360 Sells 400k Units, New Stock This Weekend 64
Next Generation is reporting an estimate of 400,000 units sold for the Xbox 360 in its first week on the retail shelves. Microsoft is planning on having more stock available as of this weekend. From the article: "It seems even the biggest retailers are in the dark. Speaking to USA Today, Circuit City's Jim Babb said, 'We knew demand would outstrip supply for some time. I have been told we'll get additional supplies, so I can only advise customers keep checking back with stores and on the website.' Microsoft is gearing up for its European launch this weekend, but many believe the shortages could be even worse over there. Retail supplies are said to be tiny, and many customers who have pre-ordered have been told that they may not receive their machines this side of the New Year."
Re:Still confused on the sell-out history (Score:4, Informative)
I couldn't find a friggin ps2 for at least 6 months after the machine was made available in the US.
Compare and Contrast (Score:4, Informative)
http://psp.ign.com/articles/604/604548p1.html [ign.com]
The PSP's launch was considered a failure after selling 150% as many units as the XBox 360
McNealy believes Microsoft could have sold up to three times that amount, putting the company halfway to its three month target of 3 million units worldwide. "I think they would have been happy to have sold another million if they could have. They just didn't have them," he said.
It is easy to make a claim like this without having anything to base it on. I don't work in retail but I have heard that only about 5%-10% of preorders were 'lost' by the 360 shortage; one person I know was saying that their Microsoft rep gave him the impression that they were trying to be just shy of the preorder numbers to ensure a sell out (possibly a paranoid delusion, I don't know). This would imply that for every person who pre-ordered 2 would have walked in in the first week expecting to purchace a system (a highly unlikely situation).
Re:Shipped/sold? (Score:3, Informative)
I found out today that the UK's most incompetent high-street retailer, Dixons, won't be honouring my pre-order, which I made in August. After work, I trawled around central London, trying to find shops that had reserved some stock and *weren't* doing a midnight opening, from which I might be able to grab one first thing in the morning. Pretty much nowhere had any full systems. However, most places assured me they had more than enough Core systems, if I wanted one (which I don't). I'd say there was a hint of desperation in some cases.
I love my X-Box and I can't wait to get my 360, but this launch has been the biggest self-inflicted cock-up ever. Had MS concentrated entirely on the full system, they could have sold of these just as quickly and wouldn't have had surplus stock of the Core looking like it could be sat on the shelves until Christmas.
And, in case I didn't already mention, Dixons, all their staff and all their stakeholders, utterly, utterly suck.
What do you mean, "could be"? (Score:3, Informative)
What do you mean by "could be"?
Stores in the UK have been taking £20 deposits on consoles, with the £20 purchasing a "guarantee" that you'll get one tomorrow, 2nd December. Many of the stores have undercompensated for the shortages. I have been guaranteed one - but many people are complaining of calling the store they preordered from, only to be told that the store hasn't had ANY consoles in, no games for the system, no accessories and no promise of delivery.
Our local ASDA (owned by Wal-Mart now, fancy that) have a queue system in place. You preorder for £20 anytime since July. You turn up today at midday (12 hours before it goes on sale) and they may give you a ticket, depending on how many consoles they have in stock. If you paid and didn't get a ticket because you were too late, you can get a refund or wait as a reserve. People check the queue every hour, and if a ticketholder isn't in line for two of these hourly checks, their ticket is passed to a reserve.
In other words, the store is FORCING you to queue for 12 hours to get hold of a console that they guaranteed you'd receive on launch day when you preordered months ago.
Our local branch of GAME took 280 preorders. They have 32 premium systems and 10 core packs. They have ONE VGA cable. ONE Play N Charge kit. TWO extra wireless controllers. No wired controllers. No headsets. No Xbox Live subscription or points cards and they only have enough copies of PGR3 to satisfy the successful preorders.
And they're the biggest store that sells games for miles. I've called 14 stores within a 20 mile radius to reserve Kameo and Tiger Woods. Nobody has any left over after preorders. Luckily my PGR3 is safe, but if you just preordered the console and managed to get one - you might not have anything to play on it...now tell me, how hard is it to use an existing process and supply chain to duplicate standard DVD discs and get them to stores. I can buy King Kong for Xbox from any store I choose...most have a ton of copies of it...but I can't buy King Kong for Xbox 360 anywhere. Work that one out.
Re:Still confused on the sell-out history (Score:5, Informative)
This Gamespy article [gamespy.com] states that the PS2 actually sold 980k units by the end of the second day after launch. This is the Japanese market we're talking so it doesn't really say much after all but at least the Xbox 360 is very unlikely to reach similar figures in Japan and isn't doing it in the US which is a larger market (the PS2 has sold nearly twice the number of consoles in the US compared to Japan). The PlayStation 2 did instantly sell the 500k stock they had available during launch in the US as well though.
Another interesting little detail you can find in the Wikipedia article is that the previous opening day record was 225k for the Sega Dreamcast and we all know how well that worked out in the long run. DC's sales slowed rapidly after a good start. In any case, I think it's a little early to say anything about the 360's success after only one week.