A hot potato: Are you hoping to get hold of an Xbox Series X or S this year? Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, but even Microsoft thinks that's an unlikely scenario. A company exec says shortages of the consoles are expected to last until at least April 2021.

"I think we'll continue to see supply shortages as we head into the post-holiday quarter, so Microsoft's Q3, calendar Q1," said Xbox chief financial officer Tim Stuart, Speaking at the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment Virtual Conference (transcribed by Seeking Alpha).

"And then when we get to Q4, all of our supply chain continuing to go full speed heading into kind of the pre-summer months. And that's where I start to --- I expect to see a little bit of the demand --- the supply profile, meeting the demand profile." Microsoft's fiscal Q4 runs from April through June.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has warned that its consoles' supply issues aren't ending soon. Last month, Phil Spencer said demand is expected to outpace supply for months. The head of Xbox acknowledged people's frustrations and admitted that the current pre-ordering system needed an overhaul to stop bots from grabbing high-demand products the second they appear. He also apologized for the situation during a GlitchCon stream over the weekend.

We've rarely seen so many gaming and gaming-related products launch in such a short period: The Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, RTX 3000 series, Radeon RX 6000 cards, and Ryzen 5000 CPUs. But all were out of stock instantly and remain that way---expect a similar situation with the first Radeon cards, which arrive tomorrow. Much of the blame can be placed on scalpers using bots, with the items appearing on eBay for ridiculous prices.

Nvidia boss Jensen Huang recently admitted his company's RTX 3000 cards will also be in short supply until next year, and getting hold of a PS5 is proving just as difficult unless you buy one from a scalper, which is never a good idea as it only encourages the practice.

In other Xbox Series X news, Microsoft recently found itself in the strange position of having to warn buyers not to blow vape smoke into the consoles.