albionus said:
So MS finally admits it sold an expensive shoddy product to over 10 million people, that it has been lying through its teeth for the last year and a half, that it screwed over hundreds of thousands of loyal fans by making them pay for repairs for something that isn't their fault (refunded yes but they still had to come up with it) but because they are no longer making you pay for the privilege of going through an hour of call center hell and losing your system for 1-3 weeks it's all ok? I'm with Shams, I'll get a 360 when the reliability problem is fixed not because MS' denial problem has been fixed.
Even worse is the idea that MS is somehow being altruistic or big for finally fessing up to the problem. Does anyone seriously think if they hadn't missed their twice reduced shipping targets that they would be doing this right now? That and also MS gets to move the cost of these repairs from the n ext few years to this year. That keeps alive MS' hopes for the 360 to be profitable next year. They aren't being nice to gamers or correcting a wrong, their system isn't selling and they need to do everything to fix that before PS3 passes them for 2nd place. Whatever good fortune you 360 owners are getting here is due entirely to the fact that MS couldn't push their shoddy product onto more people and requires an accounting gimmick to maybe be profitable for a year.
I'm not so sure that this move will increase sales all that much. I could see it lowering sales even. Market psychology is a strange beast and can operate in counter-intuitive ways. It would seem this would help because most people would think that the system will be repaired for free for 3 years which is good. However, it's possible that what most people will see instead is an admission of an unbelievably high failure rate. This could be what happens since for example the yahoo news story about it, which is the kind of story about this that most people will read, focused more on the latter than the former. Of course, more likely it could have little to no effect.
Last point is that for all the Xbots who can't believe Japanese and Europeans aren't taking to the 360 like the US this is why they aren't. American products have a deserved reputation for inferior quality around the world and the 360 is just helping keep it that way. |
By this logic, no company is ever nice; all companies are out to get our money, and all decisions are made to further this goal. They're all bad. Nintendo is no different, as they want to make profits too.
Instead, I hope we can agree that some companies understand that good will towards their customers is a worthwhile goal, and that it can both increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. Many, many companies do not value this: look at the RIAA, for goodness sakes. Microsoft did not go this route, and I believe they deserve to be commended for it. I am please by any company that understands that pleasing their user base is worthwhile.
