I went to Futureshop today to talk to my old boss, and I asked him basically “where are the Xbox 360’s!?” to which he calmly replied that there are rumours that chip shortages are to blame for the lack of consoles being available.

Then when I head home, I happen to notice in my own backyard the Ottawa Citizen has a Q&A with Steve Ballmer, and here is what was asked and said.

Q: The Xbox 360 has been a hot seller, and there have been shortages at some retailers. But some people say Microsoft has been creating the shortages as a marketing ploy. Why aren’t you making more?

A: We are making more. All stores are getting new units each week. Can we make as many as people want’ The answer is no, but not because we don’t want to. In these new consumer electronics devices based on new chips, there’s always the question of what yield will you get out of the manufacturing process of the new chip. We’re getting a little less, but not much less than the yields we expected, and we know that the yields we expected will probably outrun supply. But we decided to go ahead and launch rather than wait until post-Christmas and get a few million units out into the hands of users. We’re doing our best.

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