3 year warranty for all X360s.

[<nu>faust]

LOL at the MS apologists who think that all people concerned with these reliability issues are "Sony posters". .

and i'm sure all the people who are so concerned with 360's reliability issues are either current / potential microsoft customers or pro-consumer rights people. because we all know that on the interwebs everything we hear is true, microsoft products don't get flak just because they are manufactured by "evil, monopoly, american giant corporation", fans of certain brands/corporations do not exaggerate, lie, or try to influence others purchasing decision by spreading half truths and/or fud..it's all microsoft and its apologists,sure

They need to fix their reliability issues at the source before this is truly resolved imo..:.

ms said they have identified these high failure rate causing problems and put the necassarily fixes in places (some sites are reporting that some small scale hardware revisons to fix some of the biggest design problems such as gpu overheating/xclamp already been implemented),

also it's been reported that 65nm chip production has already started and we can start seeing these new smaller heat radiating/more efficient chips in 360s as early as next year(when 360 hits mainstream price + gets all the key software)

Great, MS has extended their warranty to cover the failures. Unfortunately, that's like putting a tiny bandaid on a huge gaping wound...:.

majority of 360 work fine (contrary to the internet "fact" that all 360s will die sometime), the problem was that the failure rate is/was waaay waaaay above of the accepted industry standarts and ms chose to put a bandaid around it (with just extanding 3month warranty to one year) instead of really dealing with the issue.

Now they realize there is some serious design problem with their manufacturing process (and consumers/media/agencies won't let them get away with this failure rate issue), they accepted responsibility for the mess they caused, they said they are currently fixing the problems with minor revisons and constantly impoving their engineering(which they have to do not bleed more money), they gave 3 year retroactive warranty for all (thus covering all of current 360 owners and giving their potential customers a mind of ease), their major 65nm revison is just around the corner (reports say chips already started being fabbed atm)....i mean if these are all "putting a bandaid around on a huge gaping wound" as you say, i want to know what is actively trying everything they can to fix this problem?

 

[Natoma]

and i'm sure all the people who are so concerned with 360's reliability issues are either current / potential microsoft customers or pro-consumer rights people. because we all know that on the interwebs everything we hear is true, microsoft products don't get flak just because they are manufactured by "evil, monopoly, american giant corporation", fans of certain brands/corporations do not exaggerate, lie, or try to influence others purchasing decision by spreading half truths and/or fud..it's all microsoft and its apologists,sure

Before commenting maybe you should have quoted the full text of my post.

LOL at the MS apologists who think that all people concerned with these reliability issues are "Sony posters".

Perhaps it is people who will down on MS no matter what they do. But perhaps it's also people who are conscientious consumers and are alarmed at a 25% failure rate after only 1-1.5 years.

In other words, there may very well be people who will crap on MS because they don't want MS to succeed. However, there are many consumers, such as myself, who are interested in a 360 and are HIGHLY alarmed by a 25% failure rate after only 1-1.5 years of the system being on the market.

That is simply obscene.

Also, the "LOL" sentence I wrote was in response to Tap In's comment which was:

LOL at the Sony posters who want to continue to beat this dead horse.

In other words, people voicing concern with the 360's failure rate are not all "Sony posters" and we shouldn't be painted with that broad "fanb0y" brush simply because it fits a certain favorable view.

Understand?

ms said they have identified these high failure rate causing problems and put the necassarily fixes in places (some sites are reporting that some small scale hardware revisons to fix some of the biggest design problems such as gpu overheating/xclamp already been implemented),

also it's been reported that 65nm chip production has already started and we can start seeing these new smaller heat radiating/more efficient chips in 360s as early as next year(when 360 hits mainstream price + gets all the key software)

Well if you wouldn't have clipped the next portion that I wrote, I indeed stated that I hope the 65nm revision does the trick. I know that they've got some things in the pipeline, but until we see them out in the wild, there's nothing to be said about it.

As I said in an earlier post in this thread, I won't touch the 360 with a ten foot pole until these reliability/quality problems go away. I certainly hope these things do the trick however because I would like to buy one this year.

majority of 360 work fine (contrary to the internet "fact" that all 360s will die sometime), the problem was that the failure rate is/was waaay waaaay above of the accepted industry standarts and ms chose to put a bandaid around it (with just extanding 3month warranty to one year) instead of really dealing with the issue.

Now they realize there is some serious design problem with their manufacturing process (and consumers/media/agencies won't let them get away with this failure rate issue), they accepted responsibility for the mess they caused, they said they are currently fixing the problems with minor revisons and constantly impoving their engineering(which they have to do not bleed more money), they gave 3 year retroactive warranty for all (thus covering all of current 360 owners and giving their potential customers a mind of ease), their major 65nm revison is just around the corner (reports say chips already started being fabbed atm)....i mean if these are all "putting a bandaid around on a huge gaping wound" as you say, i want to know what is actively trying everything they can to fix this problem?

I said the extended warranty is the bandaid. The 65nm revision is, hopefully, the fix. But if its not, they could extend the warranty to 10 years and I wouldn't buy one.

I steer clear of electronics that fail like this like the plague. Now for background sake, I haven't followed the 360 failure drama until this thread, so as far as I've known, it's been fine. Now I read about all this stuff at one time and I'm like "what the hell??"

My concern with the 360 up until this point was price, but I've stated in many threads that when the price dropped to $299 or less for the premium variant, I'd buy one, particularly since I'm buying a big screen HDTV this fall/winter. But these quality issues are a big turn off.

If MS doesn't get it right with the 65nm version, they've lost a potential customer until next generation at the very least. I take quality issues that seriously.

 

[one]

Dean T agrees with me
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/07/microsofts_next_move_code-name_falcon.html

Microsoft is in the process of qualifying the new Falcon chips and motherboard this summer. I expect it will launch Xbox 360s with the new Falcon innards this fall. That is why the company has been able to say that it has solved its manufacturing quality problems. Microsoft is likely to spend a little more money on heat sinks to make sure that the overheating problem doesn’t resurface with Falcon.

 

[expletive]

Dean T agrees with me
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/07/microsofts_next_move_code-name_falcon.html

That doesnt jive with the conference call where they discuss retrofitting existing inventory with the proposed modifications.

John Taylor (Arcadia): I wonder if you could expand a little bit on the 50/50 split and how you're allocating this – I'm particularly interested in your comment about inventory evaluation adjustment. Does that mean you basically have to take what's in the barn and rework it; and so that's an additional cost or ...? Could you go into that a little bit more?

Chris Liddell: Yeah, sure. The 50/50 is 50% associated with the existing warranty program, so it's any repairs associated with the warranty that we already have, and 50% is on the extension to three years. So that's the overall 50/50. With respect to the first 50%, there are inventory adjustments associated with that. And that will be essentially two-fold. That will be the repair costs associated with any inventory that we have now to get to the standard that we require; and also to the extent that we need to write off some units that we feel that we can't sell for a price less than the cost of repairing – then we made a provision for that as well. So both of those elements are in the inventory costs.

Based on the quoted response above, I dont see any need for them to retrofit any 90nm systems unless they felt they do have a true 'fix'. I'd have to say youre both wrong, sorry.

 

[<nu>faust]

Also, the "LOL" sentence I wrote was in response to TapIn...all "Sony posters" and we shouldn't be painted with that broad "fanb0y" brush simply because it fits a certain favorable view.Understand?

i think you haven't been watching 360 related threads close enough lately to see where people like me and TapIn are coming from:

like Tap In mentioned before this "3rod" horse has been beaten millions times before in this and many other forums. ms did launch a product with unaccepteable failure rate, then instead of dealing with the problem as soon as it surfaces ms chose to deny it and effectively screw a minority of its early adopter/hardcore gamer crowd up(and appearently over and over with shoddy refurbs). complaints have been sent (i mysef was one of the first people on forums who said microsoft should adress this or they going to be be in bigger trouble later) , after some loong loong time ms realized they can't go forward without dealing with this issue and decided to do everyhting to redeem themselves.

so instead of celebrating the soft power of the consumer/media/agency pressure and recognizing ms for doing the right thing right now, people (mostly poeple who are not planning to buy a 360 and/or dedicated fans of a certain other platforms/corps) go on and on about how unreliable 360 still is, how much of a risk buying a 360 might be, how ms should have have acted..etc and spread fear,uncertainty, and doubt about a product that majority of its user are happy with.

so actually natoma, tap knew that there were people who are genuinely concerned with this failure issue, he was just saying lately most of the posters in these threads are not part of the screwed-up early adopter crowd and/or worried potential customers like you but people who are exactly doing what Tap In was saying "beating on a dead horse."

I said the extended warranty is the bandaid. The 65nm revision is, hopefully, the fix. But if its not, they could extend the warranty to 10 years and I wouldn't buy one.

well extending warranty ito 3years is only one of the things they are doing right now, they are also:
- trying to improve all of their current engineering processes(which they have to do not bleed more money),
-doing minor hardware revisions(xclamp/gpu) to fix some of the main identified problems
-planning major revisons that would/could be effective in next couple of months

 

[Tap In]

///
Also, the "LOL" sentence I wrote was in response to Tap In's comment which was:



In other words, people voicing concern with the 360's failure rate are not all "Sony posters" and we shouldn't be painted with that broad "fanb0y" brush simply because it fits a certain favorable view.
...

those whom I was addressing (should have probably been anti-MS posters)... know who they are. (just as I know that I am a pro-MS poster but not an anti-Sony poster if you check my history)

they constantly beat this red rings drum without ever having any intention of owning a 360 and it becomes FUD... if you truly took exception then it was not directed at you.

 

[Sis]

No way. The reliability issue for 360's has been widespread anecdotally ever since launch, there's no way you can convince me that a 3 year manufacturer warrantee will not ease the minds of many prospective buyers.

As an example: I would rather spend more money on a Toyota or Honda vehicle that has a reputation for being high quality with low defects--but doesn't come with good manufacturer warranty, than say a Hyandai that comes with a 10 year warranty but without the quality reputation. I think most consumers feel this way. If there is a perceived quality problem, a warranty only goes so far in making a consumer feel better about the purchase.

 

[scooby_dooby]

As an example: I would rather spend more money on a Toyota or Honda vehicle that has a reputation for being high quality with low defects--but doesn't come with good manufacturer warranty, than say a Hyandai that comes with a 10 year warranty but without the quality reputation. I think most consumers feel this way. If there is a perceived quality problem, a warranty only goes so far in making a consumer feel better about the purchase.

I see the logic, but I think it's important to remember these are consoles not cars.

We're talking a $400 purchase here, not $30,000. And people have only 2, maybe 3 options, not 6 or 8 like they do with cars, so it's much different.

Consumers looking for traditional gametypes, have the choice between 360 and PS3. 360 is the obvious choice now, since it's cheaper and has a great library, but I think reliability is probably the #1 deterrent in attracting new customers.

MS has essentially made that a non-issue, or at very least, they are telling consumers they will be taken care of if anything goes wrong. Which is a farcry from the situation before this announcement.

 

[expletive]

As an example: I would rather spend more money on a Toyota or Honda vehicle that has a reputation for being high quality with low defects--but doesn't come with good manufacturer warranty, than say a Hyandai that comes with a 10 year warranty but without the quality reputation. I think most consumers feel this way. If there is a perceived quality problem, a warranty only goes so far in making a consumer feel better about the purchase.

I have to agree with Scooby in that its a bit different with consoles because i think a majority of the console's value is determined by the software library rather than whats under the proverbial hood. If a person chooses console A over console B its mostly because they feel theres a gaming experience(s) that they wont get on the other or becuase it was priced better. Even if a customer knows that the thing will break once and theyll be without for a week, its probably not too big a price to pay for the unique experience they feel the platform provides. Also, when a console is in for repair, you can do something else. When your car breaks your life and possibly your income is impacted so reliability weighs much higher for autos (as it should), than toys.

 

[bomlat]

this issue is if your strateg is to expand the capability of the product,and you want to sell throught in it many other thing the reliability will be more and more important.
From the entertraiment standpoint the xb want the position of the TV.

When last time the steam went down for a half day I was fustrated.Not because I was unable to play with the hl,but because I use the steam as a platform,and from this point the whole game library become unavailable if the system went doen.Oh,and I had a kid without psyhonauts or any other program for a half day.
This is the diference betwen a multifinctional thing and a single purpose thing.

 

[AlphaWolf]

As an example: I would rather spend more money on a Toyota or Honda vehicle that has a reputation for being high quality with low defects--but doesn't come with good manufacturer warranty, than say a Hyandai that comes with a 10 year warranty but without the quality reputation. I think most consumers feel this way. If there is a perceived quality problem, a warranty only goes so far in making a consumer feel better about the purchase.

As has been said above consoles are nothing like automobiles. I don't think you can really compare entertainment dollars to essential dollars when it comes to the mindset of the consumer. The factors that go into the purchases are going to be completely different for most people. For things I can take back to the store and replace easily I'll take warranty over name brand any day of the week.

Also, using Hyundai probably not a good example as the current quality of their products is right up there with Toyota and Honda (according to those owner surveys anyway).

 

[quest55720]

I guess there are not as many early adopters here as i thought. A poorly manufactured console is hardly a new thing. I am just glad that some one finally admitted it and is doing something about it. Nintendo did squat for me when my NES would not play games because of a poorly designed cartrige slot. Sony did squat for me when I had 2 early PS1s die because a poorly designed laser assembly. I won't get into the disk read errors on my PS2. It is just the price of doing business as an early adopter. Sure the 360 is poorly manufactured but atleast it won't cost me a dime to get it fixed un like the past. It would be great if every console was built as well as the gamecube that little thing is a tank.

 

[Natoma]

<nu>faust and Tap In,

Fair enough.

 

[MrFloopy]

If you're going to make a loss in the first year anyway, if by increasing that loss you offset a loss next year, you get a win on paper.

Mmmm, I think your confusing a company loss vs a department loss. With Microsoft as a single corporate entity, independent departments are not getting taxed seperately. Can't remember the last time microsoft lost money in a financial year.

However if at some point you are going to have an expense, you may as well use as much as that as possible in a financial year where you are going to record record profit (ie record tax).

If your looking to be profitable by $50 million in FY08, would you really want a possible $200 million extra expense on warranties that'll drag you back into the red? Better set that money aside in a loss year and not worry about it in future. Even though the expenses remain the same, the PR and corporate image is much healthier.

Yep and that scenario coincides with mine. If you were my accountant and you didn't do that you'd be looking for a new job. Can't see where the dodgy part comes in?

And just for the record, my personal feeling is that microsoft will be happy taking losses on this division for as long as the home console space converges with home computing. I would think that microsoft is just a little chuffed with the growing success of handhelds.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

If you're going to make a loss in the first year anyway, if by increasing that loss you offset a loss next year, you get a win on paper.

That is, you either have FY07 = Loss, FY08 = Loss; or you have FY07 = Loss, FY08 = Profit. If you can arrange expenditure like that, especially when you've set a target for profitability in FY08, it's a move you'd likely make to appease investors and industries watchers.

1. Microsofts X360 division(s) is not a company. Unless you suspect Microsoft as a whole to loose money in 2007 this theory is rubbish.

2. It would be smarter\better to record your loss at a very profitable year, in order to save money on tax. Same reason why most companies that are in excellent financial shape have a lot of debt. (Microsoft however, has no long term debt, which is fairly interesting from a financial M&M theorem standpoint. In fact, if all you wanted was to increase short term stock value (to please shareholders), either water out your stock, or increase debt ).

3. I'm not really sure if you would appease anybody that calls themselves an investor without laughing by doing this.

 

[bomlat]

the ms is not a standard company.A standard company get rid the xb division five years ago.
But anyway,right now the xb divison have to bring money not to the investors,but to the board.Otherwise the division leader have to found a new job.

 

[AntShaw]

Oh this is good...

the ms is not a standard company.A standard company get rid the xb division five years ago.
But anyway,right now the xb divison have to bring money not to the investors,but to the board.Otherwise the division leader have to found a new job.

Hahah...It's that time mods.

 

[quest55720]

Oh this is good...



Hahah...It's that time mods.

Why his opinion is pretty valid 5 billion in losses and pretty much any other company would of left the market. His second point I disagree with I think the board is looking for gains against sony to keep them from dominating the living room for the next 8-10 years. Nintendo might beat them both but they are just a console not a threat to windows. If the 360 can keep losses reasonable but make gains against sony I think it will be all good for the xbox management team.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

1. Microsofts X360 division(s) is not a company. Unless you suspect Microsoft as a whole to loose money in 2007 this theory is rubbish.

Robbie Bach goes on record to say they're gaming division will be profitable in '08. If no-one gives a hoot what the divisions are doing, why do they keep announcing such things?

Your investment in a company is also an investment in all it's divisions. You'll want to know how all it's divisions are doing. In MS's case, you look at Windows, Office, the entertainment division, and think for yourself whether they're going to do well taken together. That means considering the performance of each of them. If as an investor you don't give any regard at all to how each division is doing and how they're expected to grow, how on earth can you know if the company looks like a good investment?

2. It would be smarter\better to record your loss at a very profitable year.

When has the gaming division been profitable?

 

[MrFloopy]

Your investment in a company is also an investment in all it's divisions. You'll want to know how all it's divisions are doing. In MS's case, you look at Windows, Office, the entertainment division, and think for yourself whether they're going to do well taken together. That means considering the performance of each of them. If as an investor you don't give any regard at all to how each division is doing and how they're expected to grow, how on earth can you know if the company looks like a good investment?

Again, as so many have stated, it may be deemed that it is a worthwhile cost for microsoft to bear to protect it's interests in a much larger market segment, ie OS and applications. As an investor it would be of great interest whether a company is protecting it's core business to ensure future profitability. You cannot buy shares in the entertainment and gaming division.

As you state, you want to take into consideration the whether all the departments together work well. If a relatively small loss in one division helps ensure an enormous profit in another wouldn't it be considered a net win?

I can't see a difference between this and the use of blueray by sony. Both I think were very sound policies and it's paying off for both of them.

Why do they state they wish to make a profit? Never a bad thing to happen and I'm sure they would rather the division made a profit than not but the issue we are discussing was the timing of the reporting of the expenditure, not the expenditure itself.

When has the gaming division been profitable?

I don't think we are explaining this well. You don't pay tax on an individual departments revenue. It is microsoft as a whole that pays tax on it's entire net income. It is the losses in the gaming division brought forward that can offset some of the record revenue generated by other divisions within the company allowing for a lower tax burden. There is a chance (however unlikely) that an unforseen event may occur next year leading to an overall company loss, in which case the $1b expenditure would have been wasted as a tax deduction.