It's been exactly two weeks since the Xbox 360 hit stores and promptly sold out. In the intervening time, Microsoft has been responding to any questions about supply with the same mantra: It's coming.

The question is, when?

Spokespeople for the company say Microsoft is shipping units weekly to retail. That means there have been two shipments so far. That may be true, but they couldn't have been sizable shipments because people are still scrambling to find the consoles. With less then 20 days left until Christmas and parents with seemingly useless preorder slips tucked in their wallets, I think it's about time for the company to start releasing real numbers. They may very well be able to satisfy all of the 360s already pre-sold to desperate parents, but they better tell someone quickly or risk a lot of angry consumers.

The problem is if you are one of those unlucky pre-owners of a 360 and you didn't land one on the fateful day, an IOU is unlikely to mollify your crying child. That's the last thing Msoft wants on their hands. Better to guarantee delivery or own up now than risk people finding out the hard way.

I'll end my mini-rant (inspired, BTW, by the stream of emails and daily conversations I have with people desperately trying to find a 360) with two rumors about why there may be a shortage. Neither have any support in evidence and both came to me via people who couldn't tell me why they believe them to be true. But I think, if nothing else, they are interesting subject for conversation.

Rumor 1: Last week Microsoft began denying a recall rumor that wasn't circulating. Many of the blogs run by Msoft employees carried the same sort of denial: Despite what you hear, we're not doing a recall.

Sure enough, a few days after the denial, the rumors hit. It wasn't a recall, they said, but an internal recall. Some say that a bad batch of 360s were caught shortly after manufacture and pulled before they could hit stores. The catch, a good thing, led to severe and unexpected shortages, a bad thing.

Rumor 2: Employees at retail game stores are not using their entire shipments to fulfill pre-orders. Instead they are buying some of the 360s themselves and turning around to auction them off on eBay. A very intriguing, though close to impossible, rumor to prove.

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