According to USA Today, the 360 will continue to be scarce until spring. Microsoft initially hoped to have 3 million units shipped by February. However, the company only got out 1 million by the end of last year. It's estimated that MSoft sold 600,000 consoles from launch to December 31st. Compare that to the 1.4 million original Xboxes that were sold back in 2001.

At CES, Peter Moore said a third-party manufacturing plant had been wrangled in to increase supply. "We are making them as fast as we possibly can," Moore stated, "and we do expect over the next three-to-four months that availability will get a lot better." Meanwhile, Circuit City has steered clear of promoting the new Xbox in advertisements.

According to Ziff Davis Media's John Davison, Microsoft "needs to get the supply-and-demand situation nailed real soon. If it drags out much longer, it's just going to promote apathy rather than excitement." Not sure about apathy, but definitely annoyance. Figured that the software giant would've had all this figured out by now. Take those consoles unsold in Japan, repackage them and ship them to the US.

Full Story Here [USA Today] Thanks, Chilly!

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