According to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart, Xbox Series X and S shortages will continue until April 2021. With PlayStation 5 so hard to find at stores, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft is not having similar issues when supplying stores with new stock.
“I think we’ll continue to see supply shortages as we head into the post-holiday quarter, so Microsoft’s Q3, calendar Q1,” Stuart said at the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment Virtual Conference. It will take four to six months to be on par with the demand, Microsoft believes, and that’s with the supply chain going “full speed” as it is doing now.
“We’ll have supply cranking over the next, what, 4, 5, 6 months,” the Xbox CFO added.
“And that’s when I expect to see really that demand profile start to be met, which will be really, really great… I think we’re going to start to see some real velocity kick up, which I’m really excited to see.”
Xbox Series X and S have been off an impressive start in terms of pre-orders, with the consoles going sold out even in territories such as Japan, where Xbox doesn’t have a solid tradition. This performance is seemingly confirming Xbox Phil Spencer’s opinion that the lack of big exclusives, like the delayed Halo Infinite, wouldn’t harm launch sales.
Xbox Series S was thought to be a weak choice for hardcore, early adopters as it only supports a little free storage on its smaller SSD, but that isn’t stopping them from buying the low-cost console as well.