Culprit in Xbox 360 Shortage Fingered
Microsoft doesn't want to name names, but someone seems to have figured it out.
Many gamers went into their favourite electronics stores this Christmas looking for an Xbox 360 and walked out empty handed. In between apologies and promises that things would get better, Microsoft has refused to say what's caused the delay. Now it seems we have a culprit.
German memory chip producer Infineon has been fingered by unnamed sources, according to a report at the Mercury News. Infineon makes high-speed graphics memory for the Xbox 360, but a slow-down in production of chips of the right speed caused a bottleneck, holding back shipments of the in-demand console.
Microsoft blamed component shortages for the delays, which have held global sales of the console to around 1.5 million units - much lower than global demand.
Faced with the prospect of upset children (or simply being left wanting themselves), many people turned to eBay, where prices soared to double the retail price shortly after the console's November debut.
But all is not lost. Earlier this week, Microsoft's Peter Moore said that within the next "four to six weeks" you'd be able to find Xbox 360s sitting on store shelves.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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