To Pre or not to Pre? A Tale of One Xbox

To Pre or not to Pre?

I saw a commercial for Assassin’s Creed IV and facepalmed myself for not preordering my copy on the Xbox 360. I’m a sucker for pre-order goodies and I thought my time had passed.  It then dawned on me that I could get an Xbox One and play it on the next generation console with all the trimmings. Then I performed a double facepalm because I didn’t even preorder a console. I hopped on line, curious as to what the price would be to pay a tithe to the eBay gods. After the initial chuckle that came from $2,000 could get you a $500 system, I reached out to  a friend, Kyle, as he is much savvier about these things, to let him know that I was in the market for a console.

Text and Run

It was the very next day that I got a text from Kyle stating “Time Sensitive”. I gave him a buzz and found out that GameStop had announced very limited number of units available. Swiftly thanking him and calling my local store in Virginia, I was told that reservations could not be done over the phone. Lucky for me, there is a store close by my office in DC. When I called that store I was told that, yes, they did have pre-orders available but I should get there immediately, I took my lunch hour to rush over to put my deposit down. I asked for a Day One edition to which I was pleasantly surprised to hear was readily available for a pre-sale.

Finalization

Fast forward to last Wednesday and I have a text in my inbox telling me that I could come finalize payment for the console on 11/21. I left work and got to the store in time to pay off the remaining amount and pick up my copy of Assassin’s Creed for X1. Aimee, the nice lady behind the counter, handed me the green plastic box that held Assassin’s Creed IV. She then told me, “Lucky you! You get to look at the box until you come back tonight. Get here by 11:30 because we’ll have some cool swag!”

Return to pick up

I got home and proceeded to pace for the next few hours. Jumped in the car at 11 and got to the store a little bit before 11:30. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed two police cars in front of the store.  At 11:45, they asked us all to stand outside the store in our assigned order (My Roster Number was 12). I got a chance to chat with some of the players in line, one decked out in as much X1 swag as he could put on. Some were there with their copies of Ryse, others with Madden or NBA just waiting for their turn inside to get a black bag with their name on it and a console inside. 12:00 came around and I saw the first person walk in. 2 minutes later, there was a one cheer of “Hey! There’s the first Xbox One!” and another “Hey! There he is, go get him!” As I neared the door, I saw the door was being guarded by one GameStop employee that was checking receipts and a Policeman letting us in one at a time. The cop asked one of the customers ahead of me if he was parked close by. The customer said no and that he had parked a few streets over. Another person in the line said, “Hey, I’m parked right here. I can give you a ride to your car.” After a brief time, it was finally my turn. In the span of 3 minutes, I walked in, picked up my console then proceeded through the receipt check. I looked back at the line that was now 20 deep as I pulled out towards home and smiled.