Rings of Red

That would actually go a long way towards alleviating the customer frustration, even if it was randomly selected from a bunch of poorly selling games (where they're unlikely to be losing a sale anyway and could compensate the publisher with $5 or so).

Asher, your "working repaired console" story is amusing. What exactly did they think "refurbished" means anyway? MS really needs to step up their refurb quality. Even if only 2% of people wind up having multiple bad refurbs, that's a lot of unhappy customers that could get quite loud.

 

Lots of words....

Why should the customer and the stores be the ones to "pay"?

The level of service detailed here is just not good enough on any accounts.

 

The only thing I don't get with all of this is why people go and buy the same faulty product over and over again. I have a friend who is now on his sixth 360. IMHO that just isn't acceptable, I'm on my second which I can forgive, but if the newest one breaks then thats it. I won't invest in second rate undependable technology.

 

Customers will always pay one way or another. In the EU, the goods are likely to have a higher price to cover the consumer laws we have. If the machine is to be reliable, it'll cost more to make using higher quality components and manufacturing, which will be passed on to the consumer. Or you produce a cheaper product, sell it for less, and have the consumer pay either for extended warranties or replacements. Whatever approach, the consumer will have to fit the bill with either a higher entry cost or post-purchase costs.

 

You can´t be serious

 

ROFL.

If we take away taxes, there is nothing implying that goods are higher priced because of EU consumer laws.

 

I called back today. Told the supervisor I was recording the conversation, which she quickly told me she'd have to "release the call" if I was going to record it.

I told her I'd stopped recording, then discussed it with her. Unlike the last supervisor, this one said they could escalate this further -- so they did. Now it's being escalated to Microsoft, and they're going to contact me within "3 to 5 business days" about how to proceed...

 

The very fact, that taking away taxes EU goods cost more than the US, does imply added cost for EU consumer laws. They're certainly charging the EU more for the same items, and as a business they'll have estimated the cost of warranty replacements for 2 years which they won't have to worry about in NA.

 

No shifty, it doesn't imply that.

It implies that there is a middle link taking more money in europe than in the rest of the world. It implies that it costs more to ship to europe. It implies that people working in stores that sell consoles might have higher wages, or that the companies have higher profits % per item. It implies a million things, but the theory your trying here, unless you are making up these theories without looking at real world facts

This 2 year EU warranty by law, isn't something that has been around for long. If we look at prices before and after, there has been no increase in prices. So manufacturers in general haven't been covering themselves behind this.

Further, there is about a gazillion other electronic items, that are covered in the EU consumer laws. The trend is not that the electronic items in general are higher priced in europe, the trend is that the stuff made outside of europe is priced higher here.

 

interview about hardware failures.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/20...guy_at_microsoft_about_xbox_360_failures.html

well, this interview does not change my view that they do have high failure rate. they keep saying 'majority', well it is the percentage that we are interested!

 

Hahaha love how they're clamming up about firm numbers, saying they don't disclose that stuff - funny, they were happy to try and tell us they were within industry averages previously! He comes off sounding incredibly shifty in that interview, they really need to admit there's a problem and address it head on.

 

I'll make the obvious statement that these insurance policies cost someone money somewhere. If it's in-store, then every time the store fulfills a complaint, it costs the store money. So their policies charge more than what they estimate they'll end up paying out. If a law forces the manufacturer to cover that expense, then that needs to be counted as part of the cost of goods for the manufacturer.

At that point, the manufacturer has two choices: take a loss on that line item or charge more for it. Either way, it isn't free. We can debate whether it directly impacts the consumers pocketbook, but it likely does effect them at some point.

 

My 3rd 360 (all the way back to launch unit) failed victim of the 3 red rings today. I'll have a few words with tech support tomorrow (still under EU warranty, got new units the first two times).

 

Three new units died?

 

My launch unit died on Day 1 and was replaced by another unit from the launch batch, which held its own for 11 months or so (Gears of War and Viva Pinata killed it). It was replaced by a Sept 2006 unit, which I think was new (didn't look used in the slightest, recent manufacturing). This one crashed today.

 

You know when you have a policy that actually outlines the terms for new console replacement to within 3 consoles failing within 3 months (implying this happens!?), things are definitely suspect on the QC front.

After reading the Takahashi interview, and each corresponding user response, Holmdahl's got to work on his response skills. Even knowing that disclosure wasn't an option for him, he could at least have phrased things in a less head-in-the-clouds manner. At least in theory, whether they ever actually address the issue in full or not, the move to 65nm should alleviate the problem going forward. It'd be interesting to know how much it has all ultimately cost them though in shipping, labor, materials, and call center costs.

 

The Elite already has some measures in place (epoxy on the X-clamp) that alleviate the problem somewhat. I suppose the latest manufactured Core and Premium have this epoxy too.

And that's not taking into account the (hard to estimate) cost in bad publicity and general goodwill. You can bet that short of more candid answers by MS and full resolution of the problem going onward, I'm not gonna be a launch customer for the XBox720 (or whatever it's called).

 

This is saddening to me, really. I want to buy an X-Box 360, but this is simply unacceptable.

Has anyone tried to bring this issue to the eyes of consumers? A sort of back lash, I mean?

Because I get the feeling they won't fix it until they're forced to.

 

So you think MS likes paying hundreds of millions of USD for warranty replacements? Of course they are fixing it to their best ability

 

The console isn't exactly new. The fact that this keeps happening tells me they are not fixing this to the best of their ability. It's pretty amazing, actually.