I think it's a good idea, but what you really want is to cut on scalpers while at the same time getting the nice PR rewards of people lining up. What they (the company launching the console) should do is have a portion of the consoles for online sale at market prices (aka ebay prices). The rest should be sold in stores normaly for MSRP. With this the real fans will be making the lines instead of homeless people as the scalpers will find it high to justify the risk, since people that can't be bothered to line up will just buy it online from the manufacturer. This has all the advantages since the manufacturer can even sell those first consoles online for a profit, they cut down on the scalping, they keep the harcore gamer on a budget happy by offering a cheaper alternative, get the nice PR from people lining up (that actually want to play and BUY games) and no disadvantages whatsoever.
So yeah l-b your idea was good, but mine's excellent. Feel free to praise me