After half a decade of popular iProduct releases, the big customer line-ups are becoming rote, an expected and not especially newsworthy routine for zealots, entrepreneurs and excited first-timers. Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 4S was released Friday morning, and people were out in droves. While “only” 350 customers were waiting at the company’s flagship New York City store by 8 a.m. — still hardly a record for Apple releases in that city — but many more surrounded stores in Germany, Australia, Japan and other countries around the world.
Demand for Apple’s gear is real enough that it regularly outstrips supply. Just look at March’s iPad 2 release. The release furor also equates to big earnings. Apple sold 1 million iPhone 4S pre-orders in 24 hours earlier this week. That breaks down to between $200 million and $400 million in sales, and that was before Verizon (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T) and Sprint (NYSE:S) sold out of their pre-order allotments. After customers lined up at Apple Stores around the world get theirs on Friday, Apple could come close to $1 billion in sales on launch day alone. The lines, as far as Apple’s shareholders are concerned, meet the hype.
But the iPhone isn’t the only device that’s drawn amusement park-caliber lines to their launches. Here are three other products that have drawn massive pre-release fervor:
Xbox 360, Microsoft
It was rumored that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) intentionally limited the number of Xbox 360s shipped to retailers in November 2005, meaning the company manufactured the pre-release hype necessary to get people lined up at Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) and GameStop (NYSE:GME) the night the device released. And oh, did people line up.
In fact, the next-generation console was so sought-after that people were mugged at gunpoint for their new Xboxes, leading to widespread alarmist news reporting during the releases of Sony‘s (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo‘s (PINK:NTDOY) Wii one year later.
Microsoft didn’t see sales to quite match Apple at first. It only sold around 6 million Xbox 360s in the device’s first six months — good for between $1.8 billion and $2.4 billion in sales. Still chump change for the company behind Windows. Six years later, though, that same device has racked up 55 million units sold, with Microsoft shipping 14 million Xbox 360s in the first two quarters of 2011 alone. The next time Microsoft releases a gaming machine, you can bet on the release lines being even longer — and possibly monitored by police.
Fifth-Generation iPod, Apple
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when waiting in line for Apple’s latest toy came into vogue, but the fifth-generation iPod released in October 2005 might have been the gadget that launched 1,000 lawn-chair campers.
The first iPod to support video content spurred the media player’s ascent from popular consumer product to industry-defining earnings force. iPod sales totaled $3.2 billion in 2005, for year-on-year growth of 248%. Apple sold 22.5 million iPods that year, compared to just 4.4 million the year before. To date, the company has sold 300 million iPods. Alhough the device’s role in the company has been diminished by the success of the iPhone and iPad, it remains a strong seller.
Call of Duty: Black Ops, Activision Blizzard
While not a gadget per se, Activision Blizzard‘s (NASDAQ:ATVI) 2010 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops was one of the biggest entertainment technology releases of all time. Customers lined up for midnight release events in the U.S. and U.K., buying 5.6 million copies of the game in the first 24 hours of release for a total of $360 million in sales. Call of Duty‘s sales more than doubled within six weeks, hitting $1 billion in sales before Christmas. It became the best-selling game of all time in the United States in March 2011.
ATVI will release another game under the CoD banner — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — in November. ATVI shares have been on the rise since the middle of August, and that upward slope could continue if Modern Warfare 3 follows Black Ops’ lead.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
