Those who opted to preorder their Xbox Series X from Amazon may be in for a bit of a rude awakening.
Buyers were met with an email from the online retailer on Friday notifying them that their consoles may, in fact, arrive after the system’s official Nov. 10 release date.
“We’re contacting you about your order of Xbox Series X to let you know in advance that you may not receive this item on the day it is released due to high demand,” the email reads.
“We are making every effort with the supplier to procure more inventory. We will provide additional updates once more information becomes available.”
PCMag can verify receipt of these emails, though there has been no evidence of canceled preorders or anything of that nature just yet. There’s also no information on how many customers will be affected by this potential setback. Amazon has not indicated whether this is a general supply issue that it is warning all customers about or whether only certain buyers have received the email as a precautionary measure.
The Xbox Series X is not the first console release that Amazon has sent something of a disclaimer for ahead of time. The e-commerce giant did the same thing with a similar warning for those who preordered PlayStation 5 systems. With that warning, however, Amazon did not make note that it was working to “procure more inventory.”
In terms of next-gen console preorders, the PS5’s launch was nothing short of a disaster. As systems seemingly went up for sale in a scattershot manner, buyers were left in the cold as they lost out on systems to scalpers, bots, and website malfunctions.
Though Microsoft mercilessly mocked Sony initially, assuring customers that there would be a specific time they could expect to be able to purchase their systems, the very same issues befell the Xbox Series X manufacturer. When preorders went live the morning of Sept. 22, buyers were rarely able to add the systems to their carts or successfully get checked out.
Sony apologized for the issues and made plans to make additional systems available at sporadic times ahead of the PS5’s launch. Microsoft skipped the “sorry” and only confirmed that more Xbox Series X systems would be available on launch day, Nov. 10.
Given Amazon’s warning that the Xbox Series X may arrive later than launch date, it may be prudent to strike out for a system on launch day if it’s important to you to have it on time. Microsoft hasn’t announced how much stock it’ll be making available that day, but if the past is anything to go by, the Xbox Series X will be just as scarce then as it was in late September.
Currently, there’s no word on whether production will ramp up as we enter the holiday season, either.
