By MATT RICHTEL, The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO, March 24 - Cheers erupting around him, Richard Roth stared into the glare of camera lights with the grin of an Olympic champion. He raised his arms, holding over his head his trophy: a new portable gaming device called the Sony PlayStation Portable, or PSP.
Across the nation's time zones, the gadgets went on sale at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, and Mr. Roth, 23, a supervisor in a local PetsMart, was at the head of the purchase line at the Sony Metreon complex. He had waited for 40 hours on the sidewalk outside, and the fact that he was exhausted and his wallet $271 (including tax) lighter mattered little at his moment of glory.
"I just wanted to be first," he said.
Which was precisely Sony's point, as it engaged in what has become a favorite tactic of marketers in various lines of business: hyping a new product by making it available when most people are in bed, and acting like those slumbering are missing out.
Retailing specialists note that the off-hour shopping extravaganza, at midnight or the crack of dawn, has been used to bring out cultish consumers for films ("Star Wars," "The Passion of the Christ"), shoes (Air Jordan high-tops), video games (Halo 2) and books (Harry Potter books).
"It's become a much more utilized marketing tool over the last three or four years," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a marketing consulting firm in New York. The message retailers want to send, she said, is: "This is for aficionados. If you're serious, we're serious."
In the case of the Sony PSP, the nation's video game specialty stores opened their doors at midnight to start selling to Americans a gadget introduced last December in Japan. Sony said it hoped by the end of the weekend to sell the available one million units of the hand-held PSP, which lets people play games, watch movies and listen to music.
The San Francisco event tried to combine the aura of New Year's Eve and the Oscars with the urgency of meeting the income tax deadline. Across the street from the Sony Metreon, a retail and theater complex operated by the company, an enormous replica of a PSP hung on the side of a parking garage, displaying a clock that counted down the seconds until midnight.
Some 400 consumers stood in line. Most of them, unlike the zealous Mr. Roth, had been waiting only a few hours. But all basked in the glare of television lights, some from local television, some from Sony's own publicity department.
When they were at last let inside, a throng of Sony employees cheered the first customers as if they were conquering heroes.
And to the victors went the spoils of a black stretch limousine provided by Sony, which waited out front to whisk Mr. Roth and his friend, Jossle Sison, 18, (the second person to buy a PSP) to their homes.
The honor of selling the first PSP to Mr. Roth went to Jack Tretton, a 43-year-old executive vice president for Sony Computer Entertainment's North America unit. Mr. Tretton said the midnight marketing gimmick provided great free publicity.
By opening the doors at midnight on Thursday, the product's long-planned release date, Mr. Tretton said Sony was telling its customers, "You've waited patiently, we will not make you wait another minute."
Mr. Tretton also played up the idea that customers who did not buy in the first hours or days might miss out on getting a PSP in this first allotment. That prospect, at least, was not pure hype, given that Sony has had trouble meeting demand for PSP's in Japan.
And to the great chagrin of retailers in the United States, Sony had trouble filling orders over Christmas for its PlayStation 2 game console, which is used in connection with a TV set.
"There's definitely scarcity," Mr. Tretton said, referring to the PSP. "That aspect is real." After the first one million are sold, the company will have no more units available in this country until May, he said.
By shortly after noon Thursday, the Sony Metreon had sold its allotment of more than 500 PSP's. Later in the day, the store was waiting for an additional shipment and people were lining up again.
The previous midnight, Nate Sanders, standing across the street from the Metreon, remained unseduced. Mr. Sanders, 53, one of several homeless San Franciscans hanging out in the neighborhood, said that people waiting in line to buy a video game "have their priorities distorted."
"It'd be something to be first at voter registration, or to push civil rights," Mr. Sanders said as a light rain began to fall, noting that he was trying to raise $30 to stay at a hotel. "They have a head-in-the-sand syndrome."
Across the street, a line of people with more discretionary incomes began to move with precision through the checkout line. The majority seemed to be men in their 20's and 30's. Many acknowledged being veterans of off-hours shopping routine.
"I've done it for sneakers, the PlayStation 2, films, and now I'm in line for a device that will change the portable market," said Mike Jeffries, 23, who works in product testing at Genentech, a biotechnology company. Mr. Jeffries said that being in the first-to-buy club provided a chance to bond with other enthusiasts while showing a true commitment to a new product.
To buy without late-night sacrifice, he said, "is like getting the girl without the chase."
Before stepping into the limousine, Mr. Roth hefted his new PSP box and contemplated the future. When the PlayStation 3 hits the market sometime next year, he said he planned to get in line even earlier.
"I'm going to beat my record," he said.
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