It's an interesting (and long) read, but your statement just about sums it up. Based on the millions wide margin lead Microsoft has (against Sony anyway) I guess the strategy paid off for them.
True, but a 30% estimated failure rate for launch units is truly absurd in the current market. I used to be a quality assurance tech and that is real shoddy practice.
Depends. It's one thing to have 8 million units out there, but when you have to replace 2 million of them... it's an easy way to end up in the hole(especially when you consider consoles are usually sold near or below cost at first). And a 30% failure rate is total crap for an item within it's expected lifespan. You have to accept that when producing a product, there will be failures, and even 10% is a bit high to be acceptable, 30% is just ******ed. Especially when you consider how much cash needs to basically be flushed down the toilet to replace those systems that fall within that 30%.
It was a bid to destroy PS3 and BR which would all but certainly destroy the PS brand and make online downloads the primary place for hd movie content. I can certainly understand it from that perspective if it succeeded it would have been a great winfall for microsoft.
I'm really glad that aspect hasn't been working out for them. I like owning Hard Copies of my movies and games.
I don't know. Even with that many replacements--and I think that number is probably high, since even with a 30% rate the warranty only a year--if you can establish market dominance now, I think game sales will probably pay off. Plus, you'll have momentum rolling into the next generation. I'm definitely with you on this, though. The whole article is a little "Well, yeah" anyways. Who didn't think that MS rushed the 360? And who wouldn't think that QC would suffer as a result.
I've had my 360 since December/ January of launch. Haven't had anything wrong with it...*knocks on wood*
I had my old PS2 until recently. Doesn't mean that many of the launch ones weren't rather craptastic.
Yea, there were a lot of launch ps2's that had problems, but it wasn't anywhere near a 30% failure rate.
Guess the flawed strategy worked, Xbox has never been so popular. I lucked out, and never got the red ring, but I did burn by xbox disc drive out So much for porn discs
It happens. If it was picked up in QA, then that's one thing, but a company I used to work for did extensive testing on a mobile phone once, not one single problem with the months of rigourous testing. So, they release the phone, sell thousands of them, and then find that like 80% of them failed in the year or two after they hit the network. None of these failures occurred when testing, it was so weird.
I think it also matters to a degree where a company gets there parts, and the part-per-quantity failure they require from the supplier. I had a friend who last I knew worked for TSW, a brake manufacturing company in Michigan who supplies brakes for MANY different car companies. He said one of the reasons why many domestic companies have higher failure rates is they have a higher allowable parts-per-million failure rate. They might have 100,000 or more, while other companies have a lower value. The same, apparently, can be said for Microsoft. Sure, they'd made money from this deal because of the games and XBox Live content but they also lost a lot of console owners, potential sales, and earned a lot of bad press. They've always had a cyclical history of going from good products, to bad products, and somewhere in-between. Kind of like GM, they've never been "consistent" with the quality in their product delivery. Now, because of the RROD and Microsoft's nickel-and-dime XBox Live I'm not going to be getting a 360. When I can afford it, I plan on getting a PS3.
