Toys R Us sells out Xbox pre-orders in 30 mins

Won't say how many, thouth. Not a lot, we reckon

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

Posted in Personal, 6th September 2001 10:19 GMT

Free research: Application platforms, the state of play

Toys R Us and its online store manager, Amazon.com, yesterday claimed that they had sold all of their initial batch of Xbox consoles within 30 minutes of the units going on sale.

Cue whoops and hollers of joy from Xbox buffs and Microsofties, but what does Toys R Us' bulletin really say? Not a lot, actually, since neither company will say how many units had been put up for sale. One thousand; one hundred - or just one? The exact figure makes a big difference to just how successful its pre-order programme is.

Almost no one else's who's begun taking online pre-orders for the console appears to have sold out - and certainly not as quickly. Only Barnes & Noble subsidiary GameStop has managed it - and on just one bundle out of five separate packages.

There's certainly an air of hyping it all up here. Toys R Us told Reuters its next pre-sale offer will kick off on 11 September. The use of the word 'next' implies a series of such offers, all undoubtedly designed to fuel demand among buyers who think they're getting something special.

Toys R Us is pre-selling Xbox in a bundle of console, add-ons and software. All together, the package comes to $499, rather more than the $299 Microsoft will be asking for the console alone when it ships in the US on 8 November. ®

Free research: Application platforms, the state of play