Alright. I guess I don’t really see how “parts are scarce” != “all kinds of problems” unless you’re being incredibly nitpicky, but whatever…
McMaster UR REPORTED
Now that even Microsoft admits they missed their launch goals, can we finally agree that the launch was screwed up?
No, it’s not a bad launch until Jose Liz says so.
From an expected 1M units per month down to 600k/month due to (apparently unforeseeable :P ) yield issues?
Yeah… something’s screwed up there. I still think the launch idea was ok, but obviously someone really mucked it up hardcore if they’re getting only 60% of estimated yields, and should be fired for that screw up post haste.
But mouselock, that’s just the way of the beast.
You wanna apologize now for sending every single 360 thread into pages upon pages of dueling with you for the last two months?
Microsoft follows the Way of the Beast?
Follows?
I had a chat with Peter Moore at CES. 1.3 million by the end of December was within their projected range, but they don’t feel confident enough about selling 2.7 million in the next 5 weeks or whatever to keep their projected “3 million in the first 90 days” target.
It sounded from the way he talked about it that supply is the biggest problem. He said he’s got an inbox full of reports from angry customers who desperately want one but can’t get one, and with the games coming out in the first three months of the year he doesn’t expect that to slow down much. Can’t say I disagree too much. They have Tomb Raider, Fight Night 3, Full Auto, maybe Splinter Cell (I’m guessing not), The Outfit, Burnout Revenge, The Godfather, and Oblivion on tap.
Anyway, there’s a third manufacturing plan coming online in March, but “coming online” isn’t the same as “produces 200,000 consoles a month.” It’ll take some weeks to ramp it up to full production.
Hence the revised forecast. 3 million in 90 days and 4.5 to 5.5 million in 7 months isn’t WAY different (when you’ve got that launch day boost in the first couple weeks), but my guess is that it’ll be made up in April and May when quantities start to flow from that third plant.
If you want my advice, I’d preorder one if you want it and you don’t want to play phone tag with Toys R Us and CompUSA and Best Buy for the next two months until you get lucky enough to drop in when they’ve got 'em. I bet that, at least in the US, it’s going to be several MONTHS until you can reliably walk into the store of your choice on any given day and just buy one. You’ll have to get lucky with your timing.
Wow, and everybody was calling the Gamestop & EB guys full of crap because they were quoting March as the target for full availability.
Does anybody know if there are still preorders unfilled from them?
I know that the Gamestop near me still has 20+ people on their pre-order list and they told me they are receiving them in ones and twos… It will still be a while.
Do I want to apologize for persisting that the launch plan itself wasn’t fucked up, no.
Do I want to apologize for not being prescient enough to know that the 360 supply shortage wasn’t just a transient problem? Sure. Mea culpa.
I still think they should have done exactly what they did given the 3M projection by March. I’m completely flabbergasted that they couldn’t project their actual yield to within roughly 50% though. That’s inexcusable.
GameStop said that they will have systems not already pre-ordered by March. They are actually getting some in.
It would seem that by that measure (plan was good, but the implementation sucked), Bush’s plan in Iraq was great!
I reject your implicit analogy. Also, there’s a bit more at stake in the Iraq war, so it’s a bit more important to have flawless execution. (But I still think the entire plan for the Iraq war was ill-conceived; just going over there has always been far more likely to do long term harm than letting Sadam develop and probably even use WMDs.)
GameStop is still a long way from filling pre-orders. My store had about 180 reservations at launch. Since then we’ve received about 80 systems (total, includes launch quantity of 38) and had about 20-25 cancellations. That still leaves us with 75 or so remaining and we are currently averaging about 4 a week.
It’s important to note that MS is not favoring pre-order retailers in any way so GameStop and EB are getting the same number of systems they would have gotten if they had remaining pre-orders or not. Basically, they are allocating based on market share with Best Buy getting extra because of their “preferred retail partner” status.
Gamestop and EB are not the places to look. They’re probably going to be the LAST places to get “shelf” units, given how popular they were with preorders.
Go to Target, Best Buy, Fred Meyer, Wal-Mart, Costco… Those are the stores you’re more likely to run across them.
Checking at many of the aforementioned stores resulted in nothing. Oddly enough, about half of the people I asked at these stores told me that the systems had “problems” and were coming back defective, so I was probably better off waiting anyway. Maybe that’s sour grapes, hell if I know.
Whether that’s true or not, MS has got to be loving the great word-of-mouth they’re earning.
I did notice a few online retailers had some but they were bundlefucking. Ex: Walmart.com is selling a $ 580 bundle with a CORE system as the base.
Assholes.
No, you reject my explicit analogy. And you’re wrong to do so, since the analogy is apt. The importance of the results from those plans has no bearing on the aptness of the analogy. You’re stating that since MS’s launch plan was good, even though it’s implementation was borked, the launch was not unsuccessful. Bush’s war plan was good, but it’s implementation was borked, the war was not unsuccessful is a proper analogy. The line of attack you should take is that there’s no proof Bush’s plan, if there was indeed even so much as that, was good. To which I’d reply that, seeing the results, there’s no proof that MS’s plan was good either.