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[Bodhesatva]

albionus said:

Bodhesatva said:

albionus said:

Entroper said:

Peter Moore said:

We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console.

For everyone saying "they need to fix the problem," read the above.

For everyone bashing MS because of this move, yes, they should have made it reliable from the beginning. But isn't this exactly what a company should do when they've got a reliability problem in one of their products? Take responsibility for the problem, make it right for existing customers, and fix it for future customers.

Sure it's what they should do, around a year ago. Instead they lied and tried to sweep it under the rug. Now they can't do that anymore so they finally fess up. That's not how a company should operate, although many do anyways. I will say that at least this isn't like an auto company hiding a major quality issue or the body armor company that sold poor quality body armor to the military where those flaws are life threatening.

Of course they could still hide it. Why couldn't they hide it? Here's the crux of your argument, and I think it's incorrect.

I'm asking this question seriously, Alb: why couldn't Microsoft continue to hide it?

Saying the failure rate was 3 % then 3-5% when they know it's much higher is lying. Repeatedly saying that the failure rate was normal when it clearly isn't is lying. I could go on but it's basically in the same vein as that so no reason to. While it's good they finally did the right thing there is a diminishing return to it's impact (or should be).

I'll use a couple comparisons to illustrate what I mean. It's good when a criminal fesses up to a crime to the police. However, how that is received depends on whether the criminal came forward on his own, and whether he tried to lie to cops for a time. A criminal who has to be caught, and then lies is going to find a much harsher deal than one who turns himself in and tells the truth from the get go.

I think you make a good point about the lying. Disingenuous, at best.

However, I still disagree that they had to come out and confess, and I think this is the focal point of disagreement. There was certainly a lot of pressure to do something about this, but there has been pressure for some time, and that pressure has simply been increasing. It's a matter of degree, and nothing has really changed. Six months ago, there was some pressure,  three months ago, more, and today, even more than that. 

But again, that's simply a difference of degree, not a fundamental shift. Microsoft managed to keep lying even in the face of a lot of pressure -- there isn't any obvious reason why they couldn't keep lying under a whole lot of pressure.