UPDATE: The store is back up. 16gb appear to be sold out, but I just successfully purchased an 8gb model.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I just bought the 16gb model successfully as well. Both orders show as pending in my Google Wallet account.
16gb model said 'In Stock', I added to cart and the message says 'There was a problem with your order' with a big blue button saying 'GO SHOPPING!'
I would expect better E-Commerce management from Google, who claims to have the brightest people working for it.
Bought the 16GB successsfully. Took 2 mins. I believe the 'Sold Out' news in the morning drove more customers curiously to the Google Play website, thus letting them buy it today even if they wanted to wait. No one wants a supply issue like the iPhone 5. As I thought, Google is way smarter than Apple to be prepared for high volume sales on it's platform.
Well played, Google.
A much better tactic would be to have a site that's up, responsive and presents a simple, joyful order process. That would win evangelists. People could point to the Nexus 4 launch and say, "Look everybody! When Google launches a phone, they do it right. It was a painless, awesome experience."
That is the complete opposite of the Nexus 4 launch we experienced today. Google bungled it big time (and I say that both as a consumer as well as an owner of Google stock).
Haha. You have to laugh at how ridiculous this comment is.
I understand possibly wanting marketing hype from selling out quickly, but the cryptic error messages and lack of performance on the server (from arguably the biggest internet company in the world) was disappointing.