from: http://kotaku.com/5031804/bwah-theres-an-xbox-360-shortage-in-japan

Tales of Vesperia is launching in Japan soon. August 7th, actually. And some people seem pretty excited. It's the tenth entry in the Tales series. The Namco Bandai title is an Xbox 360 exclusive, so that just might mean that Microsoft will move more than it's standard 3,000 Xbox 360s a week in Japan. Or not.

As of posting, Amazon Japan is sold out of new HDMI Xbox 360s (but does have Elites). HAPPINET, one of the major Xbox 360 distributors in Japan, are sold out of everything but the Elite. According to game store clerk threads on 2ch, the Xbox 360 will be restocked after Tales of Vesperia is released. What's more, the Tales of Versperia bundle is apparently limited to something like 7,000.

The reason for the shortages?

According to a 2ch. shop clerks thread, the problem is on the distribution end for the Tales of Vesperia bundle. And for the regular Xbox 360s, there could be increasing demand for Tales and other Japan-specific Xbox 360 titles. That, and the fact that there really weren't that many consoles in stock to begin with. Retailers obviously don't want to get burnt. Then there's always the matter of clearing out space for the new 60GB SKU.

Others think that the shortage is on purpose, because HAPPINET is run by Namco Bandai. Hey, if shortages work for Nintendo! Then again, this isn't Nintendo... This is Xbox Japan. They probably want to move as many consoles as possible.

But does that mean it's impossible to get an Xbox 360 in Japan at the moment? No, obviously not. Commenter Muu was recently in Tokyo for THE iDOLM@STER concert, telling us "I did see 360s still sitting around, but then again that's one of the biggest electronics hubs in the largest metropolitan area."

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thoughts?

That is probably the main reason for shortages.

Hasn't this been posted 10 times already?

At any rate, retailers are probably skeptical of the slow rise the X360 has had, and haven't adjusted their order placement. I would assume that when ToV launches, everything will work out.

But lets see how X360 sales are this week. If they stay around 5,000 units, I think we can say that it's indeed being held back by hardware shortages. But if it's above 7,000 or so...Then I don't think there's a big issue.

Seems like Xbox is slowly on the rise in Japan--not that this is much, but it's now selling at roughly the rate PS3 was soon after launch. That wasn't much for the Playstation brand there, but it's showing something for Xbox. I wonder how many still believe it doesn't even have a chance of hitting one million total there in the next four years, especially with news like this.

There's been ample talk of increased sales, but this is the first report I've seen of any actual shortages. 

I wonder if the potential lack of supply could turn somebody off who otherwise would have bought a box for the upcoming RPG releases.  There's not much Xbox enthusiasm in Japan, so many who do buy it are probably somewhere on or near that bubble, and I can't see any Japanese actually being willing to hunt for one.

Yea sooner or later people will be telling me there is shortages of cookies in America.

But more seriously this doesn't make sense at all. Your a company that has flopped terribly in a region and for one of the few times you have a chance to make more money by selling more and ya don't ship enough. I mean that just doesn't make sense at all. I don't know who is at fault if this is true but whoever is needs to be fired.

I think it has to do with the fact that retailers are weary of increasing stock of a product that does'nt sell to well in the first place.