I have no idea how many people in New Zealand have them, but I've only been around school with mine, so no StreetPass hits yet. I'll go to a bigger town next week and try it though. Although I doubt anything will happen then, either.
I have some epic story stuff though. I pre-ordered mine, and finished paying for it on Monday 28th, the day after the US release date, but three days before the Australia/New Zealand release date (31st of March - the Thursday). They tried to give it to me on the Monday but they didn't have them in stock. So, they rung Australia, said it'd be in the next day.
The next day came and they didn't have them, but apparently the bigger stores had got them in. So on Wednesday, my dad rung them up, confirmed they had them at one of the bigger stores, went over there to pick it up, and almost had it, but another dude showed up at the checkout and basically told him to get lost because it wasn't the release date yet and they could get fined.
Okay, fair enough, but then the next day, I finally got it, and when I took it out of the bag (my mum picked it up for me whilst I was at school - oh geez, I can't wait for this year to end. Last year of damn school), I realised the box wasn't sealed, and that the little tab on it was too pathetic to securely keep it shut. The seals, I found later, were two round, clear stickers. They were stuck on the back of the box. On the flat back. Not holding the flap closed...
When I got the thing open, it was exciting, but I realised, after taking the manuals out, that the plastic sleeve they come in hadn't been nicely folded (you know, how you fold the top over) and put in place. It was scrunched up. The 3DS sleeve was similar, but I took it out thinking that it was probably just packed like that. There were fingerprints all over the top of it. I think you see where this is going.
So I turned it on and.... no setup screen. So I thought I must have to just set it myself. It was around 4pm, but the time said it was around 12pm on..... January 4th. Well, after going into the name settings which was set to "gggh" with a birthday of April 1st, I found plenty of left-over data from Super Street Fighter IV. That's great, because I hadn't been able to afford a game, so that was obviously not my own. Someone had used it before me.
According to the data, the settings had never been changed (apart from when I had changed them), so it was first used on what was recorded as the 1st of April. Count backwards and..... OH, March 28th. The Monday. The shop had told me that they were distributed within New Zealand on Sunday 27th, so obviously they had arrived on Monday and someone decided to play with on.
So, the next day, we rung the morons up and told them. They offered me 50% off a game. Good for them. We ended up getting a free game out of it. No Steel Diver (I heard today that it's not even out in Europe yet, so I guess that's why it's not out in New Zealand yet - same region, video game-wise anyway), so I had limited other choices. Ridge Racer didn't appeal to me because I'm not a big fan of racing games, and from what I heard, it has no multiplayer. I was going to get Rayman 3D because I like Rayman 2, but in the meantime, decided that if I REALLY wanted another version, I'd be better off finally getting a Dreamcast (which I still have yet to do, but do want to get a hold of).
I ended up getting Lego Star Wars III. It's pretty cool, but.... I want Zelda and Kid Icarus and Metal Gear Solid and Mario and..... well, the eShop and web browser would be totally awesome to have right now.
Anyway, the store KNEW. They didn't even ask to see the 3DS. I don't know what they did with the game though. Someone would have got a second-hand game sold as brand new with a save game already on it. Pathetic. But just like EB Games does with their discs (no idea about cartridge-based games), this store takes the 3DS games out of the cases, so you'd never know. So much for brand new. Technically, none of the games are brand new from them.....
Another epic win for me was that the pre-order prices for the 3DS and its games in New Zealand were all messed up and VERY inconsistent between shops. I saved about NZ$30 (around US$20) on the system because of that. I also used a great online shopping website in New Zealand to price match with the crap store I bought the console from. That is, a pre-order price for Super Street Fighter IV 3D, so I saved even more money. Plus, I had money I had paid off for other pre-orders that I decided to cancel. I transferred the money to Street Fighter IV 3D. I also got a birthday discount that had been used on an order that was later cancelled because they couldn't get the item in stock, so..... I only paid about half the price for the game.
Also, maybe someone can tell me if I'm correct or not, but I believe the 3DS game cases are the new eco/green game case types. Either way, the cases SUCK. They're annoying to open, annoying to close (sometimes they don't line up properly), and they're REALLY flimsy. I'll have the old DS game cases back any day.
The last thing I wanted to mention is basically this: I'm not exactly popular. In fact, most people don't give a damn about this fat nerd. But take a brand new piece of technology to school, and people ogle over it. It's crazy. Yeah, they'll talk to you then. Surprising? Nah. But pathetic, definitely. Half the people would be the ones that would rather pretend you didn't exist, too. Some people that I've never even talked to. It's crazy.... Unfortunately, I go to a private school, so it won't be long before some stupidly jealous little child decides to imitate my purchase. It also kinda pissed me off when one guy asked me how much it was, and then he said "oh, that's not too bad". My ass. That cost me heaps. Took me a while to get all that money, and I had to sell a lot of things. Geez. Rich people....
The Real Jdbye
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