Xbox 360 Osaka Launch: Otaku Line-Up - Kotaku

By this picture over at Kotaku, you'd think that Microsoft was successful in getting people in Japan to line up for the Xbox 360. Problem is ... they're not, they're actually waiting to buy figurines.

The Xbox 360 launch has been nothing short of disastrous. The amount of money spent promoting the launch and building the Xbox 360 lounge, and of course ... putting machines in retail ... just hasn't paid off.

This just further compounds the problem Microsoft has had managing the launch of Xbox 360. Drastically underestimating the amount of demand in the US, and overestimating the demand in Japan. (Europe was pretty close.)

I was at the Bellevue Best Buy yesterday killing some time, and overheard a lady getting all indignant with a Best Buy employee over his lack of knowledge regarding when and how the Xbox 360 shipments were coming. Once she was alone, I tipped her off to the second Xbox 360 launch Best Buy had planned. She immediately regurgitated the rumor of Microsoft having thousands of these things in a warehouse ... but with a new twist. One of her friends that works at Microsoft told her this.

I proceeded to try to explain the truth ... that Microsoft spread themselves too thin trying to launch in three territories at the same time, plus the problem with chip yields, and explained that it just doesn't make economic sense to drive up demand intentionally without planning to meet that demand. Not to mention that considering how much money Microsoft is losing per box, and the only way to make it up is to sell software, so Microsoft needs to get boxes in people's hands.

She didn't care. She was covinced that it was a conspiracy, and when I told her that I was a journalist in the game industry, she said, "Well, I hope you're writing about this, because there are a lot of angry people out there. I'm even going to sell my Microsoft stock because of this."

Well, I highly doubt she's going to do that, but at least I didn't tell her about all the 360s going unsold in Japan. She might have exploded right on me.