Written by. Ryuki Ishii based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2021-12-17 18:23 JST)

Microsoft’s Tahir Hasandjekic, the eSports Lead for the Halo franchise, announced that this weekend’s tournament will be held using Xbox Series X development consoles.

It’s been a year since the launch of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, but they are still hard to come by, mainly due to the global shortage of semiconductors. And the lack of an ample supply of game consoles seems to be affecting the competitive scene as well.

Microsoft’s Halo Championship Series is scheduled to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina from December 17 PST. The event will be the first major tournament to use their latest title, Halo Infinite, and will gather the best Halo teams in the world.

Using the company’s flagship console for the event would have been a great opportunity to promote the console itself, but according to Hasandjekic, who is in charge of the event, open bracket players will be using the Xbox Series X development consoles instead. “Why? Global supply chain shortage is real.”

Heads up open bracket players – you'll be playing this weekend on Series X development consoles. They're functionally identical and will be operating in "Retail" mode so it's the exact same experience, they just look a little different.

Why? Global supply chain shortage is real.
— Tashi (@Tashi343i) December 15, 2021

It’s somewhat surprising that even Microsoft themselves doesn’t have enough units available for events like these.

Incidentally, the Xbox Series X development kit is more akin to the Xbox Series S in the sense that it is mounted horizontally. It is a bit larger in size and has a display on the front that shows various information, as well as buttons, making it different from the final product. This is something that gamers don’t get a chance to see very often, so it may turn out to be a rare experience for the participants.

An Xbox Series X dev kit spotted at EGX London this October. Image Credit: darth_antonio

As for the console shortage that caused this situation, Xbox head Phil Spencer said in September of this year that it’ll continue through 2022 (The Wrap). Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, also said in September that the semiconductor shortage would not ease up until the second half of 2022 (CNBC). AMD is the company that supplies CPUs/GPUs for the Xbox Series X|S (and PS5). It’ll still take some time before these next-gen consoles will be readily available to everyone.