We surveyed 125 retailers late last week, and 21 percent had at least one Xbox 360 Core ($299 version) console in stock. Most also reported receiving shipments last week and are now seeing a relatively steady flow after stock-outs abounded for most of December and January.

We believe that many reasonable investors will look at yesterday's news and wonder if all the bad news is out.

The network allows them to do worldwide testing without running into hacker attacks.

We heard commentary from several retailers that is consistent with what we have heard from industry contacts over the past six weeks: Inventory is expected to flow better in late February, and by late March inventory levels should be consistently filled.