One of the managers at Gamestop tipped us off about the behind the scenes working of the PS3 reservations. After last year’s fiasco with over reserving Xbox 360s Gamestop wants to be more on the cautious side. Each store was given a very limited number of PS3s somewhere between 4 and 16 units were available to reserve. If you were lucky enough to get a ticket you have to hope that Sony has no further manufacturing problems. Systems will be given out in the order of you reserved them so if you’re number 16 and all of the sudden less blu ray lasers are made you’re out of luck. Gamestop employees had to wait in line to buy a system too and only two employees per store are allowed to get a system at launch. Think that’s bad? Gamecrazy stores are getting even less, single digit numbers of PS3s are at each store and a lot of stores have been reserving them since the Xbox 360 launch.
We also have a list of Playstation 3 titles direct from Gamestop which sheds some light on what you’re going to be able to buy on day one. Resistance: Fall of Man, Genji: Days of the Blade, Ridge Racer 7, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and F.E.A.R. are considered launch titles priced at $59.99. Anything dated on the official list before November 17 is considered a launch title. The list also marks which games are online compatible with OLC. Blazing Angels, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Madden 2007 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 are the online compatible launch titles.
Now for the big rumor: When the Wii preorders are beginning. We were told that they will be happening, “sometime really soon.” Gamestop already has a date in mind and shipment numbers per store have been allocated. More specifically, the employee said “call on Wednesday night or Thursday morning.”
Update 1: G4 has a funny story with Jeremy "Po1ar" Hoffmann from Cheat camping overnight in Culver City, CA to get his PS3 reservation.
Published: Oct 10, 2006 11:07 am