The past month has been an interesting one for gamers in Japan. With two new handhelds due out here in the next three weeks (Nintendo DS on Dec. 2 and Sony PSP on Dec. 12), both of which are expected to be in extremely short supply, hardcore gamers and early adopters have been running around Tokyo like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get their systems locked down in advance.

In late October, Nintendo announced plans to allow DS preorders from the morning of November 3, a full month before release. Retailers all over Japan were notified in advance, and therefore, if you wanted a DS, you knew exactly what you had to do: wake up early on the 3rd, head over to your favorite local games shop, and reserve the hardware (and whatever games you wanted).

Thanks to a typically well-coordinated effort by Nintendo (I say typically because they always seem to be on top of their game when it comes to promotional stuff like this in Japan), preordering a DS was relatively painless.

On the other side of the fence, we have PSP. As you might imagine, PSP is going to be the hottest must-have item in Japan this holiday season by far, and with expectations of only around 200,000 units being ready for launch, things are bound to get ugly. To make matters worse, Sony's PSP preorder campaign was... practically nonexistent. There was no advance warning of preorders, which had most people checking in with shops on an almost daily basis trying to find out what was up. Of course, shopkeepers were completely in the dark as well.

Suddenly, around Nov. 15, rumors started flying about various smaller shops and web sites starting up PSP preorders. But by the time those rumors got anywhere, these places were already sold out.

Then, Sony announced that their online store at www.jp.playstation.com would begin taking "pre-reservations" from Nov. 19 at 12:30pm. Users who logged in to the site at that time could apply for a pre-reservation, which is basically a preorder of a preorder -- a guarantee that you'll be able to reserve a PSP when the official reservations begin a few days later (Nov. 30, as it turns out).

Fortunately, thanks to a well-placed tip, I learned that Shibuya Tsutaya, one of the largest game shops in Tokyo, would start taking preorders that same morning. I found this out around 8pm the night before; so much for advance warning! In any case, thanks to this tip, myself and GameScience's JonnyRam were literally the first two people in Japan to get PSP preorders in at Tsutaya. What a relief!

I also managed to nab one from the website as well, but not without much grief; I spent over 40 minutes of repeatedly clicking on the "pre-reserve" button with no luck before finally giving up, only to find out later that I had gotten through after all. The problem was, the confirmation screen never showed up because the site was getting hammered so hard from other people trying to get through as well.

So, yes, now I have both a DS and a PSP guaranteed for launch. To be honest, all of the stressing and searching was actually kind of fun; it's not all that often you get to experience the excitement of a new system launch in Japan, after all. But I'm definitely glad it's over now, and I hope Sony will learn from this experience and handle things a little smoother when PS3 rolls around.

As for everyone who wanted to preorder but couldn't -- well, you can expect to read about hundreds (possibly thousands) of people lining up throughout Japan the night before each system launches to try and buy one the normal way when the shops open at 7am the next morning. This'll be fun as well, I'm sure, but there was no way I was willing to go right down to the last minute not knowing for absolute sure whether or not I'd be playing DS or PSP over the holiday break this year.

The moral of the story? Get your preorders in early, kiddos. And don't expect it to be easy if it's something Sony-related. :)

BTW, I suspect some people will be wondering which games I preordered as well, so here's the current list:

Nintendo DS:

- Super Mario 64DS (Nintendo)
- Kimi no Tame nara Shineru (Feel the Magic: XY/XX) (Sega)
- Sawaru Made in Wario (WarioWare Touched!) (Nintendo)
- Ridge Racer DS (Namco)

I preordered Ridge Racer DS from the US, mostly out of curiosity. I'm not expecting it to be anywhere near as good as Ridge Racers on PSP, for obvious reasons. It's scheduled to release there on December 7.

Sony PSP:

- Ridge Racers (Namco)
- Minna no Golf Portable (SCE)
- Lumines (Bandai)
- Metal Gear Acid (Konami)

Metal Gear doesn't actually release until the 16th, but since I'm heading back to the US for a few weeks from the 18th, I figured I'll grab it and see if it's any good during the break.

Between all this stuff and then Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Dragon Quest VIII, this is going to be one busy (but FUN) holiday break!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in America!