Gamers Camp Outside Michigan Best Buy to Score Rare Tech Release

A Michigan Best Buy was the place to be Thursday if your were a tech savvy gamer, especially if you were one willing to camp out to score the latest gadget.

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Looking more like the night before Black Friday, the Best Buy in Novi, Michigan saw tons of people camped out to score a new tech rarity. The Novi location was one of only 81 Best Buys selling a new graphics card released to the public for the first on Thursday.

The chip, known as the RTX 3080 Ti graphic card, is highly sought after by games looking for that top of the line 4K gaming experience. According to the report by Fox 2 Detroit, the chip "the ultra performance that gamers crave".

So why the crowd sleeping in the parking lot? Well of the 81 locations carrying the new graphics card, Novi joined Kalamazoo as the only two Michigan locations. More importantly, each location only had 50 cards.

Making the new release even a bigger deal, was the impact the pandemic has had on production and availability. Prior to COVID-19 rearing its ugly head, the chip would have cost around $699. Now with shortages due to decreased production, the RTX 3080 hit the shelves at whopping $1200 a chip.

So is the chip worth it? According to Christopher Shelby., who had spent the night in the parking lot outside Best Buy to secure his spot in line, the answer is yes. He told Fox 2 Detroit,

"Basically it runs your PC and the better the card, the more things you can run. So for me, I'll probably be playing a lot of Fortnite with it."

I guess when you're passionate about something, you'll do just about anything. Even pay $1200.

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