Winona State University freshman Shane Ferrozzo spent 30 hours at Wal-Mart in Winona to get a Playstation 3.
With a small group of friends, Ferrozzo arrived at the store around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov.15, after leaving class.
“It was fun. (Wal-Mart staff) had us wait in the lawn and garden section,” Ferrozzo said. “They brought in a TV and a DVD player so we could watch movies. We played poker. Eventually they just handed out wristbands and told us to come back. I think they got sick of monitoring everyone.”
“I brought my homework and read most of a 500-page book for one of my classes,” he said. “I heard people at Target had to sleep outside.”
Ten people waited in line for the video game console’s much-anticipated release at 12 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 17. Some had arrived at noon Wednesday.
“It was mostly college kids from Winona, except for these two older guys who were both toy dealers,” Ferrozzo said. “I felt bad when a couple of high school kids showed up Thursday afternoon thinking they’d be first in line.”
Stores around the country saw similar scenes as gamers and EBay entrepreneurs competed to get the first of the PS3’s and, that Sunday, Nov. 19, Nintendo’s new console, the Wii.
crowds in some locations made for a spectacular opening of this year’s pre-holiday shopping season.
In Putnam, Conn., the Worcester Telegram reported a 21-year-old Massachusetts man stumbled into a Wal-Mart at 3 a.m. coughing up blood after he refused to hand over his money to a robber who then shot him in the chest. He received a free Playstation in addition to the three he had gone there to purchase and sell on eBay.
The seventh person in line waiting at Wall-mart on Nov. 17, Ferrozzo left with a “rain check.”
“They told us they had ten (systems), but it turned out they only had four,” he said.
And, as of Wednesday, Nov. 29, he’s still waiting to get one.
The console is available in a basic version with a 20-gigabyte hard drive, but he’s waiting for one of the ‘premium’ systems with a 60-gig drive and wireless internet connection. The 60-gig premium system sells for $599, $100 more than the basic 20-gig unit.
Ferrozzo is far from alone in having to wait for the much-anticipated Sony console.
According to Newsweek, there were 400,000 Playstation 3s available in all of North America on Nov. 17.
Sony has promised to have 1 million available by the end of the year, which will likely come nowhere close to meeting the demand.
In addition to cutting-edge high-performance processors, both versions of the PS3 use Blue-Ray, a new DVD format designed for high-definition television screens, and can be used to watch movies in addition to gaming.
“You can’t get a regular Blue-Ray player for less than $700, so it’s actually a really good deal.” Ferrozzo said.
So, after the wait, what does Ferrozzo plan to do with his new prize?
“I’m going to sell it on eBay,” he said, “I’m really more of an Xbox guy.”
Ferrozzo, a business administration major, has been a fan of the Microsoft console’s Halo series since the ninth grade, but he hopes that high demand for the limited supply of the new Sony systems will reward him for his dedication.
Only one out of the ten people waiting with him at Wal-Mart actually planned to keep their system and play it, Ferrozzo said. Everyone else had the same idea he did.
He said right after it came out, PS3’s were going for $2,000 on eBay, but it’s lowered to $1,000 now.
“I’m hoping things will pick up closer to Christmas,” Ferrozzo said. “I was hoping I could make a thousand dollar profit, but I may end up only making a few hundred,” he said.
So, was it worth the wait?
“I would have done it just to do it,” Ferrozzo said. “There was a real sense of community. Everyone was looking out for each other.... Maybe when the PS4 comes out I’ll do it again.”
Video games have become a major part of American culture in the past few decades since their humble beginnings in the 1970s, when Atari developed a version of their popular arcade tennis game Pong that could be hooked up to a TV and played at home.
A generation of American kids has grown up with electronic gaming ever since the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Mario Brothers introduced them to the magical potential of mushrooms in 1985.
Despite innovations like 3-D graphics and playing with others over the internet, basic game formulas haven’t changed much.
Gamers still like to play virtual sports, go on fantasy adventures, and, of course, fight each other.
Ferrozzo mostly played sports games on his NES and Sega Genesis, then his friends introduced him to Halo, a futuristic first-person shooter, and he traded his original Playstation for an Xbox.
“I’m not an expert,” he says. “My friends always beat me, but it’s fun.”
Jessica Myers, president of the Winona State’s Video Game Club, prefers role-playing games.
“Right now my favorite is Kingdom Hearts 2,” she said. “I’m waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3.”
The video game club hosts 12-hour meetings (“7 p.m. to 7 a.m.”) on Saturdays to play games in the student union, and, according to Myers, the place is packed with about 20 people.
“Gaming is sometimes associated with the ‘antisocial and the unwashed,’ but now everyone plays,” Myers said.
She said the group is organizing an event for finals week, aiming to create a “space where students can relieve themselves from academic stress.”
Myers grew up in a gaming family. Her father has all the systems: Aari, Playstation, Playstation 2, Wolfenstein 3D on the PC, etc.
She points out that gamers have a sense of gaming’s history and classic titles are still around.
“It’s like going back to your roots,” she says, “Mario is a classic icon that’s going to be around forever.”
Myers is a fan of the new Nintendo Wii, which uses motion-sensitive controllers to integrate a player’s physical movements into the game.
“My roommate has one, and the other night we played tennis and bowling until my shoulder hurt,” she said.
Winona State sociology professor Brian Aldrich sees a lot of positive potential in video games, with some possible limitations.
“Before a society uses an innovation, they play with it,” says Aldrich. “Not too far in the future these won’t be games.”
Internet gaming, for example, where players compete and cooperate online helps develop important networking skills, he said.
Players “develop the ability to link up with people of different backgrounds” and work together to achieve goals.
“That’s what you need to do if you work in an international corporation or an NGO (non-government social services organization)” he said. “The best distance education uses that model.”
“Games are lead-ins to very serious forms of work,” Aldrich said. “Games work in a way that’s very close to the scientific method: You’re presented with a situation of uncertainty, and you develop a series of hypotheses, then test each one to see if it’s right. When you do get it right, you’re instantly rewarded, which is what might make it addictive.”
Using sports as an example, Aldrich points out gamers learn a lot more from playing rather than watching other people play.
“Hopefully, no one turns (video games) into a professional sport,” he said.
Incidentally, the 2006 finals in the World Series of Video Games will be held in New York City December 9-11. Prizes include Rolex watches, new computers, trophies, and over $240,000 in prize money. Elsewhere, the Cyberathlete Professional League has announced that its Championship Finals will be held in Dallas, Texas December 16-20. 500 gamers representing 50 countries will compete for “top professional standing,” as well as $150,000 in cash prizes.
A limitation is the difficulty that the game industry has “trying to break out” and expanding its market beyond “a bounded group of young males.”
This might begin to change, but slowly.
With baby-boomers retiring, Aldrich said we might see older men coming back into the gaming world.
Although girls don’t seem to be embracing new technology through games, Aldrich said that “girls will pick it up fast if they need to.”
Myers estimates about 10 to 20 percent of people attending video game club events are female, and most of the group’s officers are female.
“Sometimes nerdy gamer girls think it’s a way to attract nerdy gamer guys,” she says.
Myers feels game companies are trying to attract girls, too, and familiar game franchises like Mario “bring girls in.”
She said game companies, particularly Nintendo, are trying to appeal to previously underrepresented groups by offering more “family” and “party” games and making the gaming experience more personalized.
Controllers for the Wii, for example, store personal data that can be transferred between individual consoles.
“You can make custom characters that look like you,” Myers said. “They’re really trying to see how far they can bring the gamer into the game.”
“It’s definitely a lifestyle now,” she said. “And everything’s pink now, too.”