More than 7,000 stores nationwide started selling at 7 a.m. Saturday an advanced version of the popular PlayStation game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
In Tokyo's Akihabara district, site of Japan's largest cluster of electrical product retailers, several hundred people waited overnight -- some had been in line since Thursday -- in front of stores to get their hands on PlayStation2, which was sold on a first-come, first-served basis. The consoles were all snapped up within an hour.
A 19-year-old vocational college student from Koganei, Tokyo, who had been waiting in line since Friday morning, said: "I want to try it out as soon as I get home. Now I can brag about it to my friends because it's so popular."