Nothing screamed Y2K more than the PlayStation store at the Metreon.
I spent Saturdays as a middle schooler downtown: strolling through the Union Square Macy’s and snagging a chocolate chip cookie from Tom’s Cookies down in the cellar, grabbing yet another Abercrombie polo at the mall, and jamming out to Eminem and Nelly at the Virgin Records listening booths. But I liked to cap off my days at the Metreon, and more often than not, I’d go to the PlayStation store.
I remember weaving through the super sleek store, with its glass walls and floors (!!), metal railings, egg-shaped gaming pods decked out with PlayStation 2s and TVs, and a retail bar where each seat had a new game to play around with. If I was lucky enough to snag a spot at one of those gaming stations, I’d play Crash Bandicoot or if I was feeling brave, Twisted Metal: Black.
Twenty or so years ago, the PlayStation store was the place to be — at least if you were a teenager or an avid gamer. It felt like the future, or at least what the future felt like at 13. With Nintendo opening up its first flagship store on the West Coast next month, there’s a chance the city’s beleaguered downtown might be able to capture some of that magic again.
“There was a buzz,” Brooks Huber, who said he often frequented the store, told Gazetteer SF. “There was an excitement about it. It was kind of like the Apple Store before the Apple Store.”
The store opened in 1999 with the Sony Metreon complex’s grand opening — an event featuring live bands, free drinks, and the one and only then-Mayor Willie Brown. At 5,531 square feet, it was a huge deal — a proof-of-concept store that showed the cutting edge of video games. At the time, the Metreon also featured an arcade, a “Where the Wild Things Are” exhibit, and other kid-friendly activities. The Discovery Channel would eventually open up a shop; even Sony rival Microsoft was in the space. Today, all of those experiences are gone, except the movie theater.
It served as the home base for product launches like the PlayStation 2, PSP, and the PlayStation 3. There were 17-hour waits for the PlayStation 2 launch, complete with a really bad comedian, IGN reported at the time; in 2006, hundreds of people lined up outside the PlayStation store, some for more than two days ahead of the launch, to get first dibs on the PlayStation 3. One enterprising man offered $250 for the privilege of taking his spot in line. A couple of hours before the midnight launch, the rock band Angels and Airwaves performed on what Wired described as “an elaborate stage” smack-dab in the middle of Fourth Street.
It was always a scene.
One of Huber’s fondest memories, he said, was when Sony released God of War II for the PlayStation 2 in 2007. As a video game reporter at the time, Huber attended a packed media event at the store. He remembered interviewing the game's creative director, Cory Barlog.
“They were also letting everybody play the opening act of the game there,” Huber said. “That was a really cool time.”
The most devoted regulars showed up nearly every day; they made friends at the shop. These were the self-identified “real gamers,” before that was the norm. But there was also a contingent of middle and high schoolers — myself included — who would frequent the shop.
Sam Slesinger, who was born and raised in San Francisco, remembered going there as a kid.
“It was one of those places you’d pop into,” Slesinger said. “This was at a time when I don’t think I owned a PlayStation, so I wasn’t there to buy, but they had those demo consoles set up so you could play games, which was a lot of fun.”
Huber, meanwhile, worked nearby the store on Second and Mission streets and went in pretty regularly.
“That’s why I had a special, soft spot for the Metreon,” he said. “It tied heavily into my career being in video games and video game journalism.”
But despite such fond memories of the PlayStation store among those who frequented it, the store and the complex itself wasn’t a slam dunk for Sony. People were seemingly playing, but not quite buying, the games. In 2006, Sony sold the Metreon to Westfield before eventually shuttering the PlayStation store altogether in 2009. At the time, Westfield top brass said the plan was to pursue new ideas and concepts to complement the changing area, which had evolved to become more focused on culture, arts, and food.
In 2012, the mall changed hands again, with Westfield selling it to Starwood Capital. Now, the mall is up for sale once more.
Huber, who left the Bay Area in 2009, was surprised when I told him the PlayStation store closed that same year, calling its closure “too soon.”
Fast forward to today, and a lot of the magic of downtown San Francisco has disappeared. But there’s a much-needed bright spot coming to downtown that could inject some new life into the area: the forthcoming Nintendo store, slated to open May 15.
A singular Nintendo store is surely not enough to bring back downtown, but it’s a nod to the good ol’ days in downtown when there was a little something for everyone. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, city supervisors, and representatives from business improvement district Union Square Alliance see it that way too.
Danny Sauter, city supervisor for District 3, which includes downtown, said that shops like the new Nintendo store “have a big role to play in Union Square’s retail recovery,” he told Gazetteer in a text message.
“There is this feeling of childhood, nostalgia, and just being lost in happiness, bliss, fantasy,” Marisa Rodriguez, CEO of the Union Square Alliance, told Gazetteer. “Whatever it is that the world of gaming brings to the masses, to the people.”
With the forthcoming Nintendo store, residents and visitors alike will perhaps be able to replicate the experience they had at the old PlayStation store.
Rodriguez doesn’t yet know the details for Nintendo's grand opening, but her “sense is it’ll be pretty big,” she said. “I think it’ll be a big to-do.”
Slesinger, who still lives in the Bay Area and works in downtown San Francisco, said he’ll probably check out the new Nintendo store during his lunch breaks but that he could see the store being “a bigger draw” for kids.
“That’s what I was doing when I was a kid, either on weekends or after school,” he said. “Going to the Metreon or PlayStation store was one of the few things I did.”
The Nintendo store’s grand opening in May will be a big moment for downtown, but a potentially bigger moment will be when Nintendo launches the Switch 2. Maybe there will even be a mega-watt rock band taking over Union Square.
