Sony PS3: On the Streets

Matt Stone (of South Park fame) and Bill Gates look-a-likes rocking out on the PS3 line. (I kid, these two guys were awesome!)

The news from the streets is that people are online for their PlayStation3's EVERYWHERE. Every major technology blog has photos and reports from the streets. Personally I think its a little out of control! Sure, Sony is getting a lot of publicity out of it, but I just can't believe that people are on the streets camping for days and hour to try and get one of these things.

Sure, I have the luxury of working for a gaming news site that allows me to get a chance to play the thing. And yes it is cool, but is it cool enough to go out and sit on the street for? I mean, its only a little bit better than an XBox 360 right?

All this means of course that I have to go down to the Sony store and take pictures of people myself!

First off, Game Daily/AOL Games is not far from the Sony store on 55th and Madison here in Manhattan, New York City. So I mosey on down there and the first thing I see is a bunch of people stare at NBA2K7

For anyone who doesn't know, thats the Sony store. The lady on the right not so into the scene.

Next thing, I am just walking down the block on my hunt for the front of the line! Its underneath all these brown columns and the kids are starting to look pretty grim.

These guys don't really look like gamers? Ah well, to each their own.

Next thing I do is head around the corner to get a feel for the scope of this line. I can tell already the thing is out of control!

While Sony appears to have dropped the ball on a ton of this launch, they have been very gracious to the kids on line. They have been bringing out coffee, donuts and sandwiches pretty regularly. Not bad, not bad at all.

This is a shot of the PS3 line just out from underneath the awning of the Sony building. They are all getting prepared for the possible rain that was coming. As I was turning the corner a fresh set of tarp was being fastened to the barriers. These people are very serious about their PS3

This guy his name is John, he was my main man with regards to the hygiene status of the line. He let me know that they used the bathrooms within the Sony building atrium and the Apple Store. The Apple store is about 2 blocks away. It looks like John needed to hit the road just as I snapped this one.

Not everyone was happy with my being there. They sort of knew that I was just fooling around with their hardcore gamer status. My boy here throws me the finger. Maybe he was just pissed the the New York Giants lost this week? Also, there were some sketchy cats there, I mean, look at the guy with the garbage bag on his head? What is up?

After getting the single finger salute, I ask the gamers for their "I got the PS3" victory cheer. Without a prompt from me, everyone went to the three finger "wess-siide" gangsta hand signal. Good for them! I loved every second of it. Hey, look at that! Garbage bag head man woke up for that one.


One thing I knew was important was to make sure I got a shot inside the tents. These makeshift homes were housing our super gamer groups.
You can sort of see how far this thing goes. It was about a half a block long and people were just hanging out in there. Thing is, after a couple days, what kind of funk was going on?

I was really in there with the gamers when I realized all these in close photos aren't going to give anyone the scale of how many people there were out there. This shot is from 55th street on the corner of 5th avenue looking down towards Madison avenue. If you can see down on the left side of the picture there brown building with the curved glass portion, that is the Sony building. If you can see the square columns on the far corner, people are under those things waiting to get in. That is where the front of the line is. Full disclose, the line actually goes a few feet past where the picture is taken from and was starting down Fifth avenue. CRAZY!
Like I was saying, this line went around to Fifth avenue. All these people here were the people that had arrived today in the morning. No one here had any guarantees that they were going to get PS3. They were just on the line hoping....


These people were the "Mr and Ms. Irrelevant" of the line at 2PM. For those of you who don't know what that means, in the NFL draft, Mr. Irrelevant is the last man drafted. These two really had a lot of hope. I didn't have the heart to tell them there weren't one of the chosen "400"

Here is the summary of my trip on the line for PS3. People seemed in good spirits and the people I talked to were gamers who were planning to keep the machines if they got them. While the very front of the line didn't seem like a legitimate group of gamers the vast majority were the hardcore. I was quite happy talking to the group and everyone was very friendly. Everyone did have the same complaints; 1. People were concerned with people jumping the line. Many perceived that they were getting hosed by line jumping. 2. Folks were lacking information. They didn't seem to know what the cutoff point was and everyone seemed to believe they were in the blessed "400" Everyone pressed me if I knew what the process was going be and what Sony's party line was. I just didn't have information for them.

I have a few more pictures and I will add them later.