The countdown for the Nintendo Wii began at 8pm eastern time in New York City. Hundreds of people no...Wait...THOUSANDS of people lined up outside of the Toys R us in Times Square to get their hands of one of the most innovative consoles ever created. Nintendo also had several amazing things going on to keep the crowd entertained, like anti-gravity performers and some people carrying around protable Wii demos on scooters, as well as people with plasma tvs hanging over their heads and strapped on their backs. These seemed to come in handy since the crowd loved every minute of it.

I teamed up with Beck from the Dojo of Pain (Red Steel fanbase) and a few of the Joystiq guys to see how the crowd was handling the camp for hours and hours and hours in the blistering cold of New York city. From what we saw this crowd knew how to keep busy! As we walked throughout the massive line that went around the block, we saw masses of DS lites and a few old school DS handheld systems, board games like Risk and Scrabble, and some scattered PSPs.

We felt the need to help the crowd out with some food and some sweet Wii gear like exclusive Red Steel T-shirts. But we were not going to give it away for free. This is where the competition came into play. We had the crowd earn it by playing thumb wars, rock-paper-scissors, mercy, and had some of them show off skills like Rapping and martial arts. The Wii seemed to attract gamers from all different walks of life. We even went to the last person in line and gave them a Red Steel t-shirt just for being a trooper. All in all it was an amazing event.

ohh and as for the person who was first in line, he was there for about a week waiting for the launch day..im sure he had an interesting smell after the first few days!

Game On!