Back to back Midnight Launches continued.

OK. So how do I start with this one. I had somewhat of an epic fail evening which was partly due to myself but mostly due to incompetent staff that make up the staff of HMV and Game Oxford Street.

There I was at 5pm off and ready to leave after a few extra hours on Call of Duty: Black Ops (which by the way is sensational if you didn't already know) to head over to the midnight launch of Kinect at "HMV". Yes HMV, not GAME, HMV.

The particular reason for this being was that it was the only store to my knowledge (after asking a couple of other HMVs in the local area if they were doing midnight launches) that was doing some sort of "Official" midnight launch. I mean you couldn't exactly miss the marketing outside the front of the store the week beforehand which clearly stated "Midnight Launch"

Anyway, back to the story. I headed off with foldable camp chair in hand, hopefully to be somewhere near the front of the queue.

I arrived at 6pm to the Oxford Circus HMV store to ask security and some dude demonstrating Kinect on the main stage where the queuing was. The security guard told me to ask someone in store, and the guy in store told me to ask the security. Good start there. So the security guard eventually guided me to where the Black Ops queue started the night before. Lo and behold I was quite shocked to say the least that I was the first one there.

30 minutes went by, with chair unfolded whilst comfortably sat back in, and phone in hand checking tweet updates. With a few occasional glances around to see if anyone else was joining the queue. Nothing, nada, no one came.

So I began to worry a little thinking, hang on, I can't be this lucky surely. So I began to browse around on the net on my phone to search Kinect Midnight launches.

To my dismay I found the following title on Eurogamer: HMV opts out of Kinect midnight launch. So I hurried back into the store with foldable camp chair and bag in hand to ask another till serving member of staff who confirmed "there's no midnight launch for Kinect". I asked why, and there was no explanation. I asked why I wasn't informed given that this was the same bloke I made my pre-order with a week before hand. Again no answer, not even an apology.

So I dashed to the local GAME store where I had been the night before to find there were only 3 people in the queue. Yes 3. My thoughts were, great, still close to the front, just my luck.

So in the store I went with a long queue to join. Time passed as I was anxiously awaiting to try and pre-order Kinect (again)
Finally got to the front and was served by a familiar face from the Black Ops launch, so our rapport got going and he was doing all he could to help. Long story short here, his duty manager told him the pre-order book was full (more like, they were unable to locate it with the necessary pre-order code) and therefore I couldn't pre-order. Damn... was my initial thoughts. So on the fly I asked if I queued being so near the front, would I still be guaranteed being able to get hold of Kinect. (My thoughts were with the news of online retailers selling out nearly a month early and stock being short, it wouldn't have surprised me if the pre-order book was indeed full)

In a polite way the guy said to certainly cover himself, he couldn't guarantee it, although he would expect being so high up the queue I should be able to get hold of it. But the shocking words were that he couldn't guarantee it even after waiting for a further 5 1/2 hours.

So I thought sod it, I ain't gonna wait that long to find out that my time had been wasted and not be able to get hold of Kinect.

I eventually cut my losses, and jumped on a bus home. Admittedly I was extremely disappointed. Given the atmosphere of the Black Ops launch the night before I was really looking forward to this, even if Geoneo did think I was a bit mad for doing so. But it seems that luck just wasn't on my side.

This has put a bad taste in my mouth with HMV given that they went all out with Modern Warfare 2's launch in Piccadilly last year. I've certainly got more to say about it, but I'm certainly a lot more cool about what happened on Tuesday night writing it up now.

Lesson learned for me was certainly to get my research done. Given how big Kinect is going to be over this Winter holiday, it just never crossed my mind that someone like HMV would "Not" be doing a midnight launch. But after reading the Eurogamer post it still makes me fume.

Here's looking forward to the next big midnight launch. Myself and Geoneo will certainly do what we can to be at the front.