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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land In the great tradition of decades of “hacks” (us, non-collegiate types call them pranks), the folks at MIT snuck into Harvard Yard on the day of the Halo 3 launch and dressed book-donor John Harvard up as the Master Chief, complete with a fancy Spartan Helmet and Battle rifle. What amazes me is how they manages to make the additions look like they were made of the same material as the statue.
Halo 3 John Harvard [Thanks Jeremy and everyone else who sent in tips]
After cruising up and down the main drag of Akihabara and finding little in the way of lines, we hoofed it back to Yodobashi Akiba to catch up with the manageable crowd. The TV games occupy the sixth floor of the building, so we where wheezing and sweating after a series of intense escalator rides. Surprisingly enough, there was a bit of a morning rush. Throngs? No, but we weren’t expecting throngs. Just the presence of hardcore Japanese gamers who have a taste for first person shooters and reject the national opinion of the Xbox.
Yen and Halo 3 limited edition Xbox 360s exchanged hands at a moderate pace, with a handful of gamers simply opting for the game and the Halo 3 branded controllers.
In Japan, the Halo 3 Limited Edition version was the way to go. For an affordable 6270 yen (approximately $US 55), Japanese gamers get the nice packaging and fan service bonuses with their Japanese voice acted Master Chief. That’s a pretty good deal, I’d say.
Most of the transactions, however, we for the Spartan coloured console itself. While many gamers were on hand to pick up any number of things, from the day’s other releases like Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus and the recently shipped Tamagotchi no Puchi Puchi Omisecchi: Mina San Kyu, plenty were walking out with big bags packed with Halo 3 stuff.
Flynn, Cheapy D and I had varying estimates on the percentage of those picking up something Halo 3-ish, but we hovered around the twenty percent range.
The checkout line was dense at 9:45, but tapered off to regular morning levels by around 10:30. We’ll have to wait for the official Media Create numbers for Halo 3 weekly sales to show up, but while it wasn’t madness at any point, the game certainly wasn’t ignored.
Okay, Japan, we get it. You don’t like Halo anything. This group—about 8 in total—was declaring its presence outside a Taito branded game shop in the heart of Akihabara. We figured this was it. We’d hit the jackpot and that come 10 AM, when the store finally opened, we’d at least get some shots of Akiba nerds rushing the sales clerks and 10,000 yen notes flying. Instead we found out why they were waiting.
We got up at the crack of dawn this morning to make sure we didn’t miss a beat for the Japanese launch of Halo 3. It’s rare for Japanese game shops to host a midnight launch of almost anything, even for the big guns like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, so we felt pretty comfortable waiting until the day of to beat feet down to Akiba. After a stinky stroll through the Tsukiji fish market, we ambled on over to Electric Town to take the pulse of Japanese gamers.
Rolling up to the giant Yodobashi Akiba, we were presented with this sign. It tells you where to start the line formation. So what did the line look like 30 minutes before launch?
newVideoPlayer("MOV01126_gawker.flv", 475, 376);I apologise for the ever-so-slightly crappy nature of this video, as I had to keep dancing on and off the sidewalk because of ‘the man’. What you are seeing is the trio of Marines, each riding a Mongoose ATV, escorting the shining Halo 3 Hummer to the front doors of the NYC Best Buy amidst loud cheers from the fans and even louder Halo music and Larry Hryb narration. This is how the launch ends.
Midnight slowly approaches, and the festivities ramp up. Everywhere camera crews are coaxing large groups of players to shout, trying to punctuate their local news stories with the old cheering crown trick. The Mountain Dew people are there every time I turn around, passing around their cough syrup-flavored beverage. As hip-hop artists play Halo 3 inside, line sitters hold up signs making rude assumptions about the diet of a certain Florida lawyer. A group of guys are wandering around wearing GTA IV T-shirts, handing out posters and having people pose with them at the H3 launch. Good times are being had by all, but that clock is ticking…
Meet Alex. Alex is the second guy in line at the Halo 3 launch here in NYC. If you remember from earlier, I told you the first guy in line got there at 6PM yesterday. Those of you mathematically inclined might have already pieced this together. Alex was standing there, minding his own business, when someone handed him this orange sign and asked him to hold it up. It’s been photographed, videotapes, and has appeared on the giant monitors outside of the Best Buy. The image will probably appear in local papers and on TV news stations later this evening. It’s not entirely a lie, really. Alex has almost been in line for 24 hours, and 50% is totally considered almost in some countries. Silly PR peoples.
