Back in November 2005 Microsoft Corporation launched its powerful Xbox 360 console. Powered by three cores and a very powerful ATI GPU, the mighty Xbox 360 gained quite a reputation and many liked the console monster. But there is some unpleasant news regarding the Xbox 360. It seems that the Xbox 360 is not available in a few countries. Israel counts 7 million citizens and is known for its hi-tech, scientific, engineering and military prowess. However Israeli gamers will have hard time finding the Xbox 360 in their local shops. It seems that Microsoft Israel is not promoting or distributing Xbox 360 in their own area(?). The good news is that a few local distributors managed to import it, but they have a very limited amount of units. The bad news is that prices are about twice as much (844$-1000$) as most other places in the world. We’ve also heard about availability issues in many other countries but we couldn’t confirm it.

If your country suffers from Xbox 360 availability issues feel free to let us know. Now we all wonder why Microsoft has opened such a big office in Israel. According to the local Israeli press “Ynet” the reason for the lack of availability is “non-profitability”. The lack of availability appears mostly in the following areas: Eastern Europe, Middle East and South Africa. The estimated date for the arrival of the Xbox 360 for all countries is Q4 of 2008. Until then, we will probably have Xbox 720, quad core CPUs and super GPUs. In Israel there are about ten thousands dedicated gamers. A local Israeli company is hosting LAN events every few months with around a thousand participants. The ironic thing is that Microsoft has a booth in these LAN events. Is it really “non-profitability” or is it just a cover excuse for something else?