I was impressed with the Wii gaming system that my niece and nephew got for Christmas and went looking for one this weekend after Wiis showed up in a Circuit City flier in the Sunday newspaper. In CC's case, they had 33 units per store that get allocated first thing Sunday morning; the store opens at 10, but vouchers are handed out to the first 33 people in line as of 9AM. People then can come back when the store opens and use their voucher until noon.
Best Buy works much the same way, as I understand; you line up when the units go on sale, usually Sunday morning. Sundays are often when store sales periods starts, often meshing with when their fliers go out in the Sunday paper.
There's a problem with that distribution system; it tends to exclude folks who spend Sunday mornings at church. When we have a 9AM first service and a 10:30 Sunday school class, it's impossible for us to work in that setting without blowing off church, and if a gaming system is more important than church, you're priorities are a bit warped.
If you're in a multi-service church without Sunday School classes, you might be able to pull that off, snagging the machine at 10, then hustle over for your 10:30 or 11AM service. It;s even easier for the members of churches with Saturday evening services, leaving Sunday morning free.
The funny thing is, stores may well be doing that on purpose. Who's more likely to be an obsessive gamer, church goers who refuse to play hooky or the rest of the population? Probably the latter. Who's going to be more likely to buy more games for their new system once they purchase them? Probably the latter.
There seems to be a shortage of Wiis, of much longer standing that you usually see in a hot tech item; after a year or so, you'd think that Nintendo would have cranked up production. However, there is no shortage of accessories and games, which the stores will want to maximize sales of. If given the choice between selling to a casual fan who will buy a few games and a rabid fan who'll buy lots of games, your profit-maximizing point will be to find a way to get it in the rabid fan's hands.
Christian gamers can get to Midnight Madness things that launch a lot of new techie stuff, but Sunday morning releases are one way to screen them out, at least with the casual ones who aren't going to screw up their Sunday morning to get one.
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