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?
I attended the Switch release at my local Best Buy. I decided to swing by after work on a whim (I work evenings) and managed to snag a sheet to reserve a copy. There were probably a few hundred people in line, but nothing crazy like the line wrapping around the store or anything.
How do you have a line of a few hundred people, and have it not wrap around the store? That sounds like the real crazy part.
A large big-box store and the line wasn't single file. A lot of people were in small groups as well. I could be misremembering since it's been years, but there were maybe 2-300 people.