SKUpidity: When did SKU become gamer parlance?

Insert Credit makes an excellent point today about gamers' widespread adoption of the inventory management term "SKU," seemingly overnight. Why are gamers suddenly talking like PR droids? Probably because it makes us sound more like the robots we've always wanted to be, free from such pesky human concerns as emotions, girls, and bathing. Or, as usual, this may all be Microsoft's fault; adding a third SKU console bundle to their lineup seems to have reinvigorated our use of the term. Hey, let's all go one better and refer to games by their UPC bar codes instead of their titles! Anybody played 096427014874 yet?