Major UK retailers are selling out of their Kinect pre-orders well ahead of the device's November 10 release date, as numerous websites now offer consumers the opportunity to join a preorder queue instead of a guaranteed day-one delivery.
"We've hit our limit for launch, but you can still pre-order for a priority place in the queue," advertises major UK retailer GAME on its website, promising Kinect units to new orderers "as soon as we have more stock in."
Amazon's UK arm provides a notice asking customers to subscribe to a wait list so that they can be notified by email when Kinect units become available to order, although the console bundle that comes with the device is still available to pre-order.
Amazon UK also says that it's limiting initial purchases to help with supply-demand ratio: "As you may know, this product can sometimes be in great demand, and there can be shortages of this product across the U.K," a statement on the website reads.
"In an effort to provide as many customers as possible with the opportunity to purchase it, we are limiting the total number of units that can be purchased. As a result, each household may only purchase five units."
Finally, retailer Play.com has a similar wait-list setup in order for users who want to purchase Kinect, which it doesn't have currently available for pre-order. It's limiting to 1 per customer: "Supplies of this product are extremely limited and are under allocation by Microsoft," says the site. "Therefore, we cannot guarantee to ship your order for launch."
A Microsoft spokesperson
told UK trade site MCV that the company is aiming to ensure that there are more Kinect units available for consumers "than any other launch." "We will continue to work hard to ensure that Kinect for Xbox 360 is available for the Christmas season," said the company.
