1 Million 360s a Month By Year's End

GameDailyBiz reports that Microsoft plans to have one million 360's produced a month by the end of the year. From the article: "As has been previously reported Xbox 360 production and availability has already been significantly increased in recent weeks. In the period through Microsoft's fiscal year ending in June, the company expects to pump out 2 to 3 times the number of units it did previously. With Sony's PlayStation 3 launching this November across the globe, Microsoft still has a window of opportunity during which it can extend its lead in the next-gen race considerably."

Comments

November?

[solidtransient]

I could have sworn I read somewhere that the PS3 was delayed until 2007. Am I remembering incorrectly?

Commodity parts == Fast time to market

[BadAnalogyGuy]

In WWII, the Japanese designed the "zero-sen". It was light, fast, and could outmaneuver anything in the American air fleet. Unfortunately, it was also built from the ground up each time. No two zeros were the same, so no parts were generally interchangeable.

On the other hand, American fighter planes were pretty much cookie-cutter designs. If a flap needed replacement, it could be replaced with scrap from another plane. The lifetime of each plane increased significantly because it was simple to cannibalize other broken/damaged planes to repair operational ones.

When you decide to build from commodity parts, you're deciding to sacrifice performance for development speed. Maybe the XBox 360 won't be as good as the PS3, but it will certainly be more available and cheaper than it.