The shortage of consoles affects everyone, even their manufacturer. During an official Halo Infinite tournament, Microsoft found itself running out of Xbox Series X and had to provide dev kits to participants.
The semiconductor shortage affects all sectors. It has been going on since 2020 and shouldn’t be sorted out for a while. Thus, it is difficult to get hold of one of the new consoles, namely the PS5 and the Xbox Series X / S. Same Microsoft is struggling to provide for its official tournaments!
The story is told to us by Kotaku. Microsoft is currently having a big tournament around its newly released Halo Infinite game. Named HCS Kickoff Major Raleigh 2021, it takes place in North Carolina and brings together the best players who compete against each other. The tournament takes place on Xbox Series X and all participants must therefore be equipped.
Microsoft is struggling to get Xbox Series X
But now, it’s hard to find hundreds of Xboxes in these times of scarcity … even for Microsoft! Faced with the difficulties to equip itself, the Redmond firm had an original idea: involve some players on dev kits. It is the eSports manager of 343 Industries (studio behind Halo) who sold the wick on Twitter.
As a reminder, dev kits are modified versions of the console intended for developers. They do not have the same design as conventional machines and can therefore surprise participants. However, players who are assigned this version are not at a disadvantage. They were settled in “retail” mode, which means they work exactly the same as a regular Xbox Series X. Equipped challengers therefore have every chance of winning part of the $ 250,000 promised to the best.
The component shortage has been going on for over a year now and expected to run until 2023, according to Intel. Some competitors, such as Qualcomm and AMD, are less categorical, indicating that the concerns should be resolved by 2022. An optimistic forecast. In any case, this shortage does not only affect the field of video games, since computers, smartphones and even cars are affected.
Source: Kotaku
