Xbox One pre-orders "unprecedented," firm "working unbelievably hard to match demand" for Christmas
Xbox One launches in Europe and North America tomorrow, and Microsoft's corporate vice president Phil Harrison has said pre-orders for the console have been "unprecedented" and the volumes allocated are going to be sold out.
Speaking with GI International leading up to the console's launch at midnight, Harrison said Microsoft is working "unbelievably hard to match demand" leading up to Christmas.
"Pre-orders have been unprecedented, and the supply that we are bringing in to the market in addition to the pre-orders will mean that by far and away it's our biggest launch ever," he said. "Because of the pre-order volumes we are going to be sold out. We're working unbelievably hard to match demand.
"I can only apologize in advance to anybody who is let down before Christmas, we don't want to lose a sale, clearly, and we'll work hard in our operations and our manufacturing supply chain and obviously with our retail partners to make sure we catch up as quickly as we can.
"We do have more stock coming in we believe before Christmas that retailers will be able to allocate in free supply and then it's just up to demand as to how quickly that disappears."
Harrison went on to say that once the console launches, Xbox One users will be able to connect to the 300,000 servers "turned on today" - something he called "the biggest strategic investment we've made in Xbox One."
"My favourite quote, 'equal to the computing power of the planet in 1999.' Now that's an incredible amount of CPU horsepower which is dedicated to making Xbox One games great," he said. "That will clearly grow over time as our platform numbers grow, our server infrastructure will grow as well. And that allows us to keep the console fresh, it allows us to add functionality to the device over time, but it also allows developers to tap that power for their own gaming experiences.
"And once developers get the tools and technology under their belt and they understand how to really take advantage of it I think that's going to be a huge shot in the arm for the industry.
"We have our plan, we have our vision and we have our point of view on where the future is and that's informed the design and development and product of Xbox One and I think that you can see for yourself that vision that we painted in May has now come true here in November.
"We're really excited about this moment where - what are we six or seven hours from the moment - we are about to release that to the world. And it's now the world's console, and it's up to the world to shape it and make it their own. And that's a very exciting moment."