The launch went smoothly, despite system shortages and giveaway winners receiving their systems three days prior to those who pre-ordered.

System Availability

Here is where things take a turn for the worse. Now, the first thing that I must say here is that system shortages have occurred with almost every home console released in the last twenty-five years. Quite simply, it’s a fact of life. I cannot penalize Microsoft for the shortage itself, but there is an issue that needs to be addressed. That is the giveaways.



I understand that the marketing department wanted to generate some hype and publicity for the 360, but quite honestly giving away a new Xbox 360 every ten minutes is just too much. This is especially true when you consider that Microsoft had to admit that they were delivering less than half of their projected number of units for launch day. The issue is not that the giveaway made so much of a difference in the number of units that would be available on launch day. The issue is perception.