Now one week out from launch, demand for both of Microsoft’s next gen Xbox consoles, the Series X and Series S, have made it challenging for some people to get their hands on one. But according to comments from Xbox CFO Tim Stuart spotted by the folks at VGC, it looks like Microsoft expects demand to outpace supply until at least early next year.
Speaking at the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment conference, Stuart said that supply shortages are expected to last until the post-holiday quarter, which would be the first 3 months of 2021.
“And then when we get to Q4, all of our supply chain continuing to go full speed heading into kind of the pre-summer months. And that’s where I start to — I expect to see a little bit of the demand — the supply profile, meeting the demand profile.”
Some stores have taken to social media and in-store advertisements to note that they’ll have limited supply for Black Friday and likely here and there throughout the rest of the year, but for the most part there aren’t yet enough Xbox consoles to go around. Stuart notes that the demand speaks to the growth video games have seen over the last console generation.
“I think what we’ve seen over the last generation and then heading into now is — and part of this demand profile is, frankly, gaming is just exploding,” continues Stuart. “It’s a $200 billion a year industry. And so kids, adults, male, female, young, old, whatever it is, are [playing] games. And so that drives that demand profile, which we love to see.”