Photos: The Xbox 360 launch at Best Buy and Wal-Mart

By 9:00 PM, a sizable crowd at this Louisville Best Buy were waiting for word on when and how the store would begin selling their 56 units (44 Premium and 12 Core).

Photo by Bill Detwiler

As the line swelled at Best Buy, Louisville Metro Police officers arrived to monitor the crowd and ensure a peaceful night.

Photo by Bill Detwiler

As it turned out, the Best Buy employees had each person that was waiting write their name and phone number on a piece of paper and placed all of them in this cardboard box with the yellow sticker. At 9:30 PM Best Buy employees began drawing names from the box. Each person chosen was given a place in line that corresponded to the order in which their name was drawn.

Photo by Bill Detwiler

The lucky few whose names were chosen then began the 12-hour wait until the store opened at 9:00 AM Tuesday. At that time, they were allowed to purchase one of the 56 Xbox 360 consoles from this Best Buy.

Photo by Bill Detwiler

By Tuesday morning, it was very difficult to find an Xbox 360 at any retail location. The next-generation gaming console was even sold out at this rural Wal-Mart in Indiana, which opened at 7:00 AM on November 22. By 7:05, shoppers were greeted with this "Out of Xbox 360" sign on the front door. As a result, a bunch of disappointed local gamers were hanging out in front of Wal-Mart and using their cell phones to call stores in surrounding towns to see if there was any place that had the Xbox 360 in stock.

Photo by Jason Hiner

Back at the games display in the electronics section, Wal-Mart shoppers at this rural Indiana store were met with another reminder that there were no Xbox 360 consoles available to purchase.

Photo by Jason Hiner

Wal-Mart shoppers could see this Xbox 360 display model, but that was the closest many of them were able to get to an Xbox 360 on launch day, November 22. Unfortunately, the shoppers who came to this Wal-Mart in Indiana for the launch on Tuesday morning couldn't even try out the console because the screen was frozen.

Photo by Jason Hiner

At nearly every retailer, shoppers ran into signs such as this one at Wal-Mart that limited the purchase of the Xbox 360 to one per customer. So for those that want to buy an extra one as a holiday gift for a friend or relative (or one for themself after buying one as a gift), they'll have to hope that more consoles are released in the next few weeks. Microsoft has promised that "thousands" of Xbox 360 consoles are being manufactured every day.

Photo by Jason Hiner