Slashdot Mirror
Where In The World is the 360?
Chris Kohler's Game|Life column wonders aloud Where is the 360? Despite assurances from Microsoft that more units are making their way to retail channels, it is still effectively impossible to get ahold of one from a store. From the article: "So, uh... where's the press release for Xbox 360? The congratulatory hype over how much cash they pulled in during the first 24 hours? Xbox dot com has nothing. Were it not for that Halo 2 press release, I wouldn't be asking, but... For that matter, where's the 360 itself? It's now been over two weeks since the launch of the 360, and that nebulous ether affectionately referred to as 'the retail channel' has not seen a single additional Xbox 360 unit. How do I know? As has been well-documented here, I had a preorder reservation placed at the downtown EB Games that was originally supposed to be a launch-day unit but got bumped back to 'second shipment.'" Kotaku has commentary on this as well. I'm in a similar situation as Mr. Kohler, since Slashdot is not cool enough to receive a review console.
Hehe, that's rich. After all those years of being so nice to Microsoft, you don't even get a single console to review... Oh, the irony. ;)
I'm in a similar situation as Mr. Kohler, since Slashdot is not cool enough to receive a review console.
This is very surprising considering all the positive press that Microsoft routinely gets out of Slashdot. From past experience I can safely say that most Slashdotters would have been rushing the stores after the guarenteed-to-be-glowing review of the new console produced by such a respectable company.
Aside from the DIRECT quote in the article summary, the article consists of only three more sentences.
So trust me when I say that nobody seems to have any idea when that second shipment will even arrive. It was supposed to be a week after launch, then two weeks... Where are they?
Ok, so if the 360's second shipment slips past Christmas will all of the conspiracy theories that claim the shortages were intentional finally go away?
I'm not so sure who to believe but missing Christmas would be taking the whole "artificial shortage to increase demand" thing a bit too far and into the realm of stupidy (no, I'm not putting that past Microsoft, I'm just saying that it REALLY wouldn't make sense then).
"This is considered plagiarism."
In Microsoft's labs working out the kinks they should have solved before shipping it in the first place.
I.e. don't be sad you can't get the Xbox360, chances are by the time you get one, it will be version 2.0 of the device that actually works.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
...second shipments this monday. But with hundreds of rainchecks/preorders per store, when the hell are people going to be able to even get one without hassle? Get ready for the losses Microsoft, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy kids who would have had your console and produced delicious money for you that end up with a PSP or Xbox 1 as a christmas present.
Every comment I've seen from people getting their units replaced has been exceptionally quick. Typically under a week from first phone call to new unit sitting under TV.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
So where's the XBox 360?
/., would any of them actually risk opening it?
On EBay, which currently accounts for 10% of all 360 sales. Looks like prices from $550 to $1000. I kept wondering why the XBox was being manufactured for shortages, when M$ wasn't taking advantage of shortage pricing, but instead pricing under cost*. One article raises the speculation that the secondary market might be intentional.** Maybe M$ decided it prefers an auction economy, perhaps to dodge allegations of price gouging, which are apparently all the rage, for better or worse.
So where's the congratulatory hype?
Here's some, though we're probably not seeing a huge amount of post-release PR because they can't meet extra demand such PR would generate anyway. And they probably gave their PR department a holiday after all their pre-release work.
Or maybe they fired them after all their ads got banned from TV.
Where are our promo boxes?
The other comments have covered this pretty well. Really, if M$ sent a big heavy box in the mail to the editors of
Or maybe yours just got smashed uh... "in the mail."
*Another estimate of XBox cost/unit, from BusinessWeek.
**I don't actually think M$ planned to sell direct on Ebay to capitalize on created shortages, but it's still an interesting idea.
As much as MS has tried to downplay the number of defective units the number is quite large. In a number of posts I have been trying to show how a poll I did of 30 EB\Gamestop's in the Northeast U.S. the number of defective units is about 20%.
/. troll feels compelled to spout off... but at just my small sampling of 30 stores is showing around 20% I'm pretty confident this is accurate. At this rate were talking a fair number of replacement units needed. One Gamestop had used three of it's initial shipment for replacements... two to the same guy. He had bought one of each launch title and a few accessories and then got TWO lemon units, the third one worked finally.
Everyone said I was full of shit and the usual crap that the average
MS was so sure of themselves boasting and hyping their new product:
* 10 Million by '06 - Not looking likely.
* Weekly shipments up to and after Christmas - umm, yeah.
* The total number of defective units is very small - uh-huh sure, tell me another story uncle Bill.
* Replacement is an easy process - Now customers are being sent the pre-payed carton but not being given any date/time to expect the replacement unit. Nice.
If this thing was such a top-notch massive sales bonanza, then why is MS so quiet now after the big release? Hmmm, could there be troubles? Nah... couldn't be. Everything is perfect, everything is fine, the 360 is fine, there are no defects, just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
*cough*Bullshit*cough*
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Ding! That's why I'll probably end up getting one around this time next year(when all the kinks are worked out, and it'll be cheaper too!). That and Live Arcade.
Between the Revolution's download services, and the 360's live arcade service, I should have enough to never ever have to put an actual Rev or 360 disc in a drive.
The PS3 has all the "meh" aspects of the 360 and no cool online service to make me even remotely interested. Plus, after going through 3 PS2s, I'm not too inclined towards buying Sony things atm.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Microsoft knew they'd lose money on each one they sold at their own devised retail price so I have concluded that their business plan goes as follows:
1. Only release 10% of units produced to retail market to create huge artificial demand.
2. Sell Remaining 90% on eBay at insane prices that desperate parents and fanboys would willingly pay.
3. PROFIT!!!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Every day, I go looking for an XBox 360 in Philadelphia, PA. No dice. I keep getting quoted arrival times like "maybe February?"
During this daily ritual of frustration, I see tons of 360 accessories and games sitting on the shelf. Actually, there are the exact same numbers of items on the shelves on return visits. Nothing is selling. Same number of WI-FI adapters on the rack. Same number of copies of Quake 4 as last week. And, so on. Are the retailers not pressuring Microsoft for more units? I mean, Best Buy and Wal-Mart can't be happy with the number of 360 related items taking up shelf space that aren't moving. They should be furious with MS.
I thought Wal-Mart would have put Bill's nuts in a vice by now. Or, at least, threatened to send the unsold games and accessories back to MS until more console shipments are forthcoming.
Sure, Windows PCs dominate the market. But so do cheap toupees.