Matt and I decided to waste a good-sized chunk of our time on Wednesday evening (time that cut into our busy schedules of playing Guitar Freaks and Samba de Amigo, I might add) by traveling from retailer to retailer checking out the PS2 lines and talking to the crazies, er, I mean hardcore gamers camping out in hopes of scoring a shiny new Playstation 2 system. What we discovered was that, in almost every case, if you didn’t pre-order your system way back at the dawn of time, you weren’t getting’ one. But we also discovered that, even if you threw caution to the wind and neglected to pre-purchase a PS2 eons ago, you could still get one on launch day. Read on, as we take you along with us on our PS2 camper tour!

Our first few stops were mind-numbingly boring. Lansing Mall Babbage’s, Funcoland, and nearby retailers like Circuit City and Target hadn’t collecting lines of drooling Sony fans yet. Nonplussed, we drove into Okemos, to Best Buy.

Here’s where we made the discovery that if you were willing to camp out for 12 hours or so, you could indeed get a PS2 on launch day. Best Buy hadn’t taken any pre-orders on the system, so it would be first come, first serve at 10:00 on Thursday morning when the store opened. A line of roughly 50 people had already formed when we arrived at about 9:30pm. We had unconfirmed figures of 120-150 PS2 units in stock at the store, which, if accurate, meant that everybody in line at that point was guaranteed a system. Best Buy employees were handing out numbers to folks in line to secure their system, but they had to stay in line or nearby until the store opened. So it was possible to buy a PS2 on launch day without a pre-order at Best Buy as long as you got in line the night before.

Our next stop was a Funcoland in Lansing (near the Celebration Cinema). The manager was outside the store chatting with a customer when we approached, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions. Her store had received 72 units but had over 100 pre-orders. Everybody on the pre-order list had been called and informed whether or not they made the cut to get one of the initial batch. The store would open between midnight and 2am to sell the systems to the presale customers only. When asked about future shipments, she informed us that her store would be supplying PS2 systems to pre-purchase customers only until well into next year. Although the store had received 72 PS2 units, a large number compared to most of the retailers we visited, they hadn’t gotten a single memory card.

After Funcoland, we returned to the Lansing Mall area to recheck locations there for lines. Funcoland was dark and the gate was down; no line had formed. We noticed 2 empty chairs parked outside of Circuit City, and as we approached to take a picture, the occupants returned. When asked why they chose Circuit City over one of the other retailers, they said that they had not pre-purchased their systems and there was no line when they arrived. Even though we later learned that the Circuit City in question had received only 10 PS2s, these guys were going to get them. Once again, Matt and I could have joined the line and would have been able to buy a PS2 on launch day.

Over at Target, a small line had formed, including one employee from the aforementioned Circuit City store, where employees were not allowed to buy the systems. We learned that Target had around 25 units in stock from an employee in the line (Target apparently had no problem with its employees buying the systems as long as they camped out in line like everyone else). There were at most a dozen people in this line at about 10:00, so we would have been able to camp out and get a PS2 at Target as well.

Next we hit K-Mart, where an employee confirmed what Matt had learned earlier in the day – the store had 1, maybe 2 PS2s in stock. No line had formed and it would be first come, first serve at K-Mart as well.

Our next stop was Meijer. An employee told us that they had "about 25" systems, but they’d all been claimed by customers who started a line earlier in the afternoon. At midnight the store would sell the systems to those customers.

Finally, we joined the small crowd that had gathered outside of the Lansing Mall waiting for Babbage’s to open. Babbage’s had received 24 units, and would be selling only to customers who’d pre-purchased. All customers had been called during the day and notified of whether or not they made the 1-24 cut. There were a couple of people waiting outside who apparently hadn’t made the cut, and they were turned away while the chosen ones were allowed inside to make their purchases.