"The US edition of Official Xbox Magazine reports this month that [Chris Liddell, Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer,] addressed a gathering of industry analysts after Microsoft's financials were announced last week, and told them that the company hopes to have 4.5 to 5.5 million consoles on the market by the middle of next year," reports GamesIndustry.biz.
"Liddell once again reiterated Microsoft's warning that launch volumes of the console may be low, with the firm focusing on keeping a steady flow of consoles into retail from launch onwards rather than delivering a large batch for day one."
Comment: The hard drive version of the Xbox seems to have sold out weeks ago here (its Amazon.co.uk sales rank was 3, last time I looked), and if Microsoft is smart, it will be pumping as much stock as it can sell into the fiercely nationalistic Japanese market. It remains to be seen how many will ship before Christmas, but a run rate of 10 million a year would imply a (roughly) $2 billion business.
