So I went to the big electronics retailer in my city today once again and they had once again X1s in stock, this really surprised me so I finally decided to ask the clerk if the X1 was really selling that badly, cause they always had them in stock. What he told me was the opposite actually, he said that he'd sold way more X1s than PS4 simply due to them being in stock and that the store has been getting several X1 shipments already (mind you, we're talking about a 100k people city in east germany here) and not one additional PS4 shipment. While this is naturally anecdotal evidence only it does show us some things nonetheless.
1. My theory that people don't simply buy a 100€ more expensive system just because the one they wanted isn't in stock, seems to have turned out wrong, derp
2. Not as if this wasn't clear already anyway but there are no yield problems with the X1 (sorry Ethomaz)
And lastly the thing I want to talk about here, it has become abundantly clear that MS and Sony are having two largely different strategies regarding this launch. Sony is trying to release in as many countries they can as fast as they can, at the cost of not being able to put many, if any at all, consoles on shelves for the average joe to just go and buy. Think about it, Sony plans to have the PS4 out in about 40 countries by the end of the year and they only plan to sell 900k more consoles by then, that can't mean many consoles on shelves.
Microsoft on the other hand is concentrating on their strongest regions/the biggest markets, trying to get in a foot in the door in these markets by providing enough stock for the christmas sales this year, trying to outsell the competition or at least compete better with it over their simply by being available in larger quantities.
So now my question is, aside from your own console preference or which console you think has more demand, or the better games or whatever, tell me which strategy do you feel is in theory the better of the two?
