I have been casually trying to get an Xbox 360 since the launch almost 3 months ago. Last week, I might have succeeded had I wanted a core system, which happened to be in stock at Best Buy when I when I went there (despite the sign saying they were out of stock).
I might be the only person in the world that wants it primarily as a Media Center Extender rather than a gaming system, though Xbox Live is a close runner-up reason. I picked up a Media Center 2005 box last year from Dell: an XPS Gen 4 with a 3.4 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, 450 GB of disk, and a dual-tuner card. I love the DVR features, but watching TV at my computer desk isn’t very fun. So I really want the Xbox 360 so I can relax in front of the TV while streaming video from my PC.
So, I have a bunch of subscriptions in my RSS reader to help me in my quest. Through a PodZinger RSS search on “xbox,” I found an Engadget podcast in which they talked about a speech Peter Moore gave on Monday. After further investigation, I found several other references [1, 2] to that speech. Moore says that within 4-6 weeks, you’ll be able to walk into any store and find them in stock. Another great Xbox podcast I have found is Larry Hryb’s Major Nelson podcast series. Hryb is the Xbox Live Director of Programming and has great inside interviews with other Xbox staffers. Hryb also posted Bill Gates’ keynote speech at CES 2005.
So, perhaps in a few weeks, I’ll have my Xbox 360!
