UK retailers stretch to meet Xbox 360 demand

Earlier we talked about the possibility that Microsoft may be faking a shortage of Xbox 360s in order to spur the American public to get out there and pre-order. Unfortunately, it’s looking very likely that there will be a shortage in the U.K. Olly linked us to his blog with his experiences of dealing with several game retailers around the U.K.

In one post Olly found that independent and smaller game retailers are being offered a total of four Xbox 360s to sell. Even bigger stores like Toys R’ Us only have around ten units for sale. The reason for this? Microsoft has only allocated 100,000 units to the UK in total. That’s in comparison to the PSP’s 250,000 units at launch; a console which is still suffering chronic shortages around 6 weeks after its launch.

So whilst it’s likely that the U.S. will avoid the majority of shortages, the U.K. may not be so lucky. But then that raises the question of whether a temporary shortage is a better situation than having the U.K. launch delayed by a month or more. Is the chance of being able to pick up an Xbox 360 (with temporary shortages) better than having to wait six months to even see one in a store?