the tree. It wasn't.
We all assumed that by the end of December the cool white boxes would be as easy to find as half-price Christmas cards. Wrong again. We are now three weeks into the New Year and still no Wii. The piece of paper with the list of stores and their phone numbers is floating around the house, but we don't bother with it much anymore. When my oldest popped into Nintendo's flagship store in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center last week, he was told there would be units available...in March. A month ago I figured we were caught in some sort of global marketing strategy--create demand by limiting availability before Christmas and Hanukkah. It was annoying, but what the hell; that's the way the industry works. Now, it feels like good old-fashioned corporate incompetence, with a healthy dash of contempt. I'm sure that eventually we'll end up with a Wii and it will be everything the boys expect it to be. But Nintendo should know that this is a crappy way to treat its loyal fans.
*
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TrackBack URL: ncroal.talk.newsweek.com/utility/tb/?id=441196