By Peter JacksonThe Daily Northwestern

Sometimes, waiting for Santa means waiting too long.

While many of his classmates partied their way through a recent Saturday night into Sunday morning, Jason Erickson stood with a throng of avid video game enthusiasts outside EB Games, 920 Church St. The McCormick freshman was waiting to plop down $350 at 12:01 a.m. for a brand-new Nintendo Wii with all the trimmings: two wireless, motion-sensitive controllers, two games and a neverending supply of gaming fun.

Erickson had already waited outside EB Games for five hours on Oct. 13, starting at 5 a.m., to preorder the new system. The store didn’t open until 10 a.m. He was the first in line.

If that sounds fanatical, the hubub surrounding the Nov. 17 launch of the Wii’s rival, Sony’s PlayStation 3, sounds downright insane. Steep demand and low supply has seen the Sony consoles fetching as much as $15,000 at online auction sites such as ebay.com.

In Englewood, Ohio, two men in ski masks robbed an EB Games outlet of five PlayStation 3s. And in Hartford, Conn., two armed men tried to rob people waiting in line to purchase the new system and shot one who refused to hand over his wallet.

It seems the madness of the holiday shopping season – usually defined as the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas – has come a bit earlier (and a bit naughtier) than usual. But other retailers may have to play catch-up to electronics stores.

The National Retail Federation and Evanston marketing organization EvMark predict it will be a good – but not great – holiday season for retailers both nationally and in Evanston.

The 2006 holiday season is expected to bring a 5 percent revenue jump over last year’s, which is slightly slower than the 6.1 percent uptick in revenue from 2004 to 2005, according to the National Retail Federation.

“Evanston typically tracks with the national numbers,” EvMark Executive Director Diane Williams said. “It’s been that way for the last couple of years. It’s remarkable.”

Jonathan Perman, executive director of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce, echoed that sentiment.

“Overall, the economy in the Midwest is pretty solid,” he said.

Gift cards and gift certificates have stretched the holiday season, in addition to the early debuts of marquee items like the Nintendo and Sony consoles, Williams said.

“The holiday season has extended,” Williams said. “Typically, now, with gift cards and certificates, the week after Christmas is almost as busy as the week before.”

Some Evanston retailers said they were uncertain about how they would fare this season.

Kellie Poulos, who owns downtown Evanston boutiques Asinamali, 1722 Sherman Ave., and Coucou, 1716 Sherman Ave., said that while she always expects a revenue bump from year to year, she’s unsure what the rest of 2006 has in store right now.

“You never know until it’s right on top of you,” she said. “I buy a lot of inventory for this season, so it’s important.”

At RadioShack, 716 Church St., manager Chad Gravengoed expressed cautious optimism.

“I sure hope we’ll do better than last year,” he said. “Last year, we were short of iPods and that hurt us. But this year LCD TVs will definitely help.”

The management of Evanston-based apparel retailer Active Endeavors, however, is expecting a big holiday season, especially through online sales.

“With our stores, we’re expecting significant growth (from 2005) but with online we’re expecting double growth,” said marketing director Abby Dunn. “We have a lot of great lines students love, like MARC by Marc Jacobs and Trovata. They’re coveted, must-have lines.”

The season is expected to be a mixed bag for nationwide retailers, with department stores and home-improvement chains seeing slowdowns that mirror the housing market and the economy overall, according to the National Retail Foundation.

Consumer electronics chains, big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and online vendors should more than offset the laggards, CNN/Money.com predicted.

Ailing toy giant Toys ‘R’ Us will roll out a mix of variations on old stalwarts: Barbie dolls (This year, she’s “My Style My Bling Bling Styling Head Barbie.”), Legos, and new items like the Blue Man Group Percussion Tube.

The toy retailer’s “Fabulous 15 Best of the Holiday Season” includes that little white box, the Nintendo Wii. Whether there will be any Wiis left for little gamers after college freshmen have had their way, however, remains to be seen.

At 12:28 a.m., back at his dorm, Erickson slid a game called Wii Sports into the boxy white console. A three-hour marathon of tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing and golf ensued.

“I swear to God I’m going to hurt my arm doing this,” Erickson said later that day before smacking a forehand winner in a fast-paced game of virtual tennis. “I’ve been playing this for the majority of the day, starting at midnight.”

He and Weinberg sophomore James Jones swung their controllers like rackets, transforming a room in McCulloch Hall into Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Spectators came and went, ogling the new system and the fluid way the boys were swinging, serving and lobbing their plastic rackets.

Reach Peter Jackson at [email protected].