Friday, December 16, 2005

Is Microsoft the devil?

Warning: This blog is Christmas commercialism at its best.

I know it happened with the Cabbage Patch dolls. And it happened with Playstation. Now it's X-Box 360. The demand for Micosoft's newest game creation far outweighs the supply. Is this done on purpose? And why? Will holding back shipments of X-Box 360 create even more demand for it after the Christmas shopping rush? Or did Mircosoft make a mistake and not produce enough of these babies? Or... is there some techno glitch with the new X-Boxes they aren't sharing? Either way, the result is the same. Lots of techno-geeks (including my beloved 14 year old son) will go without the one thing they wanted most these Holidays.

My local Target store got 14 of them in for the After Thanksgiving sale, all of which went in the first few minutes the store opened, and have only gotten 2 in since. One local man was even stalked at the Walmart and mugged for his X-box 360. What's up with that? I have to ask myself, is Microsoft the devil or what?

7 comments:

jwiltshire said...

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes. I don't believe I've seen an in stock Xbox 360 yet. And I'm the sort of person who is in lots of places at the time when one should see these things. They rushed the product to market, still full of bugs, in order to create a holiday demand, and in short supply to increase that demand. Now everyone is hungry for one, which means as soon as they are released on a more wide scale, people will be scooping them up. I wouldn't be surprised if in mid-January there is a flood of 360s released, just to boost post-holiday retail slumps.

Also, Best Buy is evil for advertising 360s at a regular price and then telling customers they have to shell out for an extra hundred bucks worth of accessories or hit the road.

Gina Black said...

Microsoft the devil? Surely you jest? Not! Heh heh heh. I wouldn't trust them further than...

Let me put it this way, I don't even use IE and I'm looking for a way to NOT be using Word anymore too.

Fortunately my boy hasn't asked for one for Xmas this year. He seems to be totally taken up with school and tennis and his friends.

BTW--I heard that the games for the 360 aren't that exciting. Yet. So, I say no hurry.

Unknown said...

Asked Boy if he wanted one of the coveted X360's and he snorted then went on with why would anyone want a sytem that.... I glossed over.

It looks like that one won't be coming into the house. Whew.

Now if I could just convince him that the trombone is an outside instrument. ;)

Maria Geraci said...

Sigh... I guess I just really hate when companies hype and hype and then can't produce.

Ellen said...

Kmart advertised portable DVD players--run to your local KMART NOW! My mom decided that was the perfect gift for my kids. We went. Not there. No plans to be there. Big hype--no deliver. UGH. Don't you hate it when this happens?

I wondered about the Xbox and Playstations. We have Gamecube (seemed to have more "E" kid friendly games). Are they that different?

Maria Geraci said...

I'm not sure how different they all are, Ellen. My son used to have a playstation, but he prefers his X Box live (playing on the net with people all around the world) I really can't argue with it since he's a straight A honor student and is on the tennis team. There's a lot worse things that a 14 year old boy can be in to. He calls his Xbox time his "me" time :))

Ellen said...

Wow! I didn't know you could play over the net like that. I can very much see my son enjoying that (although right now it's Mario and Pokemon, I'm sure he'll mature into whatever the teens play--he's just 8).

"A" honor roll and the tennis team? Very cool. You can't ask for more! Just because these gamebox things are strange to us (at least to me), doesn't have to mean they're bad. Right? Right. :)

 

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