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…but due to the overwhelming requests I get from friends and family on “where and when can I get an Xbox 360 for Christmas?” I send out emails and blog about what I’ve found publicly. I heard late this week that units would be arriving in time for sales on Sunday morning, and sure enough, there was already a line outside Best Buy locally: approximately 40-50 people were camped out at 4pm in arctic-like weather.

That’s gotta hurt. I hate the 30 second walk from my car to the office when it drops below 40.

I’d found and sent out links to Chris Lambert’s Xbox 360 Live Inventory Locator web site which hosts an app that details how many Xbox 360 consoles will be available at local Best Buy stores. For the store in my area I see 42 to be in stock, which means that eight of the people I saw tonite in line with their folding chairs, sleeping bags and several dozen layers of clothing may not be very happy come morning. Unless of course they were looking to get a front row seat to see which accessories other successful customers buy for their new console.

One of the nice features of Chris’ inventory map (ironically powered by Google Local, with ads served up by Google) is that all other local Best Buys are also noted, so you can see where you might get the best shot at a unit. For instance, friends of ours in rural Vermont were able to get a unit when the units first launched without much of an issue (they’re sold out now) and without the standing-in-line-in-the-Vermont-snow appeal that seems to reach suburbia. 

For those of you (like me) who have done most holiday shopping on-line, Chris’ site also offers a list of popular etailers that have and will again stock the Xbox 360, pinging the etailer’s sites regularly. Of course, I heard from retail staff at several the stores last week (BB, CompUSA and TRU) that they expected core hardware sold in-store with bigger bundles available on-line. Best Buy isn’t accepting web orders for local pick up on consoles (no surprise) but perhaps other stores will be seeing hardware this week, too…

Good news: it’s back in stock at Toys R Us / Amazon. (This is not an endorsement, just letting you know…)

Caveat: Just saw the big bundles posted for Teen and Mature, at $999. 

Update 2:30pm: Just heard from a friend that these went pretty fast and TRUs is now out of stock… the units sold out over an hour or so. Just amazing. Inquiring last night at CompUSA, BestBuy and ToysRUs on the way home from work, I found that staff at the local retailers haven’t any idea when additional stock will be available in-store, so you just have to watch.

WMV at 320×240 @ 700kbps and 320×240 @ 436kbps

MPEG4 and DivX 4/5, XviD at 720×480 @ 3Mbps and 640×480 @ 2Mbps
MPEG2 @ 640×480/2.5Mbps, 640×480 @2Mbps
MPEG1 @ 640×480/1.15Mbps and 352×288 @ 1.15Mbps
Even Motion-JPEG at 640×480 @ 2.5Mbps

Just to illustrate a point, even execs at MS are waiting for stores to be restocked with Xbox 360 units in time for the holidays…

PCMag and Reuters reported today that SteveB is in the boat with many other employees are this holiday as they look for Xbox 360 systems.

“The Ballmer children do not have their Xbox 360 yet. I’m in the same boat as many of you,” Ballmer said. “Thanks to the wonders of Sarbanes-Oxley, management does not get a free Xbox 360.” 

In the same article, it notes that “Microsoft estimates that it will sell 5.5 million units worldwide by the end of next June.” I’m hopeful that some of that volume makes it to Redmond in the next couple of weeks. Many of my (non MS) neighbours are also looking for units, and they’re not necessarily eager to pay >$600 for a unit on eBay.

You can lump me in that bucket, too, as my unit is still on order with an e-tailer… but not with one of those charging upwards of $899. That, IMHO, is just wrong. I understand how a free market economy works, but there is a fine line bewteen that and taking advantage of the situation. A humble reminder (like they need one) to our Xbox team to replenish supplies at retail.

Recently I had to reach out to one of my computer suppliers at home, in this case Dell (one of several I use at home and at work, so I’m not singling them out). Although I had some difficulty in getting through to an operator on the phone, I was able to get incredible results using Dell’s on-line service: only a couple of days after submitting my under-warranty request, I received the replacement part I needed. Great stuff.

Around this time of year I see an increase in the number of news reports around the dissatisfaction of customers with automated phone systems (commonly referred to as “IVRs”). We use such systems at Microsoft and I have to admit that I use our automated operator all the time to call coworkers at the office – the voice recognition is is very reliable.

But for those companies where there seems to be an endless run-around on the phone in search of a live person, I found a reference today to the IVR Cheat Sheet for Businesses  – it provides a guide for getting through to a live person on the phone quickly and with little hassle. Given my recent post on how to reach the Xbox service centre I thought to post a reverence on this helpful reference page.  

For Dell Service, I was happy to find a sequence on this page for accessing a live person: 800-624-9897, then press option 1, dial ext 7266966, press option 1, then press option 4 and finally press option 4. 

Of course, I was happy to read that Microsoft is fairly straight-forward…

“Microsoft – 800-936-5700 – Always dial 0. This is true for just about any MS number.”