The holidays aren’t looking too happy for Microsoft. The company once expected to sell two to four million Surface RT tablets over the holiday season, but early numbers are suggesting that they’ve only been able to move between 500,000 and 600,000 units. That’s quite a ways off from their initial projections.

There are multiple factors to blame, one of which is poor distribution. The Surface RT is currently only available online and at Microsoft retail stores, of which there are only sixty scattered across the US (half of which are holiday kiosks), making it extremely difficult for most consumers to get a hands-on with the tablet before they purchase it.

On top of that, the Surface RT has been far from a homerun with the critics, receiving mixed reviews with many praising the hardware but criticizing the software. There are also reports of some Touch Covers splitting at the seams and exposing the wire. This is not the launch that Microsoft was hoping for.

via Slash Gear