GameStop Halts Xbox One Preorders

[hooblabla6262]

Brilliant strategy.

Make less Xbones; claim they "sold out".

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Wait, did they run out of Xbones, or just the Xbones with "I bought this on the first day" or whatever printed on the controller? Because I seem to remember that those exist, and maybe they just don't want to make too many of them in case there are some left over and people get to buy them the next day.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Sorry for the rant. I would think Gamestop would be a preferred Xbone 2nd hand game seller by MS, they have shops across america to make them viable.

I think Gamestop may be angling to be the only approved re-seller on the North American continent. Certainly they (and Microsoft) will be looking for an opportunity to cut Ebay and peer to peer sales out of the loop.

In the Uk its Game/Gamestation, im sure they would also want to be the sole sellers also. But like Gamestop, the only other companies would be supermarkets that have the cross country property to sell games. So walmart in USA or Tesco here. They dont do second hand games, so if not Gamestop, who else would their be?

 

[kajinking]

Sounds like MS just wanted to have headlines that sound nice when they read "Xbox One preorders sold out". Meh, at this point, I'll let MS do their thing, and keep my eye on the Wii U or PS4, or just consider sprucing up my PC a bit more.

I think the pre-order news is only a nice side effect and that the main reason is what others have said about avoiding another incident like Simcity with server stress.

However this begs the question as to what would be more damaging, a simcity server overload or a lot less consoles to go around at start. I know how people can be and it would not suprise me if someone cancelled their pre-order because they hate to wait two weeks after the system launched to get the damn thing.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Schadenfreude disappointment.

I was hoping that Gamestop lost faith enough in the XBone to willfully stop selling pre-orders.

I also imagine that if Microsoft were pressured enough, they might redact some of their draconian policies, such as the 24-hour phone in. They've done this plenty of times with pre-release windows bullshit.[footnote]Remember that Vista had a required phone-in, a server-side kill switch and a non-transferable license. The public screamed loudly enough to get them to change it before release. Windows 8 has all sorts of bullshit but people were distracted by the appalling Metro.[/footnote] And yeah, hardware, but I suspect that's a thing that can be disabled by firmware or even the soft OS.

The super-limited run sounds like Scientology marketing.

238U

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

This whole "people who buy a xbone are idiots" reaction is retarded. They just see what the console gives, and they want it. They are not stupid for wanting an xbone, just they dont give a shit about the issues others think are terrible. So really, stop insulting people that by the xbone just because you dont like it. I really dont like any Nintendo consoles or 1st party games, but i wouldnt say people that buy Wii or WiiU are idiots. Just thats its a console they want. Like those that pre order the xbone, they want it, and all the things people state are negatives, they dont care.

Sorry for the rant. I would think Gamestop would be a preferred Xbone 2nd hand game seller by MS, they have shops across america to make them viable. If they are not chosen by MS to sell 2nd hand games then Gamestop will just not stock the games or hardware. They say companies dont make much money selling new games and consoles, so why would they sell MS stuff in store if its not making them money?

Eh, I can see the reasons behind the insults though, even if there is a much better approach to it. By buying into the XBox One and the policies that it holds, it tells the industry as a whole that those policies don't carry much negative weight to the gaming community, and we can start to see them become industry trends. To those of us completely against notions of anti-resell and online authentication policies, it's easy to become infuriated with people willing to accept and support them.

 

[lacktheknack]

Just remember before you start screaming about people's stupidity... 16 xboxes for each 60 PS4. 4 to 15, I believe is the ratio.

That's almost 4 to One!

Oh God.

Oh... God.

OT: I wonder if Microsoft is trying a "forced famine" gambit, ie. making their availability look really low to increase demand. I wouldn't put it past them at this point.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I wonder if Microsoft is simply going for a small install base with their console. It doesn't really make sense to me because they could just make a console that competes with the ps4 and a "special Xbox" that does this crap. I got an email from Amazon this morning informing me of popular "streaming media players" and at the top of the list was the Xbox One. Amazon apparently doesn't even consider it a console anymore

This whole "people who buy a xbone are idiots" reaction is retarded. They just see what the console gives, and they want it. They are not stupid for wanting an xbone, just they dont give a shit about the issues others think are terrible. So really, stop insulting people that by the xbone just because you dont like it. I really dont like any Nintendo consoles or 1st party games, but i wouldnt say people that buy Wii or WiiU are idiots. Just thats its a console they want. Like those that pre order the xbone, they want it, and all the things people state are negatives, they dont care.

The difference is that Nintendo isn't actively harming the games industry. Microsoft is trying to get away with 24 hour phone home DRM and get rid of used games, Nintendo just makes things that are unappealing to some people. I still think name calling is kind of stupid though. If you can't say anything nice...

 

[neppakyo]

There's been a persistent rumour on Neogaf that Xbone production is slow because Microsoft and AMD were having big problems getting good yields in manufacturing. The rumour also states the the production Xbone will have a much slower GPU clock speed than originally intended due to this as well, since it's easier to get lower performing chips.

The roots cause being that the Xbone is a large chip, the CPU/GPU and 32mb eSRAM all being present (to increasing caching speed when using DDR3 RAM). Microsoft have come out and specifically denied this, but having sixteen consoles projected to be available at launch in LA makes it sound highly plausible.

Sony on the hand, are rumoured to be using a chip much closer to AMD standard offered spec, whatever that may be...

Yeah i have heard that too. The main problem is the extra hardware with the 32mb eSRAM bridge, basically it's a shortcut to increase bandwidth speed between the CPU and the slow DDR3 they put in there.

Kept hearing the yields are very lower, a high failure rate, heat being one of the problems and hence the rumour of the lowered clock speed.

I'm still amazed that Sony is using GDDR5, thats some fast ass ram, and oddly the PS4 seems to be cheaper to manufacture, with less failure rate than the xbones band-aid attempt.

 

[Deathfish15]

Am I the only one that read the title only, and was going into the article thinking it was going to be about how Gamestop has an issue with the DRM and anti-used game status of Microsoft's new console, only to have pulled it from shelves before it's out? Seriously, misleading and kind of sad article.

Though the one interestingly funny thing about the article is how the PS4 has far more units per store than XbOne does. How wants to place a bet that over the next year after it's launch, the PS4 will get far more floor space at Gamestops than the XbOne will?

 

[1337mokro]

I think we are overlooking one huge thing.

16 people at least, actually pre-ordered the Xbone. Those are already 16 people to many who are just so happy to fork over their ownership rights, their privacy and basically their dignity because all their gamer friends will point and laugh at it every time they come over.

 

[neppakyo]

I'll be sure to point and laugh at anyone getting an xbone. Amazon did a consumer poll a bit back, roughly 38k for the ps4, 1.5k for the xbone.

It wouldn't be a Microsoft console if it wasn't cheaply made, high-failure and heat-prone, right?


It also wouldn't be a Microsoft console if it wasn't possible to fix all those issues with a 50 cent washer any joe schmoe can buy at any Hardware store and just plop it into place. Don't know about this last part yet, no one does, but I'm willing to bet whatever issues XBone has this will fix it.

Heh yeah, i expect anyone silly enough to get an xbone will have hardware failure within the month. The new RROD, probably be kinect screaming "Error! BSOD! Error!" then explodes.

Sounds like MS tried to cut corners again, which ends up being more expensive.

 

[Ruley]

Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with this day one rubbish. They would produce a limited number of these which limits the number they can sell on day one. So why didn't they just release this number for the sales figures and that's that?

also, 16 consoles per store? are you kidding me?

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Point. I've one friend who, last I knew, was still interested in the XB1 for it's multimedia applications (TV et al). So those features are what he's looking for. But when I mentioned MS's restrictions on used games and the online validation requirement, he didn't really care. So... mutually inclusive?

Sounds like the One is being used more as handicap for affordable TV. If I wasn't already committed to buying a PS4 solely to play games, I would have probably gotten a One just for that feature.