Black Friday horror stories

Not exactly horror, but the morning line still progressing at 5 at noon at best buy.

i saw this one huy hold a sign that said "will suck dick for gow"

I work at the Circuit City in South Portland, Maine and I witnessed a mob of people tear into one of our endcaps in an attempt to scrounge as many $49 Game Boy SPs as they could. Someone even ripped out our DS download station thinking it might contain some sort of handheld gaming device. My own life was put in jeopardy when I had to restock said endcap. It was not unlike feeding seagulls at the beach.

On a more positive note, we sold a boatload of 360s today. We had an offer going where you got a free game of choice (up to $59) with every system purchase. It definitely seemed to go over big.

I also had to reset our PS3 interactive three times today because it kept locking up. And it's less than a week old. The general consensus in the retail world is that people seem to be more than happy getting a 360 over a PS3. I even overheard a guy say, "Shit, the 360 looks better than this!" while his buddy was playing the PS3 (which froze up on him shortly thereafter).

I work loss prevention at Best Buy in Humble TX. Before we even opened the store we had a streetcorner preacher in line and 2 guys arrested for wrestling. Oh... and they were wearing luchador masks. They weren't in line... they just wanted to put on a show. Unfortunately their wrestling was for real, not a coreographed show, so all it did was get them some shiney silver bracelets.

Cruised over to Best Buy just before noon, navigated around slow moving shoppers hunting for bargains, picked up an Xbox Live Vision camera, wireless headset, Viva Pinata and a 2 gig SD card for the Wii, bypassed the massive lines infront of the main cashiers by using an impromptu station in the middle of the store and left without much fuss.

Gruesome! Although except for the SD card, none of the stuff I bought (even in other stores) was on sale. Also got a memory card adapter for the PS3. I'm an equal opportunity gamer, not one of those Wii60 folks.

I, personally stay in every year only going out for necessary bags of cheetos and pop-tarts. However, my friend went out to Wal-Mart to snatch up one of those $300 32" HDTVs they had on sale. Upon opening the door the entire line flooded through the door and a woman fell to the floor, being trampled by a few people stepping over her back with her child crying next to her. He, being a good Samaritan and an aspiring law-enforcement officer, stepped back to help her up. She was worried about him not getting an HDTV and he was only concerned for their well being. Needless to say, the 7 HDTVs they had in stock were gone in mere seconds after the rush, but the fact that that woman was nearly trampled was a travesty.

Another story I personally experienced today was some total slaughter on Gears of War.

My grandma tells me that she walked in to Gamestop today around 10 am and they had 2 PS3's in...and she didn't buy one.....the horror! "I tried calling you but your cell phone was off!"

I won't be able to sleep now.

I saw a elderly lady get elbowed in the face, by some young punk! Who was after a Wii. After seeing this act of violence, some other customers and I helped her up and made sure she was OK. She also was there to get a Wii for a grandson. My friend who also helped her up proceeded to chase this guy down, only to knock his lights out! He never got his Wii. >:) We then tell her about the 360 and how her grandson would probably love it just as much, but we all know much better. :) She took our advice and purchased one of the last remaining 360's.

Crazy stories... I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Quebec. I went to my local Futureshop cause they had a nice deal for a 360 with 4 or 5 games for free. Funny thing was, the store wasn't crazy busy, no lines, no gaming craziness and get this, about 15-20 Wiis and no one touching them. No PS3s though. I'm happy with my 360, I got a 20" LCD monitor to go with it so yah, quite happy.

Sorry, that's canada... hope none of my fellow Canadians are reading, lmao

i work at best buy.. and needless to say being at work at 3am sucked. not was really off too bad this year other then watching people freak out when we had some PS3's delivered at like 10am. one big guy threatened a supervisor.. that was funny.

The PS3 at the Best Buy in Pineville, NC (just outside Charlotte) was NOT EVEN WORKING when I went by there today. I asked one of the salesdroids about it and he just shrugged.

I tried to stay up as late as possible on Thursday so I would wake up late. My wife got up in the morning and told me it was 7:15. I told her my plan worked. Then she said just kidding, it's 6:15. DANG IT! EB Games is opening at 7am! I couldn't fall back asleep (only seconds had passed) so I put on some clothes and a hat and went over to the EB Games. The Wal-Mart parking lot overflowed into the Stapes parking with just a small sliver infront of the EB Games open. The Radio Shack nextdoor was probably just as packed as Wal-Mart. I waited in line with a couple of drunk kids and some woman who didn't want to be late for work but enjoyed laughing at the wasted idiot, but we were still about 15 people back. A girl in the front said they gave away all the Wii flyers but everyone else thought it was a trick. I looked at the Staples line and cruised over there for the digital picture frame for the in-laws. Went back to EB Games and got 2 used PSP games and 2 Gamecube games (they had 7 Wiis and 0 PS3s) when I got home I realized they only gave me 1 free in the BUY 1 GET 1 FREE sale, so I packed up my Xbox and controllers and got $96 for my trade-in (kept the games) on an Xbox 360 Premium, free Call of Duty, and a free 1-year EB Games warranty. Also returned the 4 used games I just bought.

So now I am part of the Xbox 360 club.

Due to the nothing really worth getting stuffs, this will probably be my First and Last Black Friday Celebration. (Not counting the $96 trade-in, Xbox 360, free game and digital picture frame).

MY DAY WAS PERFECT.

Went to my bestbuy in NYC soho at 12am in the pouring rain and waited in line with some people i didnt know but everyone was cool and we talked so i didnt mind the rain much, played some DS with some kid when it stopped raining. We waited to about 6am to get in, nothing bad happened, no fights just the occasional pushing and shoving. When i got there i was number 50 on line only to be number 130 when they started handing out tickets for stuff.

At the end i came out with the last ticket for the 42" LCD HDTV for $1,000USD. -- Best fucking deal of a lifetime.

EBgames was only down the block so at 6:30am i went over there after i took care of the TV ( Got It Shipped ) and guess what - 6 people on line making me number 7 and the 6 people in front of me are all waiting for PS3s, once the store opens they say no ps3s and they all leave -- i go inside and ask for a WII and they have -- so got my wii and tv and im super happy.

MY DAY WAS PERFECT!

No mega deals, apart from Condemned:CO for $19 at Best Buy and finally seing the MS Wireless Steering Wheel at retail (gorgeous). BUT I have a good laugh to share:

Walking into the electronics dept. at my local WalMart I see a glorious black PS3 display (not a kiosk, since you couldn't actually play it.) To my bemusement, I noticed the screen had frozen. It was Resistance:FOM locked on a single frame! Priceless... and it wasn't in a tight 'shell' enclosure like the 360 kiosks - plenty of room to breathe.

Didn't a bunch of PS3's overheat inside kiosks at the Tokyo Game Show? I guess they didn't learn their lesson... Anyway, all the kids were glued to the 360 kiosk, natch.

I got my Wii at costco on wensday for 330 dollars and Zelda and Excite Truck. The only Black Friday shopping i did was Small Arms on Market place from the comfort of my couch. God bless digital distribution.

Mine story isn't gaming related but it is 360 related. Early this morning I took advantage of Best Buy's Black Friday online sale and bought CSI: Season 3 for $19.99. I picked it up before I went to work at 2 and while at work I bough Smallville season 4 for $14.99. I picked that up at lunch. Now I'm watching CSI: on the HD-DVD player. It looks great with the upconversion...

My black friday sucked. I woke up at 3:30 to go to the local EB Games for a Nintendo Wii. On my way out I even hugged my Zelda that I had purchased earlier. I was so hyped up even though it was 28 degrees outside. I was stupid enough to wear jeans and a light sweatshirt. I am fifth in line for the Wii. The other guys had been there since the previous night. The manager walks up at 5:45 and informs everybody that she has 4 Wiis. I was crushed. She said she had two more but they were preordered. My logic is that if i was out in the cold for 3-4 hours I deserve it more than the guy still toasty in bed. So I walked over to Target and waited for an hour only to hear the "WE HAVE NO PS3s OR Wiis IN THE STORE" speech. I was horrified. So here i wait drooling over everybody elses perfect stories.

I avoided Black Friday (was going to wait outside Toys R Us for the Wii). On Wednesday, I called up my buddy, who is a manager at EBGames. He told me he had 8 Wiis in stock, but if I wanted one, I had to come Friday at 7 AM. Shoot.

I called him back later, and asked if I could buy the Wii Wednesday after the store closes. He thought for a moment, and then agreed. So I picked up my Wii on Wednesday night at 9:15. Bam! Got to sleep in on Friday then :) Pays to know people!!

@ 17.

Dude, dont sweat it - Check back this week, my friend works at ebgames and said they are getting them in next week as they come in from HQ.

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR - DONT CALL - GO TO THE STORE AND ASK!

I went to both Best Buys in town hoping to play a Wii. They just had one on display, but the real joy of the trip was seeing the PS3 frozen on Motor Storm.

So I schooled all the kiddies in Guitar Hero 2

I work at a gamestop. We had ps3 demo's right next to the 360. Needless to say we sold a lot of 360's today with a free subscription to game informer. (sadly, I doubt the magazine is what made all the sales).

If every store is selling 360's like my store. I cant wait for xmas. There's going to be so many new people on xbox live experiencing it for the first time. (and noobs to pwn, lol) Really cool.

I don't have Black Friday horror stories. I always travel to the most remote locations of the places I want to shop, and they are rarely crowded and there are rarely problems. I would rather drive 2-3 hours each way to shop than have to fight off all the mad local crowds at nearby malls and stores.

I waited in line for the MicroCenter BF sale.. I was waiting to get a 32" syntax LCD HDTV for $269.. (they also had a 37" for $399 and the 42" for 599) Started waiting at 2am.. this was my first BF experience and it was FREEZING, but being able to score a bargain like that made it bearable..

An interesting thing was that every single person I saw buying an HDTV was picking up an XBOX360 premium too.. Microcenter was selling them for $299..

Well me and my girlfriend both wanted the WII since my Xbox stop working agin after they just fix the shit last month. So its going to take another 2 weeks beofre i can even play my 360. so we both got up at 3:30 to head to a EB games in the mall here in GA. we were the first in line and waited in the car till they open the mall up at 5:30 and went inside and waited by the store doors. We were so lucky that it was right next to the food court where they had chairs. as we waited she went to the radio shack and bought me a 1 gig memory stick for the wii for only 25 dollars. It took the manger for ever to open the door like he didnt want to and soon as he did the line for the wii formed and he only had 5 and it was six people behind me i bought zelda and 1 year protection. Got home played it for 30 min beofre i had to go to work at 9. but went i got off work i went on the search to lok for the damn remote and could fin the damn thing no where i went to 9 stores and couldnt find any but its cool though.

I got a 2 gig CF card at Staples for 80 dollars off retail.

That's about the extent of my adventures. I also went in a couple of book stores, and bought three volumes of rurouni kenshin.

And I had a roast beef sandwich. MMmm Cheese and Sauce...

I was unable to sleep that day so I went out at 4AM to see how bad it was. I was shocked to no tomorrow. There was literately ONE THOUSAND people waiting outside the local Best Buy here. It was so bad a local news station went to the local Best Buy and reported about it. Circuit City wasn't much better either, having between 400-600 people waiting outside the door. Also, my local mall, which has a huge parking lot, was filled to the brim and then some...

But I was able to get something out of these Black Friday deals, though. I got a 22inch Widescreen Samsung LCD monitor for $250, which is a awesome deal, and would be stupid to pass up (especially since its only $50 more than what I payed for my 19 inch widescreen). My friend, who works at Circuit City, informed me that there was one left so I rushed out and got it. Plan on selling my old 19inch wide on eBay to help pay for the new one.

I heard Xbox 360's are selling like crazy in these deals here, which is great to hear. I hope this trend continues though "Gray Saturday" (since most stores also continue the Black Friday style deals into Saturday) and beyond. I am sure with PS3s being out of stock, Xbox 360's and some Wiis (when stores get more shipments) will be selling like crazy this holiday season. Currently, with the poor launch lineup, there isn't much reason to own a PS3 right now to begin with...

People diss Best Buy alot here..but more than 80% of you shop there still.. they are doing something right :)

I was third in line at 5:30 am at the local EB so I was lucky enough to pick up a Wii. They had five, so the manager gave everyone a "Wii Play" bic pen, which was our ticket to buy one. He also brought out holiday catalogues for those who forgot to bring reading material/their DS.

A guy who apparently had been first in line at the Gamestop at the other end of the mall since 2:30 showed up around 6. He said that the manager had come out and told them they didn't have anything in stock.

He offered $20 to a couple people with pens, but no one took him up on it. I felt kinda bad for the guy, especially since most of us has shown up 3.5 hours after he did.

By the way, when I was in there I took my first-ever glance at the PS3 Kiosk. It was just showing videos, and the graphics in motostorm looked flat-out amazing. No joke.

I drove by the local Circuit City at 5AM and the parking lot was a huge traffic jam. All of the parking places were full and people just started parking in aisles of the lot. Needless to say, I just continued on my way home, and went to bed. I then woke up at noon and went to Circuit City and scored an HD DVD Add On for the 360 for $159.99 (Reg Price with $40 Off Coupon, Google for more info).. Then, used another of the $40 coupons to pick up a Zune for $219.99.

Unboxing pics of the HDDVD are here:
http://www.audioeric.com/?p=10

I was waiting in line at bestbuy and one old guy cut in line so we ganged up and pushed him out. I didnt score a laptop but after i headed over to walmart and pick up a 360 that came with a 50 dollor gift card.

My Black Friday buying started on Thursday. I was one of the lucky bastards that was able to get one of the 1,000 $100 Xbox 360 Core system. But on Black friday itself I woke up and took my little bro to a Gamestop there was about 12 of us in line but When the guy in the front asked what he wanted my bro said he was to get a Wii the guy in the front said good thing your here there is only 6 and your the 6th person who wants on (there was people in line for a PS3 and a group of brothers who were all paying for one together. Well when gamestop came outside and said what they had one of the PS3 guys decided he wanted a Wii instead. So my brother went to another one at a local mall. He was 6th and his friend was 7th in line for a Wii and they only had 8 both of
them were able to get the wii.

I went to Walmart and got to see some dude's girlfriend own him in Guitar Hero 2... it was probably the funniest thing I'd seen. Of course I convinced 2 guys to buy a 360 rather than wait for the PS3. If my grammer skills were not so horrible I would go to school to be in sales or PR.

I never heard of Black friday... Doesnt excist in Ireland

Great stories here to read.

My day wasn't that crazy. Went shopping for clothes with a friend who come for a visit. Was about 1PM or so when we got to Fulton and later we went to manhattan. Ended up being on my feet for a good 6 hours though and was exhausted when I got home. Didn't even step foot into a gamestop, bestbuy or anything. For one I don't have money (looking sharp comes first) and second I'm happy with my 360 and GoW.

Then bunch of buddies went out later to this hookah bar (spelling?) and hopped a couple spots after that. Overal good day and a better night.

So yea that was it.

I did my Christmas shopping (for myself) early this year. Online shopping easy peasy, no lines no violence no fuss
I got a brand new official wireless adaptor for my 360 (my last one was dodgy and bert, but the official one is just amazing... perfect in every way.. and it only stung me £44 from ebay)

Then, I ordered COD3 from play-asia.com and will be ordering GOW very soon (maybe from ebay) hopefully.

And then I'll think about asking my ma and da for an mp3 player or mobile phone or something...

I'll be leaving GOW and COD3 till Christmas Day, in the meantime I've my other games to play..

$300 for a 32 inch HD TV?

Wow. Wow. Wow.

I'm from the UK and when I went to the Wal-Mart in Orlando, Florida - I had proclaimed Wal-Mart as the most amazing shop I've ever been to in my entire life - and the cheapest. Living in the UK means everything is more expensive...

I think there is some kind of day in the UK where it's the biggest shopping day of the year, but it's far closer to Christmas...
(I live in N.Ireland, and I remember reading the english papers last year...)
Don't know about Ireland though lol...

Didn't have enough money for Black Friday. spent it all on 2 PS3's. yes, i said 2

There were a few items in the Bestbuy ad I wanted and I was curious to check out the Black Friday mayhem.

At 7am the parking lot was packed and there was an ambulance out front - not a good sign. The store did not seem overcrowded, until it was time to check out. That's where everyone was. The line zig-zagged and stretched all the way to the back of the store. About a 1/2 hour wait, I was out by 7:45am. Not bad.

I found and bought what I went there for. Two 18pc DS lite accessory kits for $9.99, a 1GB MP3 player for $34.99, The Outfit for $9.99 and 2 movies for $2.99 (Jerry McGuire and Groundhog Day). Just before the checkout I saw COD2 for $19.99, picked that up on impulse and have to decide whether to keep it.

Later in the morning I went to Gamestop and got a new Plantronics Halo2 headset for $9.99.

my black friday went surprisingly well.

it started with me waking up to my cellphone thinking "oh, that must be the timer i set for 3:15. and then i immediately realize that it is a different ringtone and that the clock says 5:15. i'm at my dad's who lives 45 minutes from tulsa and i call up my friend in tulsa at the moment to make sure he's still down for this late. i have to drive b/c he came with his family.

we immediately get to best buy around 6:30 or so and i'm surprised to see that cod2, table tennis, and the outfit are all still in stock (the only things i really wanted from the store). and by the time we check out the line has died down tremendously.
a sales associate mentions the system after glancing at our purchased saying "my son wants one but he's [insert young age] years old and i don't know yet." so, i, of course, tell her about the parental controls. she responds with "oh wow, i did not know that."

my friend saw a guy with a sign "ps3 for sale with 2 games $1200" or something to that effect in the busy commercial district. that was something to remember.

all in all, that's really it. i missed out on a few things (mostly flash drives), but nothing i really needed or cared too much about. the one thing i lamented was missing the $5 hdd enclosure at circuit city (for use with the $40 or so 200gb hdd i scored last year). who the hell buys hdd enclosures???

after i told my friend about the free gow deal at circuit city, he decides to stop waiting for a 360. we wait at the second store of the day (way less crowded by then, but not vacant by any stretch) for a few minutes when his dad calls and tells him he needs to return to his relative's house immediately. i was disappointed b/c i really wanted to play gears with him on live sooner. he said "oh well, i'll just tell my parents they owe me $60." he was planning on getting one by the end of the year anyway, so the only one who lost out was him on a cool sixty.

I was originally going to camp out at CC for a $500 32'' Olevia LCD. Those plans got dashed when I got home late and there was already a huge line. However, randomly through the day, I refreshed the online page and it allowed me to order. I got the same deal people waited hours for from the comfort of my home :D Good stuff

I got up at 3:30. Got to work at 4:30. I then worked until 11AM. Ive been thinking about getting a new TV recently. Just wanted a cheap HDTV, cant really afford anything that great, being a college student. At my store we had an okay Sylvania 26" LCD HDTV for $520 before my discount and then a 5 yr. protection agreement was only $140. That was a pretty good deal IMO, but I wasnt really serious about buying a TV. I walked over to Best Buy just to take a look at what they had. I walked through the TV's for about 15 min. and I noticed an LG 30" CRT HDTV. It was an open item and Best Buy changed their whole thing with open items apparently where they just offer gift cards instead of dollar amounts off. The GC's are worthless to me since I rarely shop at BB. Anyway this TV came with $200 in GC's, plus I got $60 in GC because they were doing $15 in GC for every $100 spent. So I basically got the TV for about $420. It was kind of an impulse buy. Its a pretty damn good TV at that price and its a CRT so it should last quite a while. And, if I end up not liking it Ill just take it back after about 3 weeks since I wont be charged a restocking fee. I had to go back to work at 2 and work until 10. I had a great sales day, so I should have made a little money to put towards that TV. After work I went home and passed out, slept about 14 hours.

After salivating in anticipation over the 32" LCD HDTV for $480 at BestBuy for about 2 weeks, I was crushed to find out on Thanksgiving day that the deal wasn't available in Iowa or Nebraska. Still determined I did a search for the nearest out of state BestBuy and made a 1am trip to St.Joe, MO. I arrived at 3am to find the line already wrapped around to the back of the store. I was worried for a good hour and a half until I finally heard the employee passing out the TV vouchers. Got my TV and Condemned. Got back to home and bed at 8:30 in the morning. It was a damn long night and I'll never shop another black Friday again, but it was totally worth it! 360 in HiDef is tops.

eh my black friday was the same as always.

i walk in with my parents during this day of "sales" looking for a some good value, but as always we just end up getting something not on sale.

all those HDTVs on sale and my dad decides on a sony xbr2. haha. cant complain.

other than that. the PS3 kiosk was down likely because of overheating. the wii kiosk played videos. the 360 kiosk had two little kids running up to it saying they cant wait to play Halo 3.

and they had huge stacks of Xbox 360 Cores and Premiums in the middle of the store. Best Buy in Poughkeepsie NY btw. while there, i saw two people walking out with premiums.

My Black Friday could not have gone any better. I'd saved up 400 bones for an X360 but I'd been waiting for some sort of holiday deal before I bought one. On Wednesday, I got an unexpected $50 AMEX gift check for doing well at work, and I was keeping it back for X360-related plans.

I had to work Thanksgiving Day and I live in a large city so I knew all the nearby shopping outlets and any associated roads to them would be packed. For that reason, I wasn't planning on doing any Black Friday shopping but I was keeping my eyes open for any too-good-to-pass-up deals. I had Friday off so after my Thanksgiving shift I headed up to my parents' house in a rural farming community 50 miles away to look after their pets while they were visiting some other relatives. That night I saw on Wal-Mart's webpage that they were doing an Early Bird special where you get a free $50 gift card for buying a 360 Premium System if you do so before 11 am. There was a Wal-Mart in a nearby town that had loads of 360s, and they even had a branch of my bank nearby. I zipped over to the bank then headed to Wally World, and being a small resort town there were no crowds whatsoever. I scored one of the many systems still available, used the gift check, and used the newly-acquired gift card to pay for most of a copy of "F.E.A.R." which I was playing 30 minutes later.

All in all, a great day.

Well, I was shopping at Wal-Mart in Franklin,TN at 1:30am on Wed Dec 6th, I saw several signs that read "attn nintendo wii customers, we MAY have nintendo wii systems available for purchase at 8 am on wed dec 6th." I thought to myself, awsome! I'll get my shopping done, and come back about 5 or 6 am and get in line to buy 1 or 2 wii's. I arrived later that morning (very tired from staying up all night)at about 6:20 or so, I headed back to electronics and there were 3 or four people looking at electronics, I thought, hmm, I'm way to early, so I left the store and came back about 7:20 and I headed back to electronics. I overheard a cashier telling a man when I got there "umm no systems left" I said excuse me what?????? She replied "we have more people in line than we do wii systems" WHAT!!! WHAT LINE!!! She replied "the line is in the garden center" What the ****! I walk across the store and there is the whole town and 6 cops all standing in line! Thanks Wal-mart for screwing me over!