Microsoft 'ran out' of Xbox 360s in December

We already know it was a very merry Christmas for Microsoft since it met its Kinect sales goals, but apparently sales of the Xbox 360 itself were pretty solid too.

Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, the face of Xbox, wrote in a tweet that the Xbox 360 will not win the console sales race in December... but Microsoft probably didn't expect to win the month anyway - Xbox 360 units were completely out of stock by the end of the month.

"I found out we ran out of consoles at end of the month (!)" reads the Twitter post.

In a follow-up, Hryb wrote, "Jan/Feb supply is tight as well." So either Microsoft is doing a crappy job of keeping the production lines running, or there's been a sudden spur in demand. The latter is exactly what Microsoft was hoping for when it launched Kinect.

Hryb also noted we should expect "amazing YOY growth numbers," referring to year-to-year sales of the Xbox 360 in December. December 2009's official US tally was 1.31 million Xbox 360s sold.

[Source: Twitter (1), (2)]

Jan 13, 2011

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