Xbox 360 Stock Fiasco Continues

The Xbox 360 has been out for nearly two months but Microsoft is still playing catch-up. Intercontinental details inside.

The story is a familiar one. In the face of rabid demand, Microsoft has failed to get enough Xbox 360s onto shelves to keep credit cards swishing. New evidence points to pre-order customers on both sides of the Atlantic still waiting to get theirs, almost two months after the launch.

Not everyone has been as lucky

Nearly a third of all customers who pre-ordered the Xbox 360 at US game mega-chain GameStop are still waiting, according to reports at GameSpot. A leaked memo from GameStop says the company is hoping to take care of pre-orders by February.

The Xbox 360 launched in the US on 22 November and since then retailers have been trying in vain to keep up, despite Microsoft's promises that it would have new stock coming in weekly.

In the UK, anecdotal evidence points to a similar situation. All the retailers polled recently by Kikizo said they were still not getting enough Xbox 360s.

At HMV, seemingly harder hit than most chains, pre-orders are still sitting unfulfilled, while Dixons, Game and Virgin Megastore said that while they were getting new consoles in regularly, the numbers were so small that they were snapped up within minutes. Independent stores are also struggling to get stock from distributors.

Another problem is the breakdown of consoles being delivered. While the Premium bundle has by far been the most popular, the Core system, which lacks a hard drive, has sold out too.

All the stores approached by Kikizo said that they were not, however, getting hard drives in, meaning those that relented and bought the Core pack were still not able to build a full system able to get on Xbox Live or do many of the things Microsoft used to sell the console.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games