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Contrary to what you may think, the magic video game fairy will not be delivering a Wii and a PlayStation 3 to every boy and girl at GameSpot—no matter how good we’ve been this year. Sure, we’ll get a couple of systems in the office, but that’s not the same as having a shiny new gaming system in your entertainment center.

With Wii and PS3 pre-orders going on sale Sunday morning at Toys "R" Us, I decided this was going to be my best chance to get my hands on a system. Actually, I think the Wii will be pretty easy to find on launch day, but I figured I might as well snag a pre-order for Nintendo’s new baby while I was pre-ordering a PlayStation 3. My plan was to show up at the Toys "R" Us in Sunnyvale, California around 10pm on Saturday night. I guessed that most people would show up around midnight and there would be a steady stream of people lining up throughout the early morning hours.

Boy was I wrong.

I was sitting around Saturday, eating lunch, watching our World of Warcraft marathon and browsing the message boards, when I noticed a thread about people lining up at Toys "R" Us. I clicked on it and was shocked to find out that not only were people already lining up at noon, but also that some people had been camping out since Friday night! At that moment I knew I wasn’t getting a pre-order, but I hoped I could get a good story out of it.

At an ungodly hour on Sunday morning, I drove to Sunnyvale, CA to find out exactly what kind of person spends two days in line for a PlayStation 3 and a Wii pre-order. When did they get there? Why were they there so early? What games were they looking forward to? Were any of these systems not immediately going up on eBay? Watch the video for the answers to these questions and more.

* A big thanks to all the tired folks in line who took the time to talk to me. I hope you got your pre-orders!