Three weeks ago I started to feel the excitement of the media firing up the masses for the release of Sony’s newest console, the Playstation 3. Not only did we know that the system was going to be popular it was topped off by the fact that the limited amount of them made was going to make obtaining one near impossible. My long time friend Ace informed me that he would be going a full day in advance. While this seemed like insufficient time compared to most areas, we are in a moderately sized area thus we would not be a swamped as the very large cities.

After seeing and hearing people discussing going even earlier we began planning our long stay in line, it was decided that 24 hours were obviously not enough. I arranged to have somebody cover my hands on work while I would use my work phone and laptop to perform service for anyone who needed me that day. We made plans to go to the local Wal-Mart at 6 pm Wednesday. We kept in constant contact and made many calls between Ace, myself and my brother Mike.

I worked quickly that Wednesday morning so that I would be ready to jump in line at a moments notice. I was confident that we would be ok. One call shot that idea right out of the sky. At 9am I received a call from my sister who stopped to get coffee before her psychology class. She informed me that four people were already in line and that she was going to skip class to hold a spot but she didn’t have anyone with her to secure my brothers spot. I quickly called my childhood friend Jeff, he jumped out of bed threw on his cloths and drove 45 minutes to go to my sisters aid.

At 2 pm I went and swapped out with my sister and my brother came shortly after. We were met with a group of five other people, three of which had been waiting for since 10pm Tuesday night. We quickly began to get to know each other and became a very unlikely group of allies. The fist spot in line went to two people splitting a PS3, Shell (the marine) and Paulie (a restaurant manager). Next Paul and his girlfriend Amanda ( another restaurant manager and an employee at finish line). After that a law student named Bill. Then me, Zack (head of security for an electronics company) and my brother Mike (high school student) Last but not least Adam a student in college. Ace had decided to line up at the local Circuit City instead. I decided to make a sign in list so that if anything happened we as well as Wal-Mart would know who came, when, and what position in line they held. It worked really well.

Not long after the line up we met a girl from Sony who asked us a few questions and informed us that there were definitely enough PS3s for those of us who were currently in line. Needless to say we were pretty happy. As evening set in we eventually got to talk with more and more staff employees all of whom treated us great. The night went on and we kept ourselves busy by watching cheap movies that we had purchased right there in the very Wal-Mart we had lined up in lol. We watched Rocky 4 and quoted the lines as we went.

One of our group who will remain unidentified decided that it would be funny to call other stores electronic departments to see if they had the "New Sony Game Box". Chaos quickly followed as customer service went insane trying to locate a system with the following.

1. A 5,000 Gigbit PC chip.

2. The Real Shock controller.

3. The launch title Drum Hero.

4. Green-Ray Disc Player

5. and last but not least the special edition "Rainbow Game Box" which was produced for those with um……. Alternate lifestyles LOL.

The reactions to these calls ranged anywhere from confusion, to anger, to laughing so hard that they couldn’t hold the phone up. All of these were on videotape as well lol they should be on youtube.com later this week under the title "Sony Game Box".

The night turned to morning and at 6am we met our new arch enemy, the day manager of Wal-Mart. Her first order of business was to make us move our line from the back of the store to the bus lane our front of the building ………. In the rain. After moving out into the monsoon she dropped the bomb. She told us that they would only be giving out 4 Playstations instead of the 6 we were promised the day before. We immediately grew suspicious and asked a friend who worked the stockroom to check on the shipment. This person told us that they felt the lower number was because Wal-Mart employees were attempting to take them for themselves. This was pretty upsetting.

When we asked why the number had been changed and why sony would tell us 6 while they only had 4, we were given the following answer "I don’t care what you were told, Im giving out four, listen my grand kid wants one of these and I cant even get one." I cry bull lol.

Something wasn’t right, and luckily Bill our law student took charge. He began to call every Wal-Mart within 5 hours drive time to see how many they were giving out as well as all the distribution centers. After being informed that that they were all getting the right numbers and we were not Bill was more fired up than ever. He called the Corporate Headquarters and proceeded to go to war with more legal babble than I have ever heard in my life. Moments later we gained our first victory. The office called our Wal-Mart and had them move us from the rain into the stores greenhouse so we would be out of the horrible weather.

After 3 hours on the phone Bill wasn’t satisfied with all the maybes and ifs. I suggested we contact Sony. Bill once again went into action, the calls went on and on for hours until finally Sony informed us that they would take care of everything.

More time went by and finally at 6pm Thursday a Wal-Mart employee came and informed us that they not only our 6 60GB units but 4 additional 20 GB units for all the trouble. They also guaranteed the next 10 people in line a slip for a PS3 BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

We had won thanks to Bills amazing performance and determination. The next 6 hours went by pretty quickly. Things were pretty great until we were informed that a large number of troublemakers were starting problems outside the store and at the other stores in the plaza. The police were called in but we weren’t taking any chances after so much time in line. We called up whatever big tough friends we could muster but honestly with a marine sitting next to us I wasn’t very concerned.

12 :01 am Friday Victory! We were escorted by security to the back of the store where we were sold our units one by one called from the list I had made. We all congratulated each person who came from the register, and then it was Bills turn. He walked up to the register and the entire line erupted into applause and cheers. More than any of us Bill deserved this. Because of him we all walked away with what we came for, and a lot more.

A few of us were interviewed by the news as we left the store and while many things were said few were as cool as the comments made by Paul. When asked about his experience he replied by saying that he didn’t even care that he got his PS3 because the friends he made in those short few days were some of the best he’s had in his life. The rest of us echoed these remarks. We stood as a united group, never arguing never questioning each other, even showing how happy we were for those of us who would have got a PS3 even after the fake news of only having 4 units.

This has been an experience that I will never forget. Through ups, downs, and everything in between we made some really good friends and had a lot of fun. To top it all off we got to score one for the little guys, kicking a huge companies butt for hours on end until we got what we wanted. To quote Paulie, "We stood as a united front, looking out for each other even when it meant some of us would have walked away empty handed."

A Marine, two managers, a girlfriend, a law student, a security tech, and student, and a collegiate.

Knightmare13