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Do You have any midnight launch stories?

Have you ever been to a midnight launch?

  • Total voters
    54
German Shocks

German Shocks

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
I've been to several of them. I went to the midnight launch for Mass Effect 3, Skyrim, the Playstation 4, but the biggest one that stands out to me was when the Nintendo Wii first came out.


At the time my family was on vacation and we went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. One of the biggest stores around was a Target and I didn't want to miss getting a Nintendo Wii, so around 8:00 p.m., my girlfriends mom took me to Target and we were directed to go to the garden area of the store and wait until midnight. The garden area was outdoors and the temperature was freezing. We had to sign a sheet to say we were going to purchase a Nintendo and we were not allowed to leave the store if we were waiting for one.


Finally, at midnight I was able to purchase one. Unfortunately I couldn't open and play my new Nintendo in the cabin we rented, so I had to wait until we were home before I could play it. It was really late by the time we got back but I didn't care. I opened up the Nintendo and powered it on. I remember being wowed by the motion controller and really liked the Wii Sports bowling.
 
Been to plenty, but the one that always stands out was the Halo Reach midnight launch. There was a 1v1 tournament on Halo 3(map was Guardian) and I came out on top.

The prize was the countdown clock for Halo Reach I don't have anymore, but was quite the accomplishment at the time for me.
 
Starcraft 2 midnight launch, massive lineup. I waited 5 or 6 hours. That was probably the last PC game midnight launch.

Tears of the kingdom was the last one I went to, 300+ people.
 
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World of WarCraft: Burning Crusade at my local Media Markt back in 2007 and Wrath of the Lich King at the same Media Markt in 2008. Went there with friends who played as well. Was pretty neat experience. However, in Wrath of the Lich King's case, we went to a pub after getting the game instead of going home immediately to play because we knew from Burning Crusade that the new zones would be fucking swamped with players, and you essentially couldn't do shit.
 
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Best One: Marvel vs Capcom 3, playable on both 360 and 360 booths then we had a Street Fighter Alpha tournament. Some guy won a copy which was cool but showing my age but several of us from the SRK forum met up at the Meyerland GameStop in Houston and talked shit that night.


Last one for me was Red Dead 2 and then went to bed cause it expected me to take 90 minutes to install that shit đź–•
 
fuck-no-robin-williams.gif
 
I went to quite a few back in the day but the most memorable one I have is the GTAIV launch because there was some idiot on the line arguing with people that GTA 1 & 2 didn't exist, and that the series started with GTA3 "because you steal three cars". I'll never forget such confident and raw stupidity on display.
 
I worked at EB games for the launch of the Xbox 360. That night was absolutely magical.

My coworker friends and I RACED HOME to get our stuff connected and play online. We were up until about 5 in the morning playing Perfect Dark and Project Gotham Racing 3.
 
Back in the peak of COD I'm sure I went to both a midnight release and an early morning release. The latter was when supermarkwta decided to get involved and undercut all the competition. Pretty sure we were getting brand new releases for ÂŁ30 or under (possibly by spending ÂŁX in store)
 
German Shocks said:
I've been to several of them. I went to the midnight launch for Mass Effect 3, Skyrim, the Playstation 4, but the biggest one that stands out to me was when the Nintendo Wii first came out.


At the time my family was on vacation and we went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. One of the biggest stores around was a Target and I didn't want to miss getting a Nintendo Wii, so around 8:00 p.m., my girlfriends mom took me to Target and we were directed to go to the garden area of the store and wait until midnight. The garden area was outdoors and the temperature was freezing. We had to sign a sheet to say we were going to purchase a Nintendo and we were not allowed to leave the store if we were waiting for one.


Finally, at midnight I was able to purchase one. Unfortunately I couldn't open and play my new Nintendo in the cabin we rented, so I had to wait until we were home before I could play it. It was really late by the time we got back but I didn't care. I opened up the Nintendo and powered it on. I remember being wowed by the motion controller and really liked the Wii Sports bowling.
Click to expand...
2004 halo 2 it was ok
not midnight but June 2008 launch of mgs4 got the 80 gig PS3 mgs4 bundle
 
I've only been to one midnight launch and that was for RDR2.

All the GameStop employees were dressed for the occasion like cowboys or gunslingers. There were several game stations set up to play and a surprising amount of food. Not too bad.
 
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I've been to a few
  • Halo 3
  • Halo Reach
  • Modern Warfare 2
  • Black Ops
  • Nintendo Switch 2 (Me and my buddy were just bored and had nothing better to do)
This video essentially sums up both my Halo 3 and Halo Reach experiences (even down to having the Halo soundtrack playing in our car on the way there). Me and my buddy went out and got snacks after school, and then we played that game all night. We both had chill moms who would give us a "free sick day" a couple days a year so we both were "sick" from school the next day. I remember playing through the campaign of Halo 3 going back and forth on deaths and then finally going to bed at like 8am, waking up a few hours later, driving to Taco Bell for lunch and coming back to play multiplayer all night until like 2am and then getting like 3-4 hours of sleep before school.
 
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I went to a lot. Even a few that had maybe 2-3 people in line. Big ones were GTAIV, Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops, and Skyrim. I also went to a few midsize launches like MGS4, Mass Effect 2, and Gears of War. Gears of War had a recording from the dev team, which was cool. Final Fantasy XII was neat because most of the guys who worked at that EB were big JRPG fans. You knew it by the Mnt Dew and Advent Children on the TV. One of the last and best JRPG midnight launches I went to.

Skyrim and MW2 felt like they were a block long. I remember standing in line around 10 or so. I worked at EB during GTA and Halo 3. Nothing too crazy. When I got there for Skyrim, there was a student from medical school in line with me. We talked for a bit. That was a long wait. Nothing tops Halo 2. I went there at like 7. Some schoolmates saw me and we drove around for a bit because it was super cold. They dropped me off and now I wasn't the first person anymore in line. Kinda sucks now because some guy and his kids got a Halo pin for waiting in line. EB and GameStop started this 9 PM thing and I went to God of War's 2018 launch. That never felt right because it wasn't midnight.

The most embarrassing one was The Force Unleashed. I called them and asked if I could get a copy. I thought they'd be sold out. I did get Infamous when that came out. That was good because I had watched the G4 Xplay review before going.
 
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The only midnight launch I went to was for the Wii at HMV. Had some celebrities there and then the Wii became a global phenomenon and out of stock. Was glad I went.
 
Only two. The Uk Dreamcast launch. My friend and I are sitting at his house one evening and we both had import Dreamcasts and we were bored and thought let's just go to London because it's happening tonight. We both brought PAL Dreamcasts we didn't need because they were cheap enough, we were there and "Why not?". Actually for me, when I was there I knew I'd be online early enough to guarantee the online Dreamcast username I wanted. Worth it.

And the Wii launch in the UK. The hype was real and I found the one place that were selling them with no preorders first come first served. They had 12 consoles and I was early enough to be in the queue so I just stood there for 5 hours.
 
Closest one I have, was when it was almost impossible to get a Wii. I went to a GameStop and asked them about when their deliveries came, they were kinda vague about it but gave me a rough timeframe that it came once a week. So I sat in the parking lot and watched for the delivery truck for like 2 hours. Sure enough here it comes, then me and a few other guys jumped out of cars and went in. I was cool for a while as the only person with a Wii.
 
Never been to a midnight launch, but I'm not at all the demographic, so that's nothing against them. I don't care for crowds on the best of days, and I have a somewhat extreme aversion to uh.....body odor.....so yeah, I don't think they're for me.

Yes I'm stereotyping gamers, no I'm not wrong. I've been to Pax Prime and a couple fighting game tourneys in my life; a lot of gamers fucking stink like pure shit, present company excluded of course ;)
 
Only one I went to was standing outside a Toys R Us for the Wii. They had limited copies of Zelda but I was able to get one.

People were cool. My launch system had the NAND issue so I had to send it in to Nintendo within that first week. But they kept stock back to handle the returns. So I lost a few hours into Twilight Princess, but they got me squared away.
 
I only ever camped out for the consoles themselves besides for GTA4 and that was purely on accident. I had it pre ordered and knew they were doing a midnight thing for it but wasn't going. Ended up leaving my buddies early since he wasn't feeling well and it was like 12:30am and I was able to get in line when there was like 6 people left waiting to get theres from a long ass line they said they waited in lol
 
For the Halo 3 Xbox 360 console. There was one gamer girl in the Game Stop and she kept trying to give me a Pocky stick from her box of Pocky. I declined, but she kept asking so eventually I said fine and accepted one Pocky stick. I ate it she asked if I liked it. I said yeah it's pretty good. That deaggroed her and the encounter was complete.
 
I worked at gamestation UK so we had loads of midnight openings. Most busy crazy time was cod mw2,insane queues and atmosphere was electric.

My favourite was street fighter IV, let everyone in at like 10pm and had a tournament on a massive plasma in the middle of the shop where some of the best players did knockout stages and whoever got to the final won a free copy of the game on the platform of their choice.
Me and all the staff cosplayed as our favourite characters too! Great times,still got pictures of it somewhere.
 
I was at a GameStop launch party for the Switch 2 and we were waiting outside after midnight in the cold for our turn (we were given numbers to take). While we were waiting outside they had little trivia games to pass the time. I remember winning twice or thrice and getting free rice crispy treats. There was one question I personally thought unfair as it went like this. "How many Eveelution are there?" One person said "8" which is correct. The trivia master told them that the answer was incorrect as Eevee is also an eveelution. That didn't make sense to me and to this day I felt that guy was robbed of his rice crispy treat lol.
 
I tried to get a Wii and stood in line and was the last person before they ran out so I went home and bought one on eBay that someone listed in the wrong section. So I ended up getting it anyway.
 
Xbox 360 midnight launch was awesome. They had cases of Mountain Dew they handed out while people waited for midnight. I think I was the first 360 preorder at my GameStop.

Also did Final Fantasy XII midnight launch. It released on Halloween so they had a costume contest. The place was packed but barely anybody wore a costume, so I won practically by default (50 dollar gift card).
 
The only one I've been to is for the Wii at Walmart.

I was waiting in the PS3 line because they said that they would have some in stock, but it turned out they got like 10. So that same day, the Wii launched and there was a small line forming (it was like 5pm), so I stayed.

However, at midnight, they gave us some coupons to come back the next day at 8am, and the coupon guaranteed you'd get one. It was only like 20 people who got theirs at launch, but they had like 50 more the next day.

I came back at 7:30am, and I got my Wii with Zelda Twilight Princess, second controller, and a carrying case.
 
Not midnight but I rode a bicycle to get Mortal Kombat 2 for SNES.

The ride there took half an hour. The ride back took 1 hour and a half. It was LOTS of uphill riding on the way back.

I was fucking exhausted. I got home and my friends were there. I basically collapsed. They grabbed it out of my hands and ignored me lmfao 🤣🤣🤣

Took me another hour to feel normal and join in the fun. I don't blame them I'd have done the same LOL
 
I remember driving to some store way off in the middle of Yoskhire somewhere for a store called Ramsdens at 1 am to pick up the PS2 at launch. Was a good time.
 
Minnesotan here, Skyrim's midnight release was during a blizzard
(And yes it was worth it.)

Ive also been to the midnight releases for Halo 3, Reach, 4. Gears of War 2, 3.

In recent memory I've gone to the midnight releases for the Switch launch and ToTK (which was the last one I've been to.)
 
MrRibeye said:
On the night the PS3 released, my best buddy and I were waiting in front of the Gamestop which was open at 3AM for the midnight launch sale to pick one up. The police were there with guard dogs to ensure the Gamestop won't get robbed. We then spent the next few days without sleep binging through Motorstorm day and night. Laura is right, nobody does that kind of thing anymore.
Click to expand...
 
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was a big deal back in the day due to how popular CoD4 was.

There was at least 150 people out there in the Indiana snow waiting for it to come out. One of the first people in line to get it, ran out to their mustang, yelled and flipped off all of us in line who were waiting from his window and peeled off from the parking lot. Except there was a cop who was in the alley so he immediately got pulled over and everyone there was crying laughing.
 
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I was in line at the Best Buy in Windsor, ON for the launch of the Xbox 360.

It was the first blizzard of that year and a couple guys brought propane heaters. Cheers to those heroes.

There were - I want to say - 21 units available. I was somewhere toward the end of that list.

We survived the night to see shocked and disappointed adults showing up an hour before opening in utter disbelief that guys in there 20's had stuck it out overnight. The Best Buy Manager gave us tickets so we were in great shape.

It was an incredible launch.
 
I walked into Target and got a Wii two days after it came out (lol) but I appreciate the feeling of the time. The demo kiosks in malls drawing huge attention and the stratospheric hype building up. I actually got worried it wouldn't be so simple to get one and accepted I might be waiting, but lucked out I guess.

Best midnight launch for my personal hype level was Dreamcast at EB. I also showed up for Halo 2 at the same store, which while not as big a deal, had more people and a more interesting experience.

I remember showing up in line outside Toys R Us to get my GameCube, but that was just before they opened in the morning. The whole thing felt kind of lame but I had already owned Rogue Leader for a week and was dying to use the mini disc.

I haven't been to another midnight launch until Switch 2. I planned to just walk into Best Buy during the day to grab my preorder but found myself still fully awake at 11pm and said fuck it. It was interesting to observe the turnout for it in a non-online way, especially in this eco. Full ass parking lot.
 
PS2 had a midnight launch at a local retailer. Mu buddy and I thought we would be early showing up at 9pm and there were at least 50 people in line already. We were not confident the store would have enough units, so se just bailed and picked up units a few weeks later at Target when they were freely available.

In general, I think waiting in line to buy stuff is lame and won't do it. I was only willing because my best friend was into that sort of thing and I wanted to hang out with him.
 
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