| mrstickball said: Interesting. The numbers were 1500~2500, not right at 2500....Way to spin it (although Im not doubting the numbers). I hope MS realizes the bad press they are getting from these random stories about massive returns. MS has the cash, and sence to realize that this is hurting their bottomline. Hopefully they fix this for good in the next few weeks, or else they'll never make money due to too high return rates. |
They're not random -- they're an epidemic.
I suspect Microsoft isn't addressing this problem properly for a few reasons. First, any way to really address this problem would require admitting there is a problem in the first place. They'd have to come out and say, "hey, these units sucked, here are more refunds for your repairs. We promise the new ones don't suck." However, you'd have to count on them being honest this time, when they already did that and obviously weren't.
Secondly, it would cost a lot of money. Microsoft is struggling to generate a profit outside of their windows/office divisions. They haven't had more than a successful quarter or two here or there yet anywhere outside of office/windows. They told investors that the Xbox brand was going to be successful in the second generation and it's far, far from it.
Third, they need to have a solid fix in place and start shipping the fixed units first. Since it takes a while to diagnose failures, it's hard to do this. Further, they're currently pumping out tons of these units monthly so they can sell them -- this means they need to find a fix they can put into their production lines and they also have the problem of shelf inventory right now.
It's a very, very difficult problem to address. Simply put, it would have been a ton easier to fix this before they launched, and it's something that should have been addressed before launch. Given the insurmountablility of the problem now, Microsoft elected to pretend the problem isn't there for PR reasons and is probably scrambling behind the scenes to find a fix or possibly a new manufacturing partner.
