News: XBox launch... Seen Anything?
Posted 14 Mar 2002 at 15:46 by Tim Symons
The Xbox has been launched! Have you seen the xbox flow over the counter? Have you seen stores piled with the Xbox because nobody is buying them? Have you seen anything? E-mail us because we want to know how the Xbox is doing!
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Received Stories:
Anonymous:
You will not belive my story for this is a testemony of a true Nintendo gamer but here goes anyway, if you live in London you are aware of the teacher strike so my school was closed for today and on my birthday as well :). So my brother gives me �30 and I told my dad to take me to HMV so I can buy Advance Wars but my mum said she'll come with us which was wierd. On our arrival there was a big poster with the X-BOX and I remembered it launched today, so I went to the GBA section, got my game and went to the till but on my way there I saw three people with the X-BOX leaving the store and at the front of the queue I saw my mum buying the X-BOX, if I was the devil I would have raised hell at that piont. I ran at the speed of light and just grabed my mum out the queue. My mum nearly sinned infront of the eyes of GamCube God, may he have mercy on her. So my mum is now going to buy me the 'cube when if comes out and since it's cheaper than the box I will have the choice of three games plus a �150 I saved for the 'cube months ago. My loyalty to the 'cube has been rewarded :).
Gunnar:
Hi. Here in Norway it looks like the xbox i going down! My local gamestore havent got any games yet . Very good Microsoft!
Angrist, AKA Stephan Moed:
Hi! Before I went to school this morning, I wanted to see if there were any people actually waiting in front of stores to get an X-Box. Nobody. When I bought Golden Sun later that day, it didn't look like many X-Boxes had been sold.
Yesterday I asked a salesman of Bart Smit (the most popular toy-store in Holland) if he thought the launch would be a succes. He told me he wasn't sure, but that they had more reservations for GameCube than for X-Box!
Angrist, AKA Stephan Moed
Holland.
Anonymous:
After a long hard check around the shops every x-box is still on the shelf, waiting to be sold
James Hacket:
I do have a story to tell. I live in a place called wagga wagga in Australia, the xbox did launch here today. But one interesting thing is that people actually lined up last night in places in sydney to be the first to get them, but at my local Big W store we've been selling then since monday. The quite amusing fact was that today (launch day) i was working on my register as normal when people were taking pictures infont of a working xbox unit when suddenly the fucking thing froze up. It took them over 20min to get it started again, it was funny as fuck. The kept hitting and pushing power, changing the games, they even tried a different power point. All i could do was stand there and laugh. I tell you today was a great day in the video game industry, they day everyone learns how bad microsoft really is.
Billy Moore:
When I got out of school today I went straight to my Retravision (a electronics/computers store chain in Australia) to see if they had a XBOX on display (and see if it is really as huge as everyone says). Well they didn't. Not only that but they also had a PS2 displayed instead (how ironic). I didn't bother asking them why they don't have one because I really wasn't interested in buying one. Next I decided to go to Target, they have some Video Game stuff there but then again they had no XBOX's. Next Stop: Toyworld. They usually have lots of Nintendo and Sony stuff there (and even some unsold Atari Lynx games) and again they had no XBOX's. Last Stop: Harvey Norman (another large electronics/computer store here). Even though they announced that they were not going to sell XBOX units I decided to go anyways. Surprisingly, they still sold XBOX games (from EA). I know that it may not be important to you but when I had seen the DC and PS2 launches and they had at least one unit available here (for people who don't know, the Dreamcast launch was a disaster in Australia but at least they had gotten one unit available for sale here). Microsoft really screwed things up for the XBOX here, they didn't even bother to get one unit here which is pretty pathetic.
Jussi from Finland:
Last night Microsft held a big launch party in one of Helsinki�s department stores and they satrted to sell xboxes just after midnight but only 10 people showed up to buy it( 500 xboxes were avalable). Not the greatest succes then, it makes me laugh. Roll on may and let the Gamecube beat xbox hands down.
Anonymous:
Hmm... I am a aussie. My local Tunzagamez(tm) has barely any pre-orders and now that it is realised there has only sold 4 copies. Yet, if you look at the gcn pre-orders listed. I mean they have 2 pages and a half of pre-orders. Luckily I am in the 7th pre-orderer listed. Which means I'll get a large selections. My local Tunzagamez also has an XBox up and running and the controller isn't bad. But I think a giant would have better luck using it than I!! I tryed it and here are my conclusions. The D-Pad is not a D-Pad it is a black square. The anologs are fine. But the buttons are small and are squished together. All I recomend an XBox for is Die-Hard Microsoft Fans and/or Sega fans who just can't learn to love the systems they rivaled for so many years. Yet SA2Battle is a launch and PSO is coming out on GCN first. (I've even heard rumors that it will have a modem included, like Pokemon Stadium and the Transfer Pak).
Anonymous:
The X-Box has finally launched. Now this isn't some letter about how I'd rather use it as a toilet than a console but rather a mere letter on what has happened on this day(13th Mar). Now I like to know what's going on on any console; even though in the end I will always buy the Nintendo related one I like to see what the competition has in store. Anyway I remembered the launch date of the X-Box about a month ago and I thought that it would be
like the Playstation 2's launch, you know, news on the TV about it, happy faces getting their PS2, that sort of thing. I went to school and on the bus there in the morning I heard an ad, it said "The X-Box has launched at Big W(a shop) pick up yours now." After hearing this ad in my mind I replied the only way I felt replying, "oh; it's launched". After that I didn't hear one thing on any form of media or through any people's conversations. What I'm trying to say is that to me it doesn't seem that anyone cares. When the PS2 came out it was very exciting, the demo consoles at video game stores, people talking about it, but with the X-Box(which I have played on a demo console too) it just looks like no one can be bothered with it and with that in mind 2 months to go until I get my Gamecube will be a piece of cake.
The overall message is rather clear... the Xbox is not doing very well yet... We will post some more stories later today!