I’ve been on a pretty serious Wii hunt since Christmas with my younger brother. Our story goes something like this:
December 26th
7:00 AM
Our search begins. We agreed to hit Best Buy at 8am in hopes that they’d have one and also to pick up Gears of War, which they had a sale on. We got over to the West Des Moines store at 8am, right as they opened. I expected to see a line waiting outside to get in, but the parking lot was barren. There wasn’t even a quarter of the number of cars that I see when I stop by as part of my New Release Tuesday lunch. We walked in and searched for anything Wii and we were told they didn’t have any at all… fair enough I suppose. We picked up the Gears of War copies (which they had about a bajillion of), and headed on our way. Just for fun, I decided to call the south side store because I know they tend to sell electronics much slower than the one in West Des Moines. By the time I got through to a video games/media employee, we were bending around rider corner on 80/35. The guy said there was one Wii left. Our conversation went something like this as my foot nailed the accelerator:
“Would you hold it for a buddy?”
“Sorry, we can’t do that.”
“What?”
“We can’t do that.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“We can’t hold merchandise.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, we can’t hold anything.”
“Okay fine… I’m on my way.”
We came up with the plan that I’d let this one go to my brother, with the understanding that we’d both be playing it nonstop anyways. I was never so excited to be going to the south side of Des Moines.
9:00 AM
We arrive at the store, again, parking lot barren. Another car pulled up just as we did… it was a young couple. The guy (who was riding shotgun) hopped out as soon as they parked and made quick strides toward the door, leaving his lady friend behind. This made my little brother and myself nervous, so with some tactical parking lot walking, we managed to cut him off and enter the Best Buy door first. We had no clue about the store layout, but got lucky and ended up heading straight to the appropriate section. No Wiis on the shelf. We found an employee and he already seemed tired of the Wii questions and we were quickly disappointed with the answer we dreaded: “We just sold our last one.” Bust.
On our way back to Ankeny, we tried calling a dozen or so places without any luck (thanks Google Maps for being so awesome in our time of need btw).
December 27th
We took shifts calling places. I had the 8am and 9ams and my brother took the 10ams (there were many more 10ams). No luck. I had a craving for Shot Tower pizza up in Dubuque, so we decided a road trip was in order.
Long story short, we called half the state and the closest we came was one place that got a shipment of Wiis in that morning (the guy nearly gave my brother a heart attack, as he got all excited about the prospect of owning a Wii). Other than that, of the 50+ places we called, only a couple even had controllers (and no remotes, just nunchucks). The road trip wasn’t a total waste though, as we still got to eat the delicious pizza.
December 28th - January 2nd
No luck. And not for lack of trying. We called a lot places and visited a bunch of stores but nobody had any yet. We apparently missed out on a Toys ‘R Us south side shipment on Thursday morning. A buddy even had the opportunity to buy an extra one for me but I was still passed out from the tiring day before and missed the call. Nobody even had controllers during this Wii blackout period.
January 3rd
10:00 AM
I’m reading a bunch of forum posts about Wii availability and none of them looked promising. I stumble across one with some yahoo suggesting that all Targets are getting shipments today. I think to myself that this is unlikely at best, but I sent my brother a text message anyways, telling him to give the Targets a call (by this time, he had a fancy excel spreadsheet of about 30 local retailers with their phone numbers and how to navigate their voice systems). A few minutes pass and I get a phone call from him. Here’s what I remember of the conversation:
Ben: “Merle Hay has 2.”
Me: “Sweet. Anywhere else?”
Ben: “Haven’t called a few yet but I’m going to go to Merle Hay with mom.”
Me: “You think I should go? It is probably about the same time for you and me to get over to Merle Hay.” (I was at work)
Then I hear my mom in the background saying something like “put some pants on!” as he had apparently forgotten one vital element in all the excitement.
We decide that he’s just going to Merle Hay with my mom and that I’ll just be on standby if he finds any other stores in the phone calls he’ll make from the car.
After some thought, I take off for Merle Hay thinking I’ll beat them if he’s only barely awake and needs to find clothes. As I left work I called him and told him that I’m heading there myself. I was a little surprised when he said the Altoona store had 4. He and my mom had changed courses and were headed there. Great. Divide and conquer.
I arrived at the Target store and was walking as quickly as I could walk without drawing attention to the speed at which I was walking to get back to electronics. I got there as the two Target employees seemed to be making fun of video games and the like. I say “seemed to be” because I have no recollection of what I heard, only what I wanted to hear next. I interrupted them and asked about the Wii. The fella answered me and said only moments earlier they had sold out of their last two. Damnit. So close.
As I walked out of the store I relayed the news to my brother, who was by this time on I-80. While I drove back to the office, I helped my mom navigate to the Altoona store and then we hung up after she found it and I waited. And waited. The 5 minutes seemed like forever as I sat at my computer. Finally my brother calls and says that they had literally *just* sold the last two and he even saw the girl who had them walking inside the store. He offered her money but she wasn’t interested. Another bust.
Or was it? 10 minutes later my brother calls again and starts out casually “So, how’s it goin?” I just waited in silence. “Did you want a Wii? Because we’ve got two.” He knows better than to joke with me about something like this. “Mom saw a Gamestop out here and decided to swing by… they had two Wiis left.” I was surprised… on the list of retailers to call, Gamestop was only on there because they supposedly sell them - not because either of us thought they’d ever get any in before 2008. I’m happy we were wrong and that the Wii is totally awesome.
Whew. Here are my thoughts on some of the games I’ve played so far.
Wii Sports is perhaps the best concept/demonstration of any video game system I’ve ever played. Bowling is my favorite, even though we all have a tough time beating my mom (who rolls in the 170’s).
Rayman Raving Rabbids is as fun as the trailer leads you to believe it is. Pretty much nonstop laughter when you’re taking turns playing career mode with a group of friends.
Red Steel is promising but I haven’t really gotten used to the control style yet. Usually I’m pretty accurate at first person shooters but I haven’t been able to quickly shoot enemies as they appear on screen (hopping around corners and whatnot). Hopefully with time this becomes easier. Right now the game is teetering on very fun/super annoying. I hope it falls on the fun side.
Rampage sucks. That is nothing new to the Rampage franchise though.
I just got Zelda but haven’t had a chance to play yet. From the demonstration videos on the Wii kiosks, it looks like it should be pretty sweet.
