After a month of waiting for the Xbox 360 I had pre-ordered to arrive at the local EB Games, today I got the call.
I was packing up to leave work a little early (like many of my co-workers, our work place becomes a ghost-town just before holidays) and I glanced at my cell phone to see I had missed a call and had a voice message. I checked the number and thought it seemed familar, but not that familar. The exchange was the most familar part... it seemed to be in the neighborhood of my in-laws, which happens to be in the same neighborhood as the EB Games I frequent.
Sure enough, I check the voice mail and my hopes are confirmed! Xbox 360 premium system in stock and ready for pickup. If I didn't pick it up in 24 hours, then I'd get passed over, and the next customer on the waiting list would get it. Heh, as if they'd get that chance. I called back, told them I was omw! -- on my way. After a quick stop by the grocery store to buy a frozen entree for dinner I zipped across the parking lot to the gaming store and there I was, picking up my belated birthday (back near Thanksgiving), and just a day or two early Christmas present. (The 360 was my big gift to myself this season, having given the family the trip to Disney earlier in the year).
I just finished setting up the system a bit ago and was over-joyed to find that doesn't seem to have any of the problems that others had reported on the first round of shipments. Hopefully my luck will hold out there.
I still feel sorry for the folks that won't be able to snag one of these "hard to get" systems this season, though I was happy to hear from a friend that one of his other friends who had also had a very hard time getting a system was able to pick one up at a Wal*Mart that is local to him. He and another friend bought the last 2 systems that had come in the just before Chrismas restock.
It seems that Microsoft is slowly but surely catching up on their pre-orders, and of course they've sprinkled many systems through the "for general public purchase" retailers (Wal*Mart, Target, Best Buy, etc.) Hopefully the people like myself that pre-ordered will have been able to get their systems, or the systems they were buying as gifts in time for Christmas, and hopefully the recipients will get to enjoy their systems.
I'll leave readers to check other sites for reviews of the system and the games. Though I have written reviews of games and systems in the past, there's plenty of others already done for this system and the shipped games. Adding my comments to the top of the stack would just be piling on, and isn't necessary at this point.
I do have one other set of comments to add, but they are coming up in another article.
