XBox 360 release troubles

Good that I didn't want to get a XBox 360, because I probably wouldn't have gotten one anyway. Lots of stories around, reporting that it sold out in the UK just minutes after the shops opened. If you hadn't queued up for many hours, you didn't have a chance, and then still many of the queuers went home empty handed. Europe seems to have received a lot less XBoxes than the USA, where shortages were also reported, but not that fast. Next week: same chaos in Japan.

Some people blamed the near-simultaneous release on three continents for the shortages. I'm much in favor of simultaneous release for games, but it is arguably easier to press game CDs than to build a XBox, and if all else fails you could still distribute games by online downloads.

Maybe new consoles should be sold for 50% higher price on the first day, and then get 10% cheaper per day until the normal price is reached. Seeing the EBay auctions that sell them for over twice the official price, that looks like a viable strategy. But in the end the only real solution is for companies to do better market research on how many consoles they will be able to sell on release day, and then produce sufficient numbers. Otherwise some frustrated would-be customers will decide that they are better off without the console anyway, and spend the money on something else.
- posted by Tobold @ 4:08 PM Permanent Link