November 02, 2005 @ 12:43 am

In Search Of An Xbox 360

Preferably the more advanced model with the wireless controller and hard drive, since we have a lot of old Xbox games here at the office that we don't want to just throw in the trash. And don't pay a dime above retail. This Department isn't made of money anymore! As always, should you or any of your GGL force be caught or killed, or arrested for shoplifting, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This MP3 will self-destruct in 15 seconds. A wisp of white smoke floated from my PC - damn, that can't be good for my hard drive! - as I contemplated my mission. Where to start? Why, Google, of course! Within seconds, I understood the impossibility of my assignment. On November 22, Microsoft will be releasing 1.5 million Xbox 360 units, only 800,000 of which will be headed for the U.S. Pre-sales started months ago. Word on the street and various message boards I visited said that even the black market couldn't get their hands on these babies. If your order wasn't in already, your motherboard was fried. There's only one place to turn for stuff you can't find anywhere else, the secret agent's best friend: eBay! Success! There were Xbox 360's listed all over the place! " XBOX 360 in Hand Ready To Ship LOOK," promised one. "Microsoft Xbox 360 Platinum Premium System! No Reserve!!!!!" screamed another. Too easy! I thought warily. And sure enough, when I read the fine-print, the insidious forces of supply and demand at work here became clear. "In Hand, Ready To Ship?" Bah, humbug! All of these listings were "pre-sales." Not one new Xbox would ship until November 22, the official release date for the 360. What these people were selling - at astronomical prices - was simply a chance to jump in front of the line for the privilege of placing an order (and that's assuming they actually ship from Microsoft and arrive on time). The Xbox itself costs $299 no matter who you buy it from. Every dollar over that is just a "convenience charge." I'm sure the black marketeers who hoarded cigarettes and bandages during World War II said the same thing. left And the numbers! Four hundred, five hundred, up to over seven-hundred-dollarbids, all for the basic $299.99 system without so much as a bundled game! So much for eBay. A quick Google search for online retailers didn't help either. Toys R Us (which markets online through Amazon.com) wasn't taking pre-orders. Ditto for CompUSA. How about a miracle on 34th Street? Nope - Macys.com didn't even have the Xbox 360 listed. Undeterred, I remembered my family motto: when the going gets weird, the weird get shopping. I was in Manhattan after all, the Mecca of discount electronics. Nobody pays retail in New York City, ever, for anything! And so I was off! I figured I'd start with the little guys first and work my way up to the mega-discount houses. First stop: P.C. Richards on East 14th Street. With the demise of Crazy Eddy and The Wiz, it's one of New York's last family-owned electronics chains. My salesperson Derick flashed a big Cheshire grin when I told him what I was looking for, even as he started shaking his head. "I put one on reserve myself the day I started working here," he explained. "But the first shipment was already filled, so I was on the waiting list. ''So when they coming in?' I asked. ''Who knows?' they told me. December? February? Nobody in the whole store had a clue. So I took mine off reserve and got myself a PSP system. I don't need that kind of aggravation!" Undeterred, I headed further downtown. I stopped in every electronics store between 14th Street and Ground Zero. They politely shooed me away at one, openly guffawed at another. At some tiny place on Canal Street that didn't even have a name on the door, a pockmarked teenager blowing Winston smoke in my face told me to come back after Christmas and maybe - nudge nudge, wink wink - he could hook me up for the right price. At J&R, the electronics giant that occupies an entire city street of discount stores on Park Row, I had my first whiff of possibility. Lee, a chubby Chinese-American, looked up from his cash register long enough to tell me, "We don't do pre-sales. It'll be first-come, first-serve on the day they get here." Eureka! I thought. "But I gotta tell ya," Lee added. "They're bundling them with games. You can't just buy the console. So I can't even tell you right now what they're gonna cost. And we don't know yet how many we're gonna have." Drat! Foiled again! I was about to give up my assignment, call in and admit defeat, when a mysterious stranger in a black Brooklyn Rules hoodie bumped into me. "Circuit City," he whispered into my ear. I turned to thank him but he was gone. I raced back to 14th Street, to the multi-floor megaplex in Union Square, where I found a helpful salesclerk named James. "Yeah, that's right," he said. "We don't do pre-orders. We'll have a couple of hundred of them and as long as you're first in line on November 22, you get one. But I gotta tell ya, they're gonna fly out of here. Get here early." There's a giant NYU dorm within a hundred yards of Circuit City; several more within a few blocks. A vision flashed before my eyes: An endless tent city of desperate post-adolescent Xbox freaks camped out for days, maybe even weeks, snaking along the length of East 14th Street, waiting, waiting, waiting for their chance to blow $300 on a new toy. It's not a pretty thought. But at least it's not impossible.

Article tags: Vibe Game Club, Xbox 360 

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