Zune 80 availability = Zero

I personally don't think the Zune 80 debut was so much of a "controlled release". I think the Zune marketing dept. botched on this one with their projected sales. Don't get me wrong; I too thought that the Zune 4 & 8 would be a huge hit- with it's wide variety of colors and lower price would have made it more inticing, but that Zune 80 is just too dang sexy to not want.

NPGMBR, what you're saying does make sense to me, but what I have seen in all the store (still today) are an over-stocking of Zune 4's & 8's. Here in Houston there was an average of 2 Zune 80's per a store, and 0 for Best Buy (they really screwed up that one). 

On the other hand, if they palnned on a limited debut release, and then made plenty available just in time for Christmas (say, Dec 17 or so) - that's brilliant!

On a side note: 3 weeks ago a radio station had mentioned an article that reported on the low demand of MP3 players for Christmas this year, since "the entire world" already has one form of an iPod. I was a little peaved that there was no mention of the new gen.2 Zune.

Actually, the problem was that MS didn't anticipate this much demand for theZ80.  The reason for the trickle in is not necessarily a controlled disbursement.  It's simply a matter of spreading as many Z80s to as many retailers as possible until production can catch up.  That makes much better sense from a business standpoint than sending 200k Z80s to Wal-Mart because that would give Wal-Mart an advantage over other retailers and that could tick them off so, its a better idea to spread the product out as much as possible to avoid upsetting any partners.

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Welcome to the Dawn!
NPGMBR

 EagleEye2590 wrote:

 The Slothinator wrote:

I think it's kind of funny that microsoft is doing a controlled release purposely to make it seem like EVERYONE wants one, when in reality "sold out" generally means that the store only got one or two to begin with.

They did the same thing with the Xbox 360 at launch.... they gave each electronics store like 20 a week or something like that. 

Speaking of Xbox 360 - I was worried that Bungie was going to do the same with the release Halo 3, however they were smart to release millions of copies since they would rather have the fastest-most selling game of all time instead of a shortage of games.

Too bad MS didn't go for this approach with the Zune 80. It looks like they assumed that the Zune 4 & 8 was going to be the big seller - wrong!

I hope everyone gets their Zune 80s soon! Good luck!

Got Zune 80 #2 today from Circuit City. Did the in store pick-up to make sure it didn't sell before I got there.

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Have fun, enjoy life! Live, Love, Learn!

 stratboy meow wrote:

80GB is available at www.zuneoriginals.com !!!!  Only one color, but like AC/DC says "Back in black, I hit the sack...I've been gone too long, I'm glad to be back."   So one color option is fine with me.  :)

I ordered mine before posting this.....so y'all have at it!

Zune 80 Original Ordered!!!

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Zune 30 --> Zune 80 --> Zune 120 --> ZuneHD

Yes mine finally shipped from Best Buy online 2 days ago.  I'm very excited, this is my first Zune.  I had been debating whether to cancel my Best Buy order and get one from zuneoriginals.com but I didn't really like any of the art they had available and then my decision was made for me.  I'm annoyed about the delayed release, but at least I'll get it before Christmas.

 The Slothinator wrote:

I think it's kind of funny that microsoft is doing a controlled release purposely to make it seem like EVERYONE wants one, when in reality "sold out" generally means that the store only got one or two to begin with.

They did the same thing with the Xbox 360 at launch.... they gave each electronics store like 20 a week or something like that. 

I think it's kind of funny that microsoft is doing a controlled release purposely to make it seem like EVERYONE wants one, when in reality "sold out" generally means that the store only got one or two to begin with.

best buy online seems to have them now. i'm not sure about stores though.
i finally got mine from target, my local target apparently got shipments everyday of zunes, so when i went, there were about 8

wall mart gets them the most often i think, just check their sites before u go to the store

Well a bit after the 2.0's release I saw several in-stock at Wal-Mart and Target and local Gamestop stores. A few days after that.....they are all sold out. That's good in its own right, but now were back to 0 availability now lol.

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Burn My Tomorrows While Standing In Today.

Just my luck.  But its ok because I intend to get a personalized one as well.

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Welcome to the Dawn!
NPGMBR