The late night sales event for the new INTEL CPU,"Core i7 870/860""Core i5 750" and the new chip-set motherboard with "P55" was held at some Akiba PC shops between September 7th to 8th, after its release at midnight of the 8th.
to http://akiba.kakaku.com/pc/0909/08/000101.php
to http://akiba.kakaku.com/pc/0909/08/000100.php
to http://akiba.kakaku.com/pcevent/0909/05/213000.php
The shop that held the night sales were, Dospara Akihabara main store, TSUKUMO ex, Sofmap Akihabara reuse store, TWO TOP Akihabara main store, Faith custom shop, T-ZONE PC DIY SHOP, Clevery 1st store, and GENO Koubou. All shop had announced their sales beforehand and started around 10pm of 7th, pre-payment -> special discount sales/ auction events -> handing over from 12:01 am of the 8th.
<Events>
Having no official events by INTEL, each shop held special events of their own. Counting down to the opening, handing out of the specials to the customers of the new CPU/motherboard, discount items sold and auction, to name a few. INTEL's Mr. Amano (a.k.a. "Kamisama") and PC writer Takahashi went around shops for the talk show.
Shops went head to head with their discounting of CPUs right before the opening (at T-ZONE PC DIY SHOP). Many unexpected projects like the reservations for "PT2" (at Tsukumo ex), priority sales tickets for customers purchasing both the new CPU and motherboard (at Dospara Akihabara main store) were happy surprises for the users. But it was rather quiet compared to the other night sales event. A shop staff commented "This is the quietest night sales ever".
There were police officers called by a nearby resident right after the countdown. The police force that came in 2 police cars and few bicycles went around the shops giving them warnings to each shop managers and stayed until the end of the events, leaving somewhat of a bad taste.
The question is "What will happen to the night sales for "Windows 7"?"
<Night Time Limited Products/Sale>
Each shops had customers lined up before the shops' closing, making it look like the discount is their main aim. The main attractions were the "Festival Price" with numbers bearing the numbers 7/5/1156/55 like "Windows Vista Ultimate" at 1,156 yen, PIONEER's DVD drive at 55 yen. there were also limited discount items like HITACHI 1TB HDD priced at 3,980 yen to pick up more customers.
There were the popular tuner card "PT1 Rev.B" by EARTH SOFT and the P55 motherboard that just came out at the auction heating up the shop's atmosphere.
<Sales>
The new Core i7 CPU models that went on sale were "870" "860", and the Core i5"750". Priced at about 60,000 yen, 30,000 yen, 20,000 yen, but the Monday night made it difficult to call it good sales.
There were over 20 P55 motherboard models that made it for the event. The makers ranging from ASRock, ASUS, BIOSTAR, GIGABYTE, Intel, to MSI, and the price tags also ranged from the reasonable early 10,000 yens to the top 30,000 yen models.
All the shops were hesitated to give an answer when asked "Which is your top seller?" But the most answer we got was "Core i7-860" CPU and ASUS"P7P55D" motherboards. "This may have the best price/performance ratio" was an answer given.
Photo Gallery below,
