I just heard 1.9 mil for December. Guess it wont be hitting my 3-1 but the 2-1 Pachter mentioned might be fairly close

The Alan Wake/Forza 3 bundle has been sold out everywhere I've gone. Amazon.com has sold out of it as well.

Awesome for Microsoft. They had an amazing 2010. Monthly NPD #'s favored them.

The 360 was only ever sold out the first two months it was available... After that, golden.

Haiku>Kinect

My local gamestop has more Xbox 360s than it knows what to do with. All out of Wiis and PS3s. But they have like only three shelfs of games for 360. 11 of thoese games being the abundance of USED Halo Reach games.

Where I live every store has the 4GB models in stock, and they are quick to offer you a Hard Drive to go with it. Gotta love MS wringing every single penny out of its customers.

I saw a lot. Lol. This is BS.

Actually, nobody in my family could find an Xbox 360 Slim in stores during the month of December. All my spoiled cousins wanted one to replace their old 360s which worked fine.

Amazon had them most of the time though.

yeah...i have been checking my walmart to see how many people buy the kinect and the 360...the shelves have been full for like a month or two...while the ps3 side was empty always empty of systems that is

Also only console w/year to year growth

Umm hell no they didn't, at least not in Canada.

We had BOAT loads of all 3 systems on boxing day and I went to Futureshop, Zellers and Walmart.

Oh did he mean McDonalds sold out of them? I suppose that's true.

Microsoft's inventory and various store's inventory are two COMPLETELY different things... you guys do realize that... right?
Considering Kinect became such a success I have no problem seeing how MS underproduced. The 360 sales have been strong ever since the release of the Slim, and around Christmas it probably spiked and went higher than MS had predicted, and now they're just trying to meet demand. This same thing happened to the PS3 Slim last year as well, no?

I find it hilarious how angry people are about this.

Tell me. If Ford is your manufacturer of choice for automobiles but you find out Renault have claimed higher sales, would you go online and rage about it?

I also find it hilarious how everyone doubting this seems to be charged with the job of stock taking at their local games emporium.

Scepticism is a healthy thing but it's delusional to assume that your personal experience is the standard experience for everybody.

@bakewell I was just thinking about that today but it was Ford vs Chevy. I am glad, as a Chevy owner that Ford owners do not completely lose their shit when I drive by...

Where I work, we had nice sales, but we almost always had some in stock... just not always the SKU they wanted.

Either way, they should have made more than enough to meet demand.

@kal

There's a lot of ford drivers, I myself was a proud owner of a Ford Capri (Lazer) but I sadly totalled it in a messy, exciting high speed accident.

I don't understand the rage. People bought the console they desired, no one forced anyone to buy anything they didn't want and yet it seems so many people are looking at something they didn't want and getting pissed when it does well.

@Bakewell
I get what you are saying and I bet if people have a car fany that they are on a Ford site, and perhaps they would be upset.

In my case, I just suggested that you could toss a rock into the electronics departments and hit a 360 on boxing day, completely the opposite of what MS is stating.

So far the only actual shortagea I have personally cpme across was the Wii and the STUPID Wii Fit, man that thing collects dust. 360's and PS3's I have alaways seen backed with stocked shelves.

I find these comments about the PS3 being sold out to be hilarious. If true, it's probably because stores ordered less PS3s due to lack of demand and then somehow managed to sell out of them.

PS3 was the clear loser this holiday. Just check the software sales: Kinect Adventures has been the number 1 game for weeks. Where can you get that game? Only with a Kinect, which means that the Kinect is selling like hotcakes.

Know how good Sports Champions has sold, a game that can be bought alone or with the Move Bundle? Not good, that's how. Nobody is buying the Move.

My Bestbuy had plenty of 360s, PS3s, and Kinect. They even had Wiis. I think the time for console shortages during this generation has ended.

The sad news is that Jim is posting this solely for hits. 360 sold 1.9m in Dec according to NPD, trouncing PS3 by a LONGSHOT. Yeah it didn't outsell the DS or Wii, but it outsold it's main competition and people reading this article might think otherwise.

Is this really so hard for people to understand? When Microsoft says "we ran out" they don't mean Gamestop ran out, or Best Buy ran out, they mean they've shipped everything they had out to retail. It's not like they're saying there are none for sale anywhere in the world.

Sterling publishes something like this every few weeks, and people are dance around as though they'd been personally insulted. It doesn't matter whatsoever if your local Wal-mart has pallets full, that is not a worldwide indicator of anything. Seriously, isn't this common sense?

Have you ever taken a look at Major Nelson? Not only does he look more like a cross between Barney Rubble and a State Senator from Wisconsin but he just looks like a BS'er. So I'm taking this little blurb of his with a huge grain of salt.

Anecdote anecdote anecdote anecdote, anecdote anecdote anecdote anecdote anecdote. Anecdote anecdote, anecdote anecdote anecdote.

<sigh>

Anecdote.

Sold my 120GB elite around mid dec 2010 to pick up a 360S. Around that time EVERYONE was sold out. Best Buy didn't have any 250 Slim and only four 4GB Slims, no Kinnect ver., and no Holiday 2010 250GB Slim. Same went for all the Walmarts and Gamestops around me. I had to wait till around the week of Xmas to pick up a 250GB 360 Slim at Walmart (came with a 75 dollar gift card so WIN!). ATM right now the gamestops near me have zero new 360S, the Best Buy has a few 4GB and only one Holiday Ed 250, and walmart had a few.

So yeah I'm sure MS had a great holiday sale, expecially with that huge Kinnect push they did in almost every major magazine (no I'm not talking about gaming, shit was in Times, Newsweek, some womens health book, etc etc) that got the hype train rolling.

Do you get these numbers Jim? Would be really interesting what is true now.

The GameStop I work at only sold out of pre-owned 360s. We still had a fair number of new ones left over come Christmas, as well as a small handful of Kinects. In comparison, we sold all but three of our 40-ish Wiis (including all of the limited Mario ones), and regularly sold out of Moves within a day or two of when we got shipments of them.

/shrug

I work at target and it seems we sell out of xbox 360s almost every week since late november.

In December, it seemed like Xbox 360's were in short supply at my local retailers. My brother's 360 red-ringed out of warranty, and he was sort of waiting for an excuse to get the new model. He had to settle for a 4GB because the 250GBs were sold out the two weeks that he tried to get one at Best Buy, Gamestop, and a few other retailers.

My roommate works at Best Buy and he reports that they've had a steady supply since the New Year, of both the Kinect and the 250GB models of 360.

@Pokota

Finally someone who actually understood the article.

Heh, no. I don't believe this for a second.

Full out BS on microsoft. saw a bunch at best buy and walmart. well atleast here in florida.

@kwikpwn

Hahaha
You win another Internet. Just throw it on your pile. :)

I saw stacks of 360's at Best Buy; this is BS. Although, I will say I couldn't find any of the STAND ALONE 360 consoles; only Kinect bundles.

Predictable flamers

My pants are very popular with all the ladies. And that, Your Honour, is why I am naked.

Kinect bundles maybe... whatever.

I was looking for a replacement and had to go all over the city to find a 250gb one here on Vancouver Island, there's truth in what they say.

A large electrical store I went to were sold out of all consoles during December.

I will say both M$ and $ony are evil as all get out, but we still give them our money regardless. I did go looking around my town for the 360 Elite 4Gb or 250Gb without Kinect. Only found 2 in a Best Buy, everyone else was completely sold out. Now if you wanted a Kinect to go with it, you were set. So what they did not state is that they probably cut their console only stock down by 75% to throw a Kinect into the bundle and those are still sitting on shelves.

It was kind of convenient that the holiday season Kinect comes out that all the stores in my area were "out" of the models with the hard drives. So I waited. Take that Microsoft! And my money.

We sold a crapton more 360s than wiis and ps3s combined at our store this holiday. We were never sold out of kinect bundles. We were always short on systems without kinect

I was just at my local Best Buy last night, and there were literally dozens of 360's and Kinects in all manner of sizes, bundles, etc.

I don't know anyone personally who bought a new 360 this holiday so obviously no 360s were sold.

well, i know that in tacoma, wa there were some big retailers sold out of the s console, but if you drove around and did some shopping you could find a store w/ some. Now, this was before xmas. Now, I see stores fully stocked. But the couple weeks before i was hard pressed to find a kinect, or xbox. It does seem like the wii's were not moving much. I did notice some ps3 move bundles disappear too. But that is my area.

WOW, i just read a bunch of comments.. I thought people on this site would show SOME intelligence. I love the conspiracy theories. "yeah, didn't you hear, MS intentionally underproduced so they could say this later".. LOL . .WOW. that would be my game plan. Make less consoles, to make LESS money, just so I an EMPLOYEE of MS can make a tweet. Or, this one "I go into best buy every week and saw HUNDREDS". I didn't know a best buy that could have hundreds on a row of shelves at at time, but ok. Does this person even think that if the store has consoles that perhaps they continue to stock the shelves and just because they saw consoles on the shelves doesn't mean they weren't selling. :::face to palm::: Every business will make a spin, MS, SONY, NINTENDO, etc. That is business. But try thinking a little bit before comming up w/ a conclusion that is on the same basis of retardation. I go to my local store and see zero consoles, does that mean MS sold out.. NO, it means that store didn't get enough inventory. I see HUNDREDS at Best buy, does that mean they aren't selling.. NO, means they have some inventory and prepared for the holidays.. They sold consoles, but who cares at the end of the day, do you own MS stock, is it your company, same goes w/ all manufacturers.. Don't you worry about the numbers, let the people that actually OWN and work for the business to do that.

ok, here is one logical comment...props to you for thinking outside of fanyboyism

GC Riot said
Microsoft's inventory and various store's inventory are two COMPLETELY different things... you guys do realize that... right?
Considering Kinect became such a success I have no problem seeing how MS underproduced. The 360 sales have been strong ever since the release of the Slim, and around Christmas it probably spiked and went higher than MS had predicted, and now they're just trying to meet demand. This same thing happened to the PS3 Slim last year as well, no?

Artificial scarcity, that is all.

@Mrandydixon

Glad i lightened someones day even for just a sec lol Too many slapped asses on here.

I the immortal words of Charlie Browns parents, "Wawwaw waw wa".

The only reason they're selling so many is because 1/3 of the come back for a defective exchange, I work at Gamestop, it happens all the time. Even these ones, though MUCH more reliable, still come back pretty frequently...Oh Bill Gates, when will you learn?