did anyone on here get a xbox 360?

Maybe because we had an agreement with Microsoft to fulfil all of our original consignment of pre-orders? That way we could take as many as we wanted and they would meet the original demand, it was a similar arrangement with the PSP...

You don't have a clue how retail works do you

As I've said in my last three posts Microsoft did tell every shop how many they would be getting, we've known for over a month how many they were shipping us for release... And thats across our entire chain, not just the one store.

I have mates who work in Game and Tesco and they both tell me they were given their pre-allocation at roughly the same time.

The Retailer not Microsoft decides how to sell its stock, and there has been marked differences in how this has been done, from us (who have sold pre-orders first) to play (who have sold both) to Tesco (who have refused to take reservations and have sold to anyone who walked through the door).

And the Retailer negotiates the supply agreement with Microsoft or whoever supplies the console if it's through a third party.

In our case we're big enough to ask that we have enough to fulfil our original orders.

Not every chain in the country is big enough have that kind of clout

Like I said, the retailers (the ones that promised reservations late on and couldn't deliver) cocked up, they've known for a full month how many they're getting, we've been saying from September onwards that due to the demand we can't guarantee reservations to people and any chain that has been saying they can from that point are as stupid as you are for believing it's Microsoft's fault

Oh yeah... Why would a retailer need quantities then when they wouldn't know themselves how many people actually wanted them?

Thank fuck you don't run a shop

How can the shop decide at that point if they're going to sell that many consoles?

Every store and chain in the country decides how many they're going to need based on their pre-orders, anyone with half a bollock for a brain isn't going to order 100 xbox 360s for their store without checking to see if there's any demand for them... That's good business sense. The console was unproven at that point and noone could anticipate the demand either way.

Say for example demand for the console bombed before launch (like it was dreamcast or saturn but worse), stores which had bought huge quantities would be fucked.

Would you want 200 odd consoles on your hands that you couldn't sell if (in theory) noone wanted them?

You're an absolute idiot

Actually, thats not what happened...

People pre-ordered them, chains requested them, and Sony was able to fulfil most of the original pre-orders because they had more stock available for launch than with the 360.

This wasn't the case last year when they brought out the new 'slimline' PS2. They were harder to get than hen's teeth... It was the same with the PSP, to the point where the launch date has been moved on no less than 2 different occasions. It was meant to be christmas last year...

Funny that... we used the same allocation system for the SLPS2, the PSP, and the 360?

There is no 'intelligent' way of doing it, your in-store 'limit' was probably set by your regional manager or by your head office.

My mate chris over at Game was told by his manager he could only pre-order so many 360s in case they were caught short... that wasn't a number enforced by microsoft