Artificial scarcity comes from Microsoft withholding stock, not by being out of stock. Microsoft says they're running out, but small amounts keep trickling into retailers to keep-up the hype. 1 million in 10 days is impressive, except when you consider that a single game, Call of Duty: Black Ops, sold 7 million copies in 24 hours. Microsoft probably made 10million Kinects. If you went to Best Buy and saw 500 units on the shelf, you might wait until better games came out, or to see if it was even worth it because "hey, there are plenty units left". By shipping only a small percentage of their units out at a time, people see "oh no, one kinect left, better buy it". Of course, after it sells out, the store gets another shipment next week, and the week after, and people keep seeing dwindling stock and think "better buy it now". This isn't a Microsoft tactic, its a well-known retail tactic.