Pre-order culture has come to the point that people are willing to put money down on games and hardware based on nothing but empty hype and vague promises. So it should come as no surprise that there are many who are eager to already pre-order the Xbox Scorpio, even though as of right now, this system does not tangibly exist, and barely exists intangibly.
But Xbox head Phil Spencer has a surprisingly pro-customer, sympathetic stance on that- he is asking fans to not pre-order the Scorpio until Microsoft has had the chance to show the system off, with games running on it. In other words, Spencer feels that customers should not spend money on something until they know what that something is.
This is a very pro-customer attitude to have, but more than that, it also probably reflects Spencer’s confidence in the product- he is so confident that customers will like the product once he shows it to them, that they will pre-order it then anyway. He doesn’t have to take their money for it now- he would rather take it later.
It’s a smart stance to take, and I hope Scorpio ends up living up to Spencer’s expectations, as well as our own.