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Packed with coffee and wrapped up in a warm jacket, this morning I once again headed to the Brighton moors in the middle of the lockdown for another episode of “what is a console launch in 2020” like. This time, it’s the PlayStation 5 edition.
If you missed my previous adventures, I visited the GAME store in Brighton last week to see exactly how the retailer was handling the launch of the Xbox Series X / S amid the Covid-19 lockdown in England. Game stores are classified as non-essential stores, which means they are officially closed, but GAME has put together a click-and-collect system to allow customers to pick up their consoles that day. For the Xbox launch I arrived at lunchtime, when things had Really I calmed down, so to watch some of the would-be PlayStation 5 owners picking up their consoles, I set my alarm clock to arrive a little before opening time at 8:30 am.
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Do the PS5 and Xbox Series X launch lineups matter?
GAME Brighton is located inside the Churchill Square shopping center, which normally opens at 9 am, but special arrangements have been made for the launch of PlayStation 5. The locations in the queue were marked to remind customers to keep their distance. 2 meters apart, and a security guard was on duty to ensure a timely opening … and dole out the occasional elbow.
From what I could see, almost everyone followed social distancing guidelines, customers kept their distance, and the vast majority wore masks even when outside. The eager beavers at the front of the queue had been there since 7:30, and I caught up with the person who had managed to take first place in line.
“I’m clicking and charging for a friend, who’s working away right now,” said Jamie, an NHS worker, when I asked him about his decision to pick up a console. “Mine will be delivered at 10 o’clock, so I have to rush home after this and make sure I get back in time for mine.”
“Your friend owes you a lot, since you had to get up early,” I told him.
“Yeah, I paid for it too and pre-ordered it for them,” Jamie added. That is true friendship. Hope Jamie gets paid in full, and possibly a couple of beers.
Perhaps surprisingly, when I asked Jamie about the atmosphere of the launch, he felt it was better than in previous years. With everyone lined up in an orderly fashion, the proceedings had been fairly uneventful, in stark contrast to the hundreds that were crammed into a store on a typical launch day. He also felt that social distancing was being handled quite well. “I think we were pretty far apart anyway, and security came to space everyone else out,” he added.
I spoke to another customer on the line, Scott, a KFC worker, who was also not concerned about social distancing requirements.
“I’m fine! Working at KFC you get used to wearing masks all day, and when people complain about wearing them for 15 to 20 minutes straight, you’re like … come on, put them on,” Scott said.
Scott explained that he had chosen to click and cash after GAME’s delivery stock ran out when he first tried to pre-order online. Luckily for him, GAME had assigned a few consoles for pickup that day, so he managed to place an order for one of these. Scott said he had taken three days off from work to spend time on his PS5, though this was in part because the lockdown had put an end to his tattoo appointment plans.
Of course, it had to be done, so I asked Scott and Jamie if they had ever considered buying an Xbox Series X / S instead of the PS5. Apparently this was a bad question to ask alongside a line full of people waiting for PlayStations at eight in the morning, as five of them immediately shook their heads and a chorus of “noooo” surged around me.
“We’re not talking about Microsoft here,” one of them yelled.
Scott said that his decision to choose the PS5 had been a “no-brainer” as he had been using the PlayStation ecosystem to play games since he was young. Jamie explained that his decision had been guided by the platform his friends were using. “If I can’t play with my friends, there is no point playing,” he said.
Today is also the day that people find out how cool the PS5 is to them, so I was curious if Scott and Jamie were concerned about how it would fit into their homes. “I was a little worried about size to begin with,” Scott said, “but I managed to tidy up my room to the point where I have a nice little place to put it where it will be well ventilated, so it doesn’t overheat.” Meanwhile, Jamie had made even more drastic preparations.
“So I actually went out and bought a new TV unit just to fit in,” said Jamie. “It was one of the things that I put in the background until I discovered the dimensions of the PlayStation.”
Finally, the doors were opened and around 20 customers entered the center to queue again outside GAME, which seemed to have the same setup as last time. Customers queued at the marked locations, hand sanitizer was provided, and consoles were stacked in bags in the center of the store to distribute over the barriers. Approximately four or five employees were available to verify purchase details and manage the queue, with two customers being able to approach the store at once, meaning the entire process was surprisingly quick. A source previously told Eurogamer that GAME employees had received “enough PPE and hand sanitizer” for the console launches, “so staff should be safe enough.”
All things considered, GAME seems to have done a solid job of handling click-and-collect console requests in such a challenging situation. And it looks like those in attendance were still able to channel some of the fun of traditional console launches – making friends and chatting games in line, albeit from a greater distance than usual.
But what will all these new PS5 owners play first on their new consoles? The overwhelming consensus according to the tail of GAME Brighton: Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Well, they already went the extra mile to detect a console in the middle of a pandemic, so what is one more?
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