I was reading how Dragon Quest III’s release in Japan in 1988 led to almost 300 arrests for truancy among students absent from school to purchase the game.
I also vaguely remember reading about Western games that had very big queues at physical stores during their release. I assume these can only be heavily anticipated old games before online distribution took off. I checked up the wiki articles of Super Mario Bros 3., Super Mario World, Sonic 2, Sonic CD and Mortal Kombat II but saw no direct mention of queues or otherwise remarkable physical activity at stores on release.
What do y’all know about this?
The only midnight launch I ever got to be a part of was the launch of the New 3DS XL. I got the majoras mask edition. It was actually a relatively small midnight launch as far as they used to go. That being said I’m really glad I got to experience at least one. I’m not sure if we’ll see massive midnight launches in the future.
I remember always seeing and hearing about midnight launches during the 360/ps3/wii era. I remember halo 2 and halo 3 brought in massive crowds.
When the 360 launched my dad went and waited outside a Wal-Mart in -25°c weather for a couple hours. I wanted to join but had school the next morning. Probably for the best as I would have been a whining little baby about the cold lol.
If you’re curious I think there’s a lot of youtubers that cover midnight launches/history