Sold out!

Despite the Fact that I preordered my Xbox 360 a month ago I recieved a phone call today from EB Games. They've recieved fewer bundled system kits than they anticipated. They offered me the chance to take a "core system", but I declined, saying I'd rather wait for the full package to become available.

My story is quickly becoming the story of almost everyone else. From reading Joystiq and Slashdot today it seems like everyone is suddenly being informed that there is a console shortage, or rather that all the consoles have been sold out in preordering.

I can understand why the consoles are going quickly. The screenshots of the as of yet published games look absolutely incredible, and then there's spectre of Halo 3 lying just beyond the horizon. Yet the consoles have been in production since at least August, and they are all spoken for already? Wow.

Walmart released a statement earlier today saying that all the Xbox 360 consoles their stores were receiving for the Big Launch Day had already been sold. So that's every walmart in North America, already sold out. Wow. GameStop stores across the US and EB stores across Canada and the US have been saying the same for the most part.

This Console is undoubtedly going to be a smash hit. That's not a surprise. What a surprise to me is the latest evidence suggesting that microsoft has planned this "shortage". Microsoft is being clever, their denying themselves the influence of greed - Sell as many as possible as soon as possible for as much cash as quickly as possible. An article on Slashdot seems to indicate that Microsoft is actually releasing a limited amount of Xbox 360's so that they'll be sold out in entirety around the world.

This is genius. There is already enough hype about the console with gamers (the most recent hype being facilitated by the new Xbox 360 ad) but imagine all the free publicity a world wide sellout will generate. This event would make headlines in every paper, be talked about on every news programme and microsoft wouldn't have to pay a cent for it. Not only will they be reaching the droves of gamers with their commericals, the local news with broadcast the tidings of this "Must have, most popular ever" console to families and to people who never even thought about getting an xbox 360. Genius. Microsoft will be defining they're console as the MUST HAVE christmas gift. Anyone recall the Tickle-me-elmo Phenomenon. The same insanity may be iminient.

My hat is off to the boys at Xbox 360 and Microsoft for this. Sure I'm a little irratated that I won't have my console for a week or more after the launch, but I'll settle to see the Xbox 360 reach the popularity of modren rock star proportions that it deserve. Not to mention, if everyone has a 360, just imagine what Xbox live will be like. This console is going to generate a self-selling mechanism the likes of which may have never been scene before for electronics.

I can wait another week for my 360, I don't like waiting in lines.

Plus, I'm really waiting for Halo 3, so there's no real rush anyways.