No other hardware manufacturer has attempted a simultaneous worldwide launch before. Even though Xbox 360 will arrive on November 22nd in the United States, December 2nd in Europe and December 10th in Japan, in most respects, it's a same-day launch. Contrast to their brash confidence at E3, Microsoft's now growing nervous.
"There's a reason no-one has done this before and we are figuring that out," said Peter Moore, corporate VP of worldwide marketing and publishing of Xbox, in an interview with BBC News.
"If we knew what we were getting into, we might not have done it."
Outside of allocating enough hardware for consumer demand, Moore even plays coy about how they're going to distribute what's coming out of their warehouses. "We're going to ship all around the world; how we're going to do that, I don't know," he says.
"We're going to rent every 747 we can find."
J Allard also made similar comments to the press, but don't forget that Sony pulled a similar tactic when launching both PSP and PlayStation 2. Creating a frenzy over consumer demand for Xbox 360 will keep the hype machine rolling into the Christmas season and towards PlayStation 3's launch.
Chances are Microsoft would have trouble meeting consumer demand for Xbox 360 no matter what their public relations strategy. Spinning that problem into a positive, though, is to Microsoft's advantage in order to keep awareness of the hardware post-launch.