| Capulous said: Yep, they increased their projected forecast from 3 million to 5 million for the holidays. So the end of 2010, they are re-supplying stores on a consistent basis and they have a lofty projection for Kinect. I don't see why they would need create an artificial shortage; especially with all they have done to promote it. |
Artificial shortage is very useful and widely used practice. It's both free-advertising and hype inducing. People are very social and often conform to group pressure. I saw a study in which 5 actors and one test subject were shown 2 lines of similar length and asked which line was longer. Each answer was given in order of a row with the test subject being the 4th to answer. After a certain amount of time, the actors started saying the shorter line was longer. By the time the test subject came up, he was under visible distress and saying that it was the shorter line was the longer one. There were many other discoveries in social pressure in this study, but just for simplification, people tend to want what everyone else wants. If something seems popular enough, they will adhere to the social pressure and conform.
Artificial shortages are a very real and very effective form of advertising.
Also, you have to take in the context that this is still november and kinect was just released. Right now, it makes sense to underproduce in order to build up hype further down the road during december and earlier on black friday where people are really gearing up to spend. Sales of kinect will definitely be down this week and possibly the next (but still only slightly), but as soon as black friday hits it's going to be up to 500k per week, either leveling off til new years, or increase by 20-30% per week in the same time period. It really depends on what the actual demand is. So, I'd predict 3-3.5M by newyears in the US, and availability by black friday or shortly after.
