The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles have been out for about half a year now and it has sold fairly well despite console shortages affecting the market. Though the Xbox Series X/S has been hard to find since launch, plenty of new releases have found success on Xbox's current generation of home consoles.
Unfortunately for Xbox fans, these consoles are still not easy to track down for sale, thanks to a myriad of different factors. This may end up changing, however, as the Xbox Insider program may allow for players who own an Xbox One to reserve an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S for purchase down the line.
The official Xbox Insider Twitter account tweeted out about this new feature, calling it the Console Purchase Pilot. This feature would allow US Xbox One owners who are part of the Xbox Insider program the ability to reserve one of the two current-gen systems. However, the Xbox Insider Twitter account does note that there is only a limited amount of space available to enter for the opportunity. Additionally, not every player who registers will be selected to take part in the Console Purchase Pilot.
While the latter half of the tweet does bring a bit of sour news with it, the chance to completely lock down one of these current-gen systems through Xbox itself is hard to pass up. Especially considering players with an Xbox One only need to check out the Xbox Insider Hub on their system to enter in. Thanks to the global computer chip shortages affecting hardware manufacturers, it's quite likely that these two consoles won't be readily available to purchase for some time. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S have been affected by these shortages, alongside GPU and CPU manufacturers as well.
In fact, recently Sony's CFO stated that PS5 shortages will likely continue into 2022, which is much longer than many anticipated. As a result, Xbox and Microsoft could very well be facing that same timeframe. Of course, many retailers have still announced small windows when consoles are in stock and available to purchase online or in-person. Sadly, more often than not, those consoles sell out incredibly quickly, and the windows themselves are still few and far between.
At the end of the day, it's impossible to tell exactly how long the Xbox Series X/S consoles will be difficult to get. Still, players can rest assured that these console shortages will not be alleviated any time soon.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are available now.