Paul will find heart in this one... Options

[james]

Paul was telling us the other night that he's now on his 3rd 360 due to them failing - this article reports anecdotal evidence that the failure rate is 30% ish. Wow.

[james]

Following up on this - Microsoft Extends Xbox 360 Warranties to Three Years to Cover Defective Hardware which is good news but starts to make you really wonder how many are defective!

There's also a genius bit of interpretation-of-fact-spun-hard in the last paragraph:

"You worry about (the backlash from the red light issue). I worry about that, but when we look at our consumers we are almost 90 percent customer satisfaction on the console. As hard as it is to read those letters that say they've had one, two, three break, they also always say 'Can you get my Xbox 360 back to me as soon as possible.'"

Now that's spin! The fact that people actually want their broken machines replaced equates to them being happy with the situation. Tsk.

[Egg Designer]

Anyone want to buy a s/h 360 then, no warranty!

[paul]

Do a search on Ebay for faulty 360's. There are loads of them!!!

[michael]

At least they've put their hands up and are dipping into their own expansive pockets to do something about it. Cast your mind back to when they dropped the price of the V.1 Xbox by £100 and re-imbursed early adopters with an extra controller and two free games. These actions are unheard of from the other major players in the industry. It wasn't that long ago that we were advising customers to not stand their PS2 vertically for fear of scoring discs, something Sony never admitted actually happened. A faulty Microsoft console, prior to this issue, is exchanged in the store, a Sony unit (even the PSP) has to be booked in and sent away for repair. The sales reps from the Xbox UK team visit our store at least once a month to check up on stock levels, give info on upcoming releases and generally see how we're getting on. There are no PS3-specific grond troops and if they are, they must be hiding in a bunker somewhere. I wanted to know about the compatibilty and availabilty of the Blu-Ray remote for a punter last week and there is no support whatsoever. There are rumours of a PS3 price-drop, but they are just that, and I can be pretty sure that if it does go through there won't be a promotion for existing owners. Speaking of exisitng owners, what's the point of bundling a Blu-Ray movie (Casino Royale, by redemption) if the machine is not supplied with a HDMI cable?
Even if the failure rate is 30%, if it's in the first year warranty you walk in and walk out with a new one. If it's under a product support policy, the unit is written off and you recieve vouchers to come in and get a new one. If your PS3 fails in the warranty, you have to send it to Sony, we can't take it on your behalf and they won't even speak to us (trust me, I've tried).
They ain't perfect, and three dud consoles is a year is harsh, but at least MS are working hard to get us all back gaming in hours, rather than weeks.

There, I'm done. Flame away...

[james]

I agree 100% and wasn't knocking MS (on this occasion) for their level of support and response to the problem. I just wonder why they even bother - they have never made any money from this area of business and at this rate never will - so what's in it for them?

I saw an article somewhere which said that Sony were dropping the price on the higher spec PS3 and stopping manufacturing of the lower spec one altogether.

[camsmith]

They might not make money on the consoles, but I was under the impression this was more than made up for by the money made from extreme licence costs on the games.

(haven't done any research to back this up though)

[james]

Ahhh - yes I guess that would make sense.

Unrelated to this but related generally - Xbox Peter Moore leaves Microsoft for EA