Naturally MS wants to sell as many Kinect units as possible over the holiday season. There's not going to be any "intentional undershipping" as you conspiracy theorists out there are implying.
MS is spending a ridiculous amount to have to biggest launch possible and the biggest potential failure of such a marketing approach would be failing to meet the basic demand of the product they're promoting. There is absolutely NO logic in that.
Comparisons to the Wii are pointless considerng that it legitimately outsold projections by a huge margin (far exceeding even Nintendo's estimates) based upon the constant production increases that were implemented to keep up with demand for the better part of three years.
Any individual retailers making thinly veiled threats that "you can't have one unless your pre-order!" is obviously doing what any (unscrupulous) business that wants your business would do; creating the illusion of demand or limited supply in the interest of pushing panic purchases as though MS is going to run out of Kinect units.
Worst case scenario; you buy one Q1 2011. Depending on how the adoption rate goes after the initial marketing blitz, if you wait longer (when there are actually some decent games worth buying) you may even be able to pick one up at a discount if MS doesn't drop the price themselves.
