In recent news that surprised, um, no one Microsoft has announced that they will not be making their target for consoles shipped. The target had been 2.75 - 3 million consoles within the first 90 days after launch. With shipments estimated at 1.3 million to the end of the year they've admitted to falling short of expectations, though they "feel good" about hitting a mark of 4.5 - 5.5 million by June, the end of their fiscal year. Head of Marketing, Peter Moore, explains that "Nothing's perfect - you've got a complex piece of hardware that's got 1,700 different parts in it, every now and again the line will slow down because something's happened and there'll be a component that didn't make it that morning." We understand, don't we folks? Sure we do.

On a totally related, yet not so much note: Nintendo had difficulties maintaining stock of their DS console in Japan throughout the holidays, due to the overwhelming volume of sales that the product incurred. Well, they went ahead and issued an apology (rough translation of said apology found at source: GameLife) and increased their efforts to maintain customer satisfaction. We feel warm and fuzzy about that.

Source: Financial Times