Peter Moore, Worldwide Head of Marketing (a new title, we believe) for all things Xbox, has commented on expected availability on Xbox 360 hardware in the United Kingdom.
Speaking to his official magazine, Moore painted a picture of frustration for some gamers eager to get their hands on the software giant’s new all-singing, all-dancing uber-toy. “I’m not sure I can guarantee that everyone will get an Xbox 360 by Christmas. My hope, certainly, is that everyone who wants one will get one by Holiday time, but the demand is overwhelming. Our goal is to make as many consoles as we can. We’ve got two factories working 24 hours a day. We’ve got air freight running as well as boats, because you can get more units on boats. All we can do is make them as fast as we can and ship them as fast as we can.”
Taking one of his now-familiar pot-shots at Sony Computer Entertainment, Moore continued, “Our goal is to roll inventory in every week from the factories, which is different to some of our competitors who like to dump a lot of units in and then go completely dry for weeks. What we have done is encourage retail to keep a balance between pre-orders and first-come-first-served sales, both in North America and in Europe,” he explained.
As to how well managed the Xbox 360 roll-out will be in the UK remains to be seen, though stories emerging of cancelled midnight openings due to security concerns and a general feeling of unease remains the norm.
We’ll bring you full launch coverage of Xbox 360 as it happens in the UK.
Speaking to his official magazine, Moore painted a picture of frustration for some gamers eager to get their hands on the software giant’s new all-singing, all-dancing uber-toy. “I’m not sure I can guarantee that everyone will get an Xbox 360 by Christmas. My hope, certainly, is that everyone who wants one will get one by Holiday time, but the demand is overwhelming. Our goal is to make as many consoles as we can. We’ve got two factories working 24 hours a day. We’ve got air freight running as well as boats, because you can get more units on boats. All we can do is make them as fast as we can and ship them as fast as we can.”
Taking one of his now-familiar pot-shots at Sony Computer Entertainment, Moore continued, “Our goal is to roll inventory in every week from the factories, which is different to some of our competitors who like to dump a lot of units in and then go completely dry for weeks. What we have done is encourage retail to keep a balance between pre-orders and first-come-first-served sales, both in North America and in Europe,” he explained.
As to how well managed the Xbox 360 roll-out will be in the UK remains to be seen, though stories emerging of cancelled midnight openings due to security concerns and a general feeling of unease remains the norm.
We’ll bring you full launch coverage of Xbox 360 as it happens in the UK.
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Comments
DrNinestein 30 Nov 2005 12:58
1/5
"Speaking to his official magazine..."
Cool - where can I get a copy of the Official Peter Moore Magazine?
Cool - where can I get a copy of the Official Peter Moore Magazine?
SPInGSPOnG 30 Nov 2005 13:03
2/5
DrNinestein wrote:
Cool - where can I get a copy of the Official Peter Moore Magazine?
C'mon, a Peter Moore Monthly would have limited appeal. I think they are referring to the magazine which is his bitch, and which prints his corporate line unerringly, and gives good reviews to his games, even the s**te ones.
I think Futile Publishing releases the scabrous rag.
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OptimusP 30 Nov 2005 17:58
3/5
Right, in other words instead of screwing over Europe with retarted late launchdates they screw us over with extremely limited supplies while we are a bigger market then the US and we only get a thenth of what the yanks get... oh great.
MS really really really wanted to launch in 2005 didn't they, whatever the cost. I mean most stores are stating they're sold out and the next batch wil come only in february... nice week to week basis.
MS really really really wanted to launch in 2005 didn't they, whatever the cost. I mean most stores are stating they're sold out and the next batch wil come only in february... nice week to week basis.
ArchMagnus 30 Nov 2005 23:51
4/5
I assure you OptimusP, the Euro market is nowhere near the size of the American market. We get more systems, because more sell here Nimrod.
And speaking as an American, i can tell you the situation is no better here. Systems are sold out and on back order for months everywhere, meanwhile M$ is trying to meet demand in the less successful Euro market.
Thanks to Nintendo, who will shrewdly screw the Euro Market to give us more, lol.
And speaking as an American, i can tell you the situation is no better here. Systems are sold out and on back order for months everywhere, meanwhile M$ is trying to meet demand in the less successful Euro market.
Thanks to Nintendo, who will shrewdly screw the Euro Market to give us more, lol.
tyrion 1 Dec 2005 08:51
5/5
ArchMagnus wrote:
I assure you OptimusP, the Euro market is nowhere near the size of the American market. We get more systems, because more sell here Nimrod.
While I agree that currently North America sells more games than the EU, we do have more people over here. That means that the potential market is bigger.
Just to back up my assertions with actual figures, the recent Sony press release marking 100M PS2s sold broke down the markets thusly; 40.65 million units in North America, 37.14 million in Europe and 22.22 million in all of Asia. I'm assuming the total market will break down in similar proportions.
However, the EU does have a higher population than the USA. This is confirmed by the CIA in their fantastic World Factbook.
European Union - 456,953,258
United States - 295,734,134
On the other hand, the Sony figures said "North America". If we consider Canada (pop 32,805,041) in those figures and work out the ratio of populations and apply those to the North America sales figures, we get 36.59M PS2s sold in the US, slightly less than the number sold in the EU.
To conclude, as far as sales of PS2s go North America is a larger market than the EU, which is in turn a slightly larger market than the USA alone. However, the EU has more people than the USA and Canada combined (328,539,175) and is therefore a larger potential market that hardware manufacturers should pay more attention to.
The mitigating factor here is of course that Microsoft sold many more XBoxes in the US than they did in Europe and therefore the US market is their no.1 and deserves to be serviced first.