According to VGC MS just sold through their shipped consoles from last year.

[ils411]

Slimebeast said:

legend92(3) said:

ils411 said:
MS didn't over stuff retail channels. Retailer's did that, not MS. Most likely retailers and distributors banked on the 360 and kinect selling like it did when it launched way back in 2010. MS was only too happy to oblige to their orders.

This. Companies can't simply force retailers to take in and pay for a shit load of consoles because they shipped them. A retialer has to order something before they recieve it.

Incentives perhaps. Maybe MS asked retail to stuff an extra million X360s and gave them some discounts in return, all so that he could become the number one selling console worldwide in 2011

true, MS could have offered volume discounts and whatnots but at the end of the day, its still the retailer's and distributor's call on how much to stock.  plus the massive BF sales must have convinced them that the christmas sale would be even bigger.  Its still not MS who did the stuffing.