Boston nixes midnight sale of PlayStations
Hundreds of soggy videogame buffs were sent home by Boston police today after waiting for hours in front of the Best Buy electronics store in Boston's Fenway neighborhood. The gamers had been hoping to be among the first to own Sony Corp.'s new PlayStation 3 videogame console, which the Best Buy store had promised to begin selling at midnight.
But somebody at Best Buy hadn't filled out the proper paperwork. Boston requires retailers to get a special permit before holding special midnight sales. This gives the city a chance to arrange for police protection and traffic control. "It's a public safety issue," said Dot Joyce, press secretary to Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
Game fans had begun camping out in front of the store last night. By this afternoon, the crowd had swollen to several hundred, and was obstructing the sidewalk outside the Landmark Center complex that houses the Best Buy store. Joyce said the city responded to complaints about the crowd from area residents, and ordered the Best Buy store to cancel the midnight sale. To mollify the crowd, Best Buy employees passed out rain checks to the first 100 people in line, saving their spots until the store re-opens legally at 8 a.m. tomorrow.
In a statement from its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Best Buy backed the city's decision to shut down the sale. "When authorities feel they have to step in and help with a situation outside of our store, we are fully supportive of their actions," the company said. The statement also expressed regret that it had so few PlayStation 3 machines to offer customers. "We are overwhelmed by the enthusiastic anticipation of the new gaming system," the statement said.
Indeed, Sony officials have said that they expect to deliver only about 400,000 PlayStation 3 machines to the US during its first weekend on sale here. The company had fewer than 100,000 for its Japanese customers when the machine went on sale there last weekend; they were all sold by Sunday.
There were long lines at Wal-Mart stores in Raynham and Salem, N.H., which both planned to start selling the new PlayStation at midnight. But because both stores are normally open 24 hours a day, they didn't need special permits. But don't grab your coat and rush out to those stores -- so many people are already in line that late arrivals have little chance of getting a machine.
(By Hiawatha Bray, Globe staff)
