they are either trying to cover up an embarrasment; stockpiling and or reducing output to stimulate demand ( nintendo style); a factory blew up; or they're making a new/updated model.

I hope Sony doesn't have any more "shortages", the first time they did someone literally god killed ;-;.

I dunno, I just don't see it as a very smart move on their part. I mean it's been mentioned that "when microsoft rolls out the newer, more reliable units". 80% of the average Joe consumer doesn't have a clue about this kind of thing anyway >_>; and stores CERTAINLY wont tell you about their failure rate, they WANT you to buy them. Besides, if they "roll over with new units and a price drop", who's to say Sony wont just chuckle and lower they're price as well? Higher demand while MS dicks around, higher demand when both lower the cost :/

From my experience (all personal belief), Sony Playstations build momentum through it's user-base, the more of your friends that have them, the more that sell, and with things like Blu-ray and Free Online, I wouldn't want that becoming more well known if I was Microsoft. Maybe they just shipped too many units to Japan and are pulling them back now xD

I'm also going out on a hunch and saying that I think this guy thats been spamming the boards all the time is wiiforever (doingthiseveryday) I saw a ton of these repeating boo vgchartz posts under many different new users since he got banned the second time and him and aoa had the spat.

"""I'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'm doing this EVERYDAY for AoA - dedicated to himI'"""""

Yes they have the software part down. They just need to get the hardware going at least half as good.

MS has dropped price once, exactly like PS3 not sure where you got the fact they didn't drop price.

Being outsold by the PS3 by 20k doesn't seem much, until your realize there's only like 60k consoles sold a week so they are being outsold by 30%. Fact is sometime this Fall PS3 will have sold as many consoles in Europe in 18 months as MS did in 36 ...Besides being outsold by the more expensive product in an area where the average consumers typically doesn't have the buying power of the american consumer isn't something anyone would be proud of ( 500 euros is a HUGE purchase for your typical french or spanish consumer).

Right now in Spain or France ( second european market after UK, 1/5th of Others) the Xbox360 is doing as bad as in Japan and is at risk of diseappearing.... Might not be a big thing but I doubt software developers are happy about it, having to localize Xbox360 exclusive games for countries where you know they will hardly sell is probably not making them cheerfull..

So nope, I highly doubt MS is grinning ears to ears....

But they DO need to start ensuring more exclusives for the future. What happens if Mass Effect 2/3 and KOTOR 3 are multiplat?

Microsoft needs to start building up it's 1st party line-up. In-house development is the primary area in which both Nintendo and Sony excel over Microsoft, and it is the primary reason why I believe (and have consistently been saying) that the ps3 will pass up the 360 worldwide by the end of this generation. The ps3 is guaranteed a large amount of exclusives because of Sony's in-house development teams, while the 360 is reliant primarily on 3rd parties, and with with more and more 3rd parties moving towards a multiplatform strategy, that's not in a very good position to be.

What bothers me is that MS isn't looking to change their situation any time soon. Just look at this past year; Sony bought Evolution Studios (MotorStorm) and Nintendo acquired Monolith Soft (Xenosaga). In comparison, Microsoft let BioWare and Bizarre, two of their strongest 2nd party developers, get bought by EA and Activision, both of which have a history of making multiplatform games.

At least they have Ensemble Studios (easily their best studio, imo) working on the 360 now, but they need more than that.

I'm calling BS.

The Wii is experiencing shortages, and they've outsold the XBOX 360.

The XBOX 360 can be easily bought most months out of the year, and now it's supply constrained, but it hasn't been for the last couple of years. Yeah frickin right. The only company able to use that excuse is Ninty.

I stay with the Artificial shortage theory.