Hidden at the bottom of an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Steve Ballmer revealed that shortages of the 360 are partially due to a lower than expected yield on the chips used in the system. He explained, "... [with] devices based on new chips, there's always the question of what yield will you get out of the manufacturing process of the new chip. We're getting a little less, but not much less than the yields we expected, and we know that the yields we expected will probably outrun supply."There are shades of the PS2's launch here, when they had trouble manufacturing the system's RDRAM, resulting in shortages of a system that would have sold out regardless. Hardly the worst product launch to model yourself after, considering the enormous success the PS2 has had. They better hope those yields increase soon, or they risk losing the goodwill of everyone who won't be getting a shiny new 360 for Christmas this year.
[Via Next Generation]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-09-2005 @ 12:30AM
untitled said...
You win this time, you sour-cream of doom...
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12-09-2005 @ 12:39AM
sully said...
and the xbox 360's power supply is still 3 times too large
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12-09-2005 @ 8:47AM
Gaming Fan said...
Plz...i think no one (and lets be honest) if they had the money and oppertunity would NOT get the 360.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:11AM
Sense said...
But that doesn't mean the people who have alread *paid* for one aren't a little pissed they don't have one.
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12-09-2005 @ 11:17AM
Tom Crymes said...
We're not really going to be able to put the launch problems into perspective until the PS3 launches.
Will there be massive shortages in Japan? It doesn't look like Sony will launch world wide like MS.
Of course we could look back to the PS2 problems.
I just want to know why MS claims to have been shipping out new 360s weekly, yet I don't know of anywhere who has gotten new units since launch day.
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