Jason Bergman at ShackNews posted a short item today after talking to a local retailer:

I spoke with an independent retailer this afternoon who told me that even though it launches on Thursday, they still don't know how many Xbox units they'll be receiving. As he is sure they won't get many, he said that their plan for the holiday season is to focus on the Playstation 2. This isn't too surprising of course - Sony screwed over small retailers with the PS2 release last year, but it's never good to hear that independent stores have such a hard time with system launches.

While a launch itself doesn't make or break a console-- it certainly didn't in the case of the PS2, it isn't great news for the Xbox to have retailers depending on the Sony hardware this season. After all, last year the PS2, while it had supply problems, had no real competition. There was no new Nintendo hardware, the Xbox was still a year off, and the Dreamcast was already foundering by then.