Nintendo Wii (December 8, 2006)

After repeatedly hearing about the hype over all of the new game consoles in the USA and Japan and so on, I thought that maybe I would try to get my hands on a Nintendo Wii over here in Germany. I had seen how some of these were selling on eBay for about twice the price and figured maybe I could make a tidy profit over here!

The night before the release in Europe (so the night of December 7) was the Kükenfest party at the Media School next door that 4/6 of my roommates attend. "Kükenfest" translates directly to "chick fest," but chick in the sense of small chicken, unfortunately! So, I went to that with a bunch of other people and didn't get home until around 3 AM. I set my alarm for the next morning.

Being Germany, there's no way for stores to open early (hours are regulated by the government) for a special event like this, so everyone had to wait until 10 AM when the store (MediaMarkt, the equivalent of Circuit City) opened. The experience was nowhere near what I heard about in the USA - I got to the store at 9:30, was the 9th person in line (Germans are always waiting in lines!!!!), with about 6 people behind me by the time the store opened. Promptly at 10, the gates when up and the five or so nerd kids in the front booked it to the video game section, but the rest of us walked (right, walked!) over, stood in yet another line, and a salesman handed us the system. I also bought another controller for it. My total was 299 EUR. No one was shot or robbed leaving the store!

As soon as I got it home, it went on German eBay! Unfortunately for me, apparently every other German had the same idea to sell it on eBay and there were a few hundred on there soon. My still sold the next day for 335 EUR, so I did make a little bit of money on it (about 11% in one day, so not bad!) They even drove to the bus stop by my apartment to pick it up!

My friend Eric from Minnesota was so jealous! He wanted one too, and my roommates said we should just keep it, but I have no desire or time for video games, and the system wouldn't work back in the USA because it's in PAL format, not NTSC.