With the new Xbox 360 Elite set for launch this coming Sunday, April 29th, it doesn’t come as any great surprise to anyone that the units are already being labeled as a scarce item. (Get ready for standing in long lines again.)
An internal company memo has alerted the managers at EB and GameStop stores that there will be about 6-10 units for each location, with more units available at the larger flagship stores. A warning was also issued to store employees to not give special treatment to "preferred customers," and that all store workers are prohibited from purchasing the units during the initial sale of the Elite under penalty of being fired.
The memo also states that no new Elites will be shipped until mid to late May. But in light of the boasts made by Bill Gates regarding Microsoft being able to ship over 10 million Xbox 360s before the end of 2006, it has to make one wonder why there is a sudden shortage for the Elite model.
Does adding a new hard drive and some new paint to the Xbox 360 really take that much more effort and time to produce? Only the marketing department at Microsoft can answer that question.
[via Uncle Gamer]
