The Xbox seem to be in high demand and only sporadically available here in the Puget Sound area. It's definitely hit or miss, usually miss. I've been calling around for a few days and finally found some at Best Buy. They wouldn't hold one for me, even with a credit card, and I was told it was first come, first serve. So I got there as quick as I could, only to find that while the customer service rep had told that they had them for sale, in fact they were still sitting on the shipping dock, had not yet been processed into the store, and wouldn't be available until at least the following day. When I spoke with the manager about my displeasure at my time being wasted after having been told that they did indeed have the Xbox available, they agreed to get one out and sell it to me. They also got me a second controller and the DVD playback kit, which are kind of tough to find around here, too. Even though they covertly brought this stuff up to the counter for me to buy so as not to attract attention from other customers, several others did notice it and I heard them asking each other if it was an Xbox. Must be a popular item, huh? [;)]
Anywho, that was my Xbox buying adventure yesterday. Now to get Halo and hopefully MX 2002. At least the games are widely available and easily found. [:)]
I think the Xbox will remain somewhat scarce through the holidays. At least it's nowhere near as bad as PlaStation2 was last year. I still can't believe schmucks were paying over twice what they cost just to have one under the tree for little Johnny. My kids would have gotten raincheck. [;)]