Microsoft claims Xbox One sold out worldwide; Retailers beg to differ

[thx1139]

BMaker11 said:

thx1139 said:

So you have these couple of pictures with no context. They could have been hours or days before the launch event. You also say they were hours or days after launch and this article and the quote from MS is from this week.  So what if they were hours or even days after the launch.  That was like 2 weeks prior to the article.  I mean look at one of those pictures is a pallet with the pallet jack still in it. They literlly didnt have time to pull the jack away and the pile was what 1/4 full.  Its like the retailer said dont bother pulling the jack out let them all sell off then take the pallet and all back to receiving.  Look how dark the other picture is. Looks to me like the store isnt even open yet.

How is a clerk that takes a phone call supposed to know when he walks back to the department that the customer service took in a return an hour or 10 minutes ago. All he/she knows is there is a unit on the shelf.  

You can extrapolate what you want, but so can we by looking at sites that track availability, by going to retailers sites that allow you to check stores for inventory and see that wow they dont have any to sell that the X1 is in a sold out status.

The first picture was from after launch, even though MS said they sold out when they launched. Then they'd do what they could to resupply. That second pic is another pile that was set up before Black Friday. It may be Black Friday, but that's a rather large pile for just one store when they're "just able to meet demand" and need to put units in other stores. So there's your context of those particular two pictures

And there are more like it all over the internet if you took a second to google it. I even saw one posted here from a user from a week after launched and there were rows upon rows stack on each other at a store a VGC user went to. I wish I could find that post, or at least the thread with the picture in it, And getting into the semantics of the pictures, the one that's still on the jack....have you never been to a big box department store? When they expect a product to just fly off the shelf, they don't actually put it on a shelf (since those only house like 5 or 6 units). They put it on a jack, a pallet, in a cart, etc to have as many out and as accessible as possible. And the other picture is dark? It's indoors, so that's just the lighting....and there's a kid on the left side browsing.

And yea, you can go to sites that track availability. Here, I did you one better. Amazon in stock,  so tell all your buddies that want to get one (and this is after Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well). You see, I too am up to date with tracking sites (thank you Zoolerts and Wiilerts). I'm not just pulling this out of my ass

edit: I took a screenshot of me making this here edit, showing the XBone in stock, just as a precaution, in case you think I'm BSing about them being in stock

No one is saying more arent arriving in stores. Is that what sold out means to you? That they are so sold out that they cant get more to stores. That is poor supply chain managment not sold out.  So yes 3 times this week Amazon got new shipments and 3 times the sold out again. Through the tracking site I shared you can see the shipment that Amazon got yesterday was sold out in 4 hours.  Yup sold out again.  

That first picture is a post from someone at a Best Buy store from the night of the launch. MS didnt comment on the launch until 24-48 hours after the launch started.  So do you have proof that those units (and you agreed they were on the pallet and with pallet jack because the retailer expected them to sell out very quickly) hung around all day? Week? Two Weeks?  

The other thing to say about those photos/stories. Just because they work at Best Buy doesnt mean those people may not be competitor fanboys and taking pictures and posting them out of context. Like take a picture before store opens and posting later.   No that has never happened.  Fanboys have never made up stories to support thier point of view now have they?