Last night/early this morning was the official launch of the Playstation 3 and eager gamers set off on a midnight excursion to try and beat the crowds. This in itself has been the subject of much hand wringing over the worry that muggers would descend on console geeks and nick either their large wads of cash (a PS3 will set you back over £400) or the thing itself.
Being a dab hand on GTA doesn't give you many real life skills to use in an actual mugging unless your attacker has a power bar over his head. In fact Gizmodo went as far as to tell readers not to bother venturing out:
A police alert about possible muggings has led both GAME and HMV stores to cancel midnight opening tonight. Only Virgin is braving the night terrors in central London and, from what I’ve seen, there’s only a few hardy souls in the corral out front... the US launch was marred by quite a few muggings and even a shooting. Would you take a bullet for your PS3?
Some of the brave souls who did withstand the rumour of beatings and shootings did indeed get more than they bargained for:
Sony, obviously in a generous mood, gave the first 100 customers to purchase a £425 ($834 USD) PS3 a free 46" HDTV and a free taxi ride home. In all, Sony gave away over £250,000 ($490,450 USD) in HDTVs to accompany the PS3 launch. The free taxi ride was most likely a nod to the fact that many customers who showed up to purchase a PS3 might not have exactly had enough room to transport a 46" HDTV back to their homes.
Ka-ching!
Sucks to be a hundred and first in line though...
