Kotaku

Microsoft warned this week that getting your hands on a new Xbox 360 right now may be more difficult than normal. You can blame Kinect's eight million sales for part of that, says Microsoft.

This is essentially Microsoft saying "Bad news, guys: we had a totally awesome Christmas. Sorry!" The Xbox maker boasted at CES 2011 last week that it had sold eight million of its Kinect camera controllers (to retailers) during the holidays, more than the five million it had originally counted on. Xbox 360 sales also topped 50 million, the company said, a milestone that will have repercussions for potential buyers of the console.

Microsoft spokesman David Dennis told Kotaku that to get Xbox 360s on store shelves during the holidays, the company had to dip into its January and February supply. What was planned to be shipped over on a boat and arrive during the first two months of 2011 was instead brought over by plane instead.

But Dennis says that the "viral effect" of the Kinect launch is also to blame for scarcity. "I think we saw a lot of viral secondary and tertiary sales from people who had seen Kinect in person," Dennis says, at a friend of family member's house, then decided it was time to "jump in."

I asked Dennis if he thought Kinect's holiday sales were a validation for the controller's price point ($150 USD), a price that was met with some vocal resistance.

"Our story hasn't changed there," he said "When we announced the price, we'd done a lot of research. We had a lot of crazy smart people doing focus testing to really hit the sweet spot on that, and we were confident in our price point."

So, don't expect that price tag to go down any time soon.

For now, Microsoft says that the console is "not impossible to find" and that stock should "normalize" in February. 

http://kotaku.com/5733813/the-xbox-360-is-in-short-supply-due-to-viral-kinect-effect

"But Dennis says that the "viral effect" of the Kinect launch is also to blame for scarcity. "I think we saw a lot of viral secondary and tertiary sales from people who had seen Kinect in person," Dennis says, at a friend of family member's house, then decided it was time to "jump in."

childish

Suprisingly no trouble getting either Kinect or the 250GB in UK.

As i have said in previous posts, the ones that they have sent out now or are sending out are because they have already made plans to send them, the major problems are when they have sent the promised.

Oh so you mean this is like the last shipment until February or something?

Yeah they are simply fulfilling previous orders, I think there is about to be massive problems. A lot of stores in the US for example will not see stock for a while. Where I work in Australia after the 19th order we have no forth coming, this is for a console that the demand is ridiculous and how we usually have our orders 2-3 months in advance I can tell this could be a problem. It is so much a problem in Aus that we have to get it from other stores to suffice our stock as well.

Well that's stupid. Underestimating demand is something Nintendo or Sony do. Guess X360 has never been this much in demand since launch lol.

Yeah which is why I find it kind of amusing people are so perplexed that 360 is having shortages. Microsoft surely had no idea how immensely popular Kinect was going to be and considering it wasnt long since the slim was released it didnt help. 

360 will catch up and will eventually lead to overshipping but over is better than under

Yeah I think it'll be similar case to PS3, don't tell the PS3 crowd but I personally think that due to the last years smashing holiday, Retailers have overestimated the demand for PS3 and likely overshipped. But that's just a theory lol, I think same thing will happen to MS this year, they'll overship holiday 2011.

Not surprised. Everyone I know who has seen Kinect has wanted to get it, whether they have an Xbox 360 or not.