Honestly, I thought we were past this.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/17/news/companies/playstation_craziness/index.htm?cnn=yes wrote:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The debut of Sony's PlayStation 3 game console resulted in reports Friday of disorder outside stores throughout the United States, as well as a robbery attempt in Connecticut that left one man shot and wounded.
Police in Putnam, Conn., said fans resisted two armed men in an attempted robbery outside of a Wal-Mart.
According to Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police, officers were called to the Wal-Mart at 3:15 a.m. ET after two armed men tried to rob people waiting in line to get the PS3 when the store opened.
Vance told CNNMoney.com that about 15 to 20 people were outside the Wal-Mart (Charts) store when they were confronted by the robbers who demanded money. The lieutenant said one of the men in line was shot after he confronted the armed suspect. The robbers fled the scene after the incident.
Wal-Mart declined to comment on the incident.
In a separate incident, the manager of a 24-hour Wal-Mart supercenter in Palmdale, Calif., shut the store and called the cops after crowds became unruly.
Deputy sheriff Dan McPherson at Palmdale station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said about 50 to 100 people had gathered outside the store before midnight in the hopes of scoring a PS3.
"We were called after the manager told us that these people were arguing and pushing each other," McPherson said. "We told them they had to leave the premises."
Best Buy (Charts), the No. 1 electronics retailers, saw isolated incidents of unruliness, according to spokesman Justin Barber.
Barber said a Best Buy store in L.A. requested police presence for a midnight opening tied to the PS3 launch.
"Overall we're very happy with how things went. Most of our stores had people waiting in line for a few days," Barber said. As expected, Best Buy sold out of the system in under an hour at most of its 800 locations.
In an email to CNNMoney.com, Circuit City (Charts) spokesman Jim Babb said the retailer was told that groups of people waiting in line at some of its stores in Eugene, Oregon were robbed and police were called to those locations.
"As far as I know, there were no injuries. There were some scattered arguments about line-breaking, and police responded to crowd control issues at a few of our stores," Babb said.