Early this morning, a sign went up in front of the Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo’s Akihabara. It read 完売 (kanbai), which means “sold out.” This is just one of several stores across Japan that have sold through their stock. There is a reason for that, and that reason is that they’re only selling preorders.
As in the West, today is the day that the Xbox One X goes on sale in Japan, and the tweet below shows the Xbox One X listings for different stores with the words 在庫無し (zaiko nashi) or “out of stock” in black font.
And this morning, the Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, one of the biggest in Japan, didn’t exactly draw waiting hopefuls trying to snag an Xbox One X.
Twitter user Kaztsu, who snapped these photos, joked, “I can’t see the end of the line.”
What gives?
According to Game Watch Impress, the reason is that major electronics retailers in Japan didn’t plan to offer the consoles in store on launch day. Instead, they’d only sell to customers who preordered. Thus, the Xbox One X sold out.
Which, I assume, also means embarrassing tableaus like this could possibly be avoided.
Bic Camera and Yamada Denki told Game Watch Impress that if a customer cancelled his or her preorder, then it’s possible that said console would be sold over the counter.
On Amazon Japan, there are a couple Xbox One X consoles available for well above the hardware’s original price of 53,978 yen ($473). Prices start at 80,000 yen ($701) for the standard Xbox One X, while the Project Scorpio version is 147,000 yen ($1,288) and up.
Japanese site GameBusiness is reporting a nationwide sell out for online retailers.
It is unclear how many preorders traditional retailers filled and how many consoles have been sold online.
In related news, here is a notice spotted on an electronics store that states the shop isn’t doing Xbox One X preorders and won’t be getting the console at launch or in the future.
Ouch.
It will be interesting to see what kind of sales figures emerge from the Xbox One X’s Japan launch.
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