Greg Kasavin
Executive Editor

Maybe it's because I'm a Russian immigrant whose family needed to be resourceful to make ends meet, but my addiction to games has sometimes caused me to go to some fairly extreme lengths in my pursuit of the game systems I needed to own (yeah, I said needed). To date, I've done such things as almost tearfully exchange all of my Sega Genesis games just so I could afford a Super Nintendo Entertainment System on the day of its release, and haul back a Japanese NeoGeo system stashed away in my suitcase (any idea how big those boxes are?) while masquerading as part of a student exchange program in Tokyo.

In general, I'd always import my systems, because Japan got them first and I couldn't wait. The most drastic measures I've ever taken to get a system involved selling off my entire NeoGeo collection--foolish madness--so that I could afford a PlayStation. Importers were charging well into the thousands, so I did some digging on the Internet until I made contact with someone living in Japan who seemed willing to get me what I needed. All I had to do was wire-transfer about $900 to his account. I hastily proceeded on faith--he sounded trustworthy, his references checked out, and sure enough he promptly delivering me a PlayStation and copies of Ridge Racer, Toshinden, Cyber Sled, and Kileak the Blood. In hindsight, that stuff wasn't nearly as good as the NeoGeo games I got rid of to afford it. But later on I got Tekken. And it was good.

Shopping online makes the process of finding and buying products almost instantaneous compared to going to retail stores, but the Internet also brings its own difficulties along with it. Try visiting 20 different stores in an hour in real life, and you're likely to end up with just as many speeding tickets. With a few keystrokes online, you're at Amazon, Wal-Mart, GameStop or EB Games. Online stores will most likely be your starting point for your system search, but you'll find that there's a price for convenience.

Xbox 360 Systems and Accessories

Good luck trying to pre-order systems on the web.

If you're looking to purchase a system through these online venues, you might already be too late. Most online stores sold out of their inventories through preorders several weeks ago. The sites will likely have new preorders available by launch day, but don't expect to see your console anytime soon since you'll likely have to wait for future shipments.

Membership warehouse retailer Costco briefly offered the basic Xbox 360 systems for sale without any extra games or accessories, but those product pages disappeared fairly quickly. You can expect the same to happen throughout the holiday season if the Xbox 360 launch is anything like the PlayStation 2 shortage we saw in 2000. Bare systems will sell out immediately, systems with relatively small bundles (an extra controller and two or three games) will also sell quickly, but systems with an excessive number of add-ons will always be available with an equally excessive asking price.

If you're down to drink copious amounts of Pepsi related products like Mountain Dew, you can theoretically be one of the lucky winners of an Xbox 360. Mountain Dew hosts their contest on a web site called www.every10minutes.com. The key here is to drink your way to victory by using the codes found on bottle caps. Mountain Dew intends to give away an Xbox 360 every 10 minutes from August 29 to October 31.There are numerous contests abound from various companies. Your chances are likely slim to none in most cases, but the odds are still better than playing the lottery.

Games and accessories won't be in as short supply as the systems. It's possible that there might be a run on extra controllers or the most popular launch games during the first week of release, but that's often more of a brick and mortar problem where isolated stores run out of particular products.

It's gone! It's gone! But there's still hope on the launch day.

Shortage or Hype?

There has also been some speculation that Microsoft has been creating an artificial Xbox 360 shortage to generate consumer demand for the system. We've spoken with a couple third-party accessory manufacturers who believe that the shortage will be real (but who knows how far the conspiracy may extend). If you want to wait until launch day to see if the shortage is real or not, you're probably better off buying your system from a local retail store--if the shortage is real, you should still be able to find a system provided you know where to look.