A reason to go camping in rainy cold weather

I happened to go to the local Best Buy only to discover dozens of people camping out in the cold weather outside the store. I thought that Black Friday was long gone, and there had to be a good reason for the gala. Turned out that there was a rumor that Best Buy stores were getting an undisclosed shipment of Xbox 360s at midnight. Some fanatics did not want to lose the opportunity to get the Christmas gift of the season, and so decided to camp out all night to get hands on one as soon as the store opened in the morning. Of course, some people were camping out just so they could re-sell the console at a profit margin of more than $300.

Deliberate or not, this Xbox 360 shortage has me puzzled. Why would Microsoft do something like this, especially in the busy Christmas shopping season? They said their plan was to sell a million units within 90 days of the launch. Are they near that objective?

I will get a new generation gaming console myself one of these days.