Organization: Alexa Crawls

Reuters reports that Microsoft confirmed on Monday that Xbox consoles were in short supply at several major retail outlets due to unexpectedly high demand for the video game systems.

Microsoft said that "consumer demand is exceeding supply right now... we are working with partners to rectify the situation."

The software giant said it's ramping up production and doing all it can to get more consoles in stores quickly.

"We're working really hard to satiate consumers' needs," a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

In January, after the console exceeded sale expectations during the last three months of 2004, Microsoft raised the Xbox sales forecast to a global installed base of 21 million to 22 million consoles by June.