Gamers brave cold, hours of waiting to score an Xbox One at launch
And talk about why they passed on the PS4
"I want to play Assassin's Creed IV but I can play that on my PS3," Block said. "Most of the games out, you can play the PS3 version."
Celebrities and the Los Angeles Raiders
The Los Angeles event was an equal mix of diehards, celebrities and resellers looking to score Xbox One consoles the moment they went on sale.
Walking around the Milk Studios venue were TV show notables like Conan's Andy Richter with his young, gaming enthused son and the primary cast of the Comedy Central show Workaholics.
Sports celebrities like Golden State Warriors basketball star Andre Iguodala and rapper Snoop Dogg also famed their way to the front of the line. Their price of admission? Having hundreds of camera flashes light up in their face as they took home a console.
Independent store resellers were also taking home an Xbox One, two or three in order to sell them the next day by bundling the units with several games in order to make a profit.
This included Next Gen Video Games owner Jeff Bryson, who we first ran into at E3 2013 and at the time was none too pleased with Microsoft DRM announcements.
"We make money off of used games and don't really turn a big profit on anything new, so that's important," explained Bryson to us tonight. New product like the Xbox One console is primarily offered just to get gamers into the store.
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"I had two purchased at noon by having a friend buy one for me. I now have two wristbands on separate hands," he said at the event, joking that he would be willing to walk away with a third or fourth by attaching more to his ankles.
Just like the up-all-night gamers and celebrities, Bryson and other retailers made out well, accumulating free Xbox-branded swag, winning periodic contests and enjoying the free concert music and demos.
While he can certainly resell the swag at his gaming store, Bryson and the other attendees on both coasts can't do the same for the less tangible launch day experience, which only comes around every eight years or so.
- Check out our hands on Xbox One review!
Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.