How Bad Will The 360 Shortage Be?

shrouded writes "Rumors have been growing the last few days about hardware shortages for the launch of Microsoft's new video game console this month. No one is speaking about it officially, but off behind-the-scenes whispering makes it sound like initial supplies won't even cover people who have pre-paid for their machines. eToychest spent the weekend asking retailers what they anticipate for the Nov. 22 release date, and its not pretty."

Comments

Shortage? Not of advertising.

[AndreiK]

Even if there is a shortage, I predict it will be extremely short lived.

Also, this is all artificial. Slashdot is proof of it - there is an advertisement every day on this supposed shortage - most of us even believe it now because its been drilled into our heads for so long.

Does it matter?

[jclast]

Does it really matter if there's a shortage of 360s this holiday season. The current generation will still have games released for it, right?

So what if little Johnny doesn't get a 360 under the tree this year. If getting your child a 360 for Christmas is that important and you can't find one, just set the money aside and pick one up when more are made.

It's not as though these things will be in short supply forever.

I'm more interested in the shortage of games

[IIDX]

I believe only two games have gone gold, which means a max of 2 games will be available at launch as of now...

Who cares about buying the system on launch day if you can't play the game you wanted yet?

"Later that week"

[pnice]

The past supply estimate said

Best Buy: 20 to 60 Xbox 360s with a larger shipment coming "later that week."

So what's up with that? Are they going to make enough Xbox 360s to give all of the Best Buy stores more in less than 7 days after they get the first batch? That seems pretty impressive...at least to me.

Re:maybe they should just call it:

[Golias]

What made Live stupid?

Several things.

1. It wasn't always one fee. For example, if you wanted to play PSO, you had to pay your broadband fee, the X-Box Live fee on top of that, and the MMO subscription fee on top of that. Screw that noise.

2. It wasn't terribly reliable, at least not at the homes where I saw it installed.

3. Many of the games didn't really offer enough value through the on-line experience to make it worth the money. Most of the best console games are, after all, designed to amuse 1-4 people in the same living room together. Being able to play DOAU against some kid in Florida is really not as much fun as being able to play against your younger brother on the other side of the couch.

4. In computer network games, you get to know your opponents and teammates a little bit though text chat. Since the X-Box has no keyboard, everybody is expected to chat with the headset mikes, but hearing eight people (including yourself) breathing in your ear for a whole game is annoying enough that most people just keep their microphones muted... which means nobody actually talks to each other, so PvP becomes just about as impersonal as playing off-line against the AI.

5. The real-world experience was really no better than with the old pick-up Quake games. I once watched my friend log in to a 4-on-4 Mechwarrior battle, only to see three players on one team immediately drop out as the game started, leaving the rest of the players with a stupidly one-sided 4-on-1 battle to play out. Almost the exact same thing happened on the next seven attempts to get a match going. Such frustrations are annoying when playing pick-up games on free servers, but to pay for the privilege of such crappy gameplay just flat-out sucks.

This could be a manufactured rumor, too...

[Malor]

Microsoft probably wants there to be a big buzz about shortages, to get more people to pony up and purchase the first day.... the rumor thus becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would not shock me AT ALL if the source for this one is Microsoft itself. They want it to be special, scarce, and hard to find.

The way to combat the problem, as others here are mentioning, is just to ignore the console completely. There aren't going to be very many good games for it at first ANYWAY. The games aren't going anywhere. You'll still be able to play them if you wait until the consoles are easy to get. They're just graphical updates of existing games. They'll look fantabulous, but they're not going to play differently. It's just the same old shit with a facelift.

There's NO rush on this... the games will be just as much fun in February as they would be in two weeks, and they might be a little cheaper.

One Word

[vertinox]

Ebay

The thought crossed my mind about getting pre-orders under the names a bunch of friends with several EB, Gamestop, Walmarts to try to buy as many Xbox360 and then sell them on ebay at exploitive prices.

However, I never put that much effort in life towards money because of moral implactions, being lazy, and the fact I don't like to use Ebay.

Also my reasoning that this could be all hype and I could end up with a bank breaking debt worth of overpriced hardware that no one wants.

Why MS Is Desperate With The '360 Shortage Hype'

[Anonymous Coward]

This is it for Microsoft and the console market.

About halfway through the first Xbox fiasco, Microsoft was ready to pull the plug on the whole mess. But decided not to and let the disaster run its course.

Despite what many Windows fanatics like to claim, Microsoft in no way has unlimited amounts of cash to spend. Even a passing knowledge of their number of shares outstanding and revenue growth makes that clear. The 360 is the 'one more chance' project for the Xbox team. There is no more freedom to blow billions this time around. Either the 360 can sustain itself in the market or the whole mess is getting the axe. The Xbox fiasco has been the number one issue with Wallstreet for Microsoft for the past four years. It is a huge problem for a company that has seen its stock languish for the past five years.

Well, things have been going, to put it mildly, badly for the 360. The Xbox team is fighting for their lives. They know the axe is ready to fall on the Xbox mess and they are trying anything, anything, to at the least give the appearance that things are going better than they seem.

I can honestly say I won't miss the Xbox when it is gone. Microsoft really needs to get back to basics. They have more important fights on their hands than futile dreams of controlling the living room.

There Will Be No Shortage

[GaryPatterson]

The units will sell out on release day, and probably there's been an artificial restriction on stock to ensure that.

But a few days later they'll be back. No-one could seriously believe that Microsoft will miss the holiday buyers, can they?

There will be no shortage, but there will be a few days wait for most buyers.

I'm going to sit this out for the first year, and then maybe buy one, if I like the look of Halo-3. I only bought the X-box for Halo-2, but then I upgraded to a PowerMac G4/450 back in 1999 because I thought Halo for the Mac was just around the corner. There were demos! At Macworld! Yes... I'm a long-suffering Bungie fan...

Hmm.. didnt they the same about the PSP?

[AzraelKans]

If you check on the articles past year, you will notice every single article on the PSP predicted a shortage. Sony predicted a shortage, IGN, slashdot , etc. They even pulled "anti -shortage" schemes one psp per customer ,no change of PSP for dead pixels, etc. Does anyone remember having any problem to find a PSP on xmas? They do that based on PRE-SELLS only, and yes I bet there will be a "shortage" on pre-sells, since fans buy their stuff on those, but Alas regular people dont. Stores have bundles of those in the ware houses, and it turns out regular people wont buy them. So if you want one, dont "pre buy" it , just walk to any store and buy it, Im sure there will be plenty to go by.

Maybe it's not so artificial?

[Tibor the Hun]

Considering that IBM only recently announced the beginning of production of the chips for the 360 maybe the shortage is more due to the chip supply than it is artificial.
Article in question.

How many chips can they make in a month? 10000, 100000?

Perhaps MS is about to learn why Apple switched from IBM.