Phil Spencer says Xbox supply "as big as it's ever been" despite chip shortages
James Batchelor
Editor-in-Chief
Wednesday 12th January 2022
Microsoft
Xbox
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer says worldwide supply issues have not stopped Xbox Series X|S breaking company records.
During an interview with The New York Times, the executive reiterated that Microsoft's newest consoles were the fastest selling Xbox generation in the brand's history -- something the company previously announced alongside its financial results back in July.
The accomplishment was brought up during a discussion about the pandemic's impact on the games industry, in which Spencer alluded to the ongoing supply issues.
"When you think about trying to go get an Xbox or a new PlayStation right now in the market, they're really hard to find," he said.
"And it's not because supply is smaller than it's ever been. Supply is actually as big as it's ever been. It's that demand is exceeding the supply for all of us."
Addressing the supply chain issues directly, Spencer gave a little insight into the efforts Microsoft has gone to in order to ensure a steady flow of new consoles to retail.
"We're spending a lot of time thinking about how do we move consoles from A to B location and securing chips," he said.
"Once you're working on supply chain, you work all the way at the manufacturing end. But it seems like every time you free up any bit of capacity to more inventory through, you hit the next thing, shipping.
"Okay, then when you get to shipping, you have to get it to stores. Once you get it to stores, there's so much demand. How do you actually manage so that real customers are buying our consoles and it's not a bunch of scalpers and bots that are securing the capacity? It's multi-step and it's kind of a 24-7 job for the team right now."
Niko Partners analyst
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