Late last week Microsoft opened up the first of its planned retail locations in Scottsdale, Arizona at Scottsdale Fashion Square, one of Arizona’s premiere malls and definitely one of its priciest. The store feels a lot like an Apple Store with its wide open spaces, hundreds of demo units, and the freedom to just walk in, play with a Zune HD (very cool, by the way), surf around on a laptop, or play some Beatles Rock Band.

Most of the store is a display of various laptops and desktops, each has something like a Zune HD or small peripheral device attached to it allowing you to play with the music manager and see how the device works, although each device is practically devoid of media files to toy around with. In the back corner is a section entirely for the Xbox 360, however this area covers about 5% of the total floor space, the real focus is laptops with all major manufacturers represented.

The store also has a number of Microsoft Surfaces with lots of different games available for you to play. The Entertainmentopia crew had the chance to play some chess (before contributor Greg Elliott learned how to reset the board). As Executive Editor John Simons and Greg played I was able to play with the discarded pieces and fling them all over the exposed areas of the surface. All in all it was a cool experience. Being based in Arizona doesn’t provide us much hand’s on opportunities before anyone else, but, as you can see in the pictures below, we were there!

Looking at the store from the mall

We took this opportunity to deploy some guerilla marketing

Contributor Greg Elliott plays with a Microsoft Surface

A look down the row of laptops to the "help" room where Windows 7 was being introduced

Various buyers looking at Windows 7 boxes

Another look down the middle of the store, the side walls are giant video boards

A better view of the video boards near the front of the store