Electronic Business – Learning from failure – 5/1/2006 – Electronic Business – CA6328378
This article clarifies why there was such a big shortage with Xbox 360s during the holiday season:
Then something unexpected hit. Both Samsung and Infineon Technologies had committed to making the GDDR3 memory for Microsoft. But some of Infineon’s chips fell short of the 700 megahertz specified by Microsoft. Using such chips could have slowed games down noticeably. Microsoft’s engineers consulted and decided to start sorting the chips, not using the subpar ones. Because GDDR3 700-MHz chips were just ramping up, there was no way to get more chips. Each system used eight chips. The shortage constrained the supply of Xbox 360s.