Apparently there is some semblance of a shortage here in Australia. I cannot find a Pro in any of the JB Hi-fi's or EB games in my area. I could find arcades and Elites. Elites are not as popular here due to the lack of a video market place.

 I and I'm sure others find it hard to take your claim seriously when you have what it basically a trolling picture against the 360 as the main part of your signature.

As someone mentioned in a thread about the Wii I think this could be just due to bad weather rather than some kind of incompetence of Microsoft. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the majority manufacturer for all three systems Foxconn who from what I can find glancing by articles on Google operates at least 5 factories in China. They are in the midst of their worst Winter in the last 50 years where millions are without power and transportation and electrical systems are in disarray. As much as I'm not a fan of the 360 it'd be foolish to think that it just suddenly stopped selling and that these issues are indeed not supply related like MS has said. Both systems were cleaned out of the entire supply chain during Christmas where the PS3 seemed to move good units but not enough that an interuption would delay the supply chain this badly.

Thats my thoughts on it all anyways the numbers for both consoles have been erratic lately and I would think it hard to believe that people just suddenly en masse decided no more for both of them.

@ Legend

The Amazon 360s have ALL been discontinued. There was a discussion about this a while back. Even local stores - Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart (hitting up a Best Buy today to snag an HD DVD player fo cheap, so I'll let you know) - don't have any. They are draining the channel to release the more reliable 360s with a price cut at the same time. Contrary to a few folks belief, they aren't exiting the biz, they AREN'T trying to create a major panic - just a minor one - and they aren't rolling out a Blu Ray version.

GTA IV is the biggest game MS has left and they want to make sure they have enough RELIABLE consoles out there for folks to play the complete version - as stated by R* - of the game. That's why - and a healthy price cut to match it.

Mark my words on this.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Console-20GB-Drive/dp/B000UQAUWW/ref=pd_ts_vg_45?ie=UTF8&s=videogames

On amazon it says they are IN STOCK, but without a bundle(lol).

Could it be that they pulled the bundled versions to replace them with the console only version? Thats what it looks like right now. I know havent seen them in stock on amazon for a while, until today.

Even with that info, it doesn't explain why the retail stores are lacking with the consoles. Everyone is whining over the RROD stuff and MS is finally axing it right before GTA IV hits. While Lost Odyssey is a sweet game, it's not a system seller like GTA IV will be. They need to make sure they put RROD behind them before this hits, otherwise their $50M investment to R* will be a wasted opportunity. 

Well maybe it doesn't explain it as of now, but it possibly will by next week if retail stores start getting these console only packages. I'd also be expecting a price drop soon as well, maybe to $250 and the Arcade being eliminated.

And I agree with you on the GTA issue, but Madden is important as well. If GTA is a hit, and people choose the 360 as their Madden console, then America could be cemented as 360 territory. But since (I think) GTA comes out before Madden, if people are getting widespread RROD, it may lose steam by Madden as well. GTA is not a game you sit down with for an hour or so then go do something else. Its a game that constantly is loading the next part of the city, and will work the 360 more than your average shooter will, for hours upon hours. RROD needs to be eliminated, because Sony's pretty console is sitting right there, with free online access and Blu-Ray to boot.

Also, MGS4, which is the biggest game this year other than GTAIV (and maybe Gears 2), will be getting hype right around that time as well. To make through that point and overshadow the PS3, there really can't be any negative publicity for the 360 at that time.  But owning the GTAIV launch and then having momentum to own the Madden launch as well, the 360 can remain on top of the PS3 for the rest of the year

Plenty of X360 around my area... and all models too (for a couple of weeks Elites were no where to be found around here )

They can't be this incompetent at producing enough consoles (could they?), so it's gotta be a shortage of some kind. IMO it's not demand driving this shortage. I guess it could be another sku, but no one knows. If this has to do with RROD, just wow. This has to have cost them about 1.5 billion already, no? It's seems 1 billion is agreed upon, but that was a while ago.

 Huh.  Well, sweet.  Then I hope they actually do come out with a new "RRoD fixed, Blu-ray player" SKU.  Then I could exchange my current Xbox 360 in for the new SKU, when it gets it's RRoD here.  Hehe