S.T.A.G.E. is too much of a Sony fanboy in his eyes everyone is afraid of Sony.  He probably also thinks that Nintendo lauched the 3DS early because they where afraid of the Vita even though Nintendo owns the handheld market since the launch of the original gameboy back in 1989.  Even though as dominat as the PS1, and PS2 (more so) where they where never on the same level of dominance as the NES.  Nintendo pretty much controlled all the 3rd party developers during that era they dictated what types of games they could make and how many units they could manufacture.  Also MS was pretty fast in owning up to and resolving all the hardware issuses with the 360.  Sony never publicly acknowledged any of their hardware issuse with both the PS1 and PS2 and did nothing for consumers that where affected. 

Not getting involved discussing a member who is banned, it's not really good etiquette but as for the bolded:

The simple fact is Sony aimed for the same release date Micrsoft did and missed it by a country mile (for a number of reasons) while Micrsoft having spent a lot of money and effort to hit that date decided they would go ahead and gamble on the hardware knowing they could fix any possible issue in future hardware spins.  It was the right corporate decision but in hindsight poor customer service.

Let me correct both of you, while you're both arguing. 

Microsoft knew there was an issue in QA, but they believed it to be a yield issue, not an engineering issue.  The belief was that the issue being encountered was the result of one or more components being defective from manufacturing, which in time would be resolved as the manufacturing process improved.  The problem was a far more extensive problem of engineering.  The circuit board material was thinner then it probably should have been, the solder wasn't as high-temp as it could have been, and the heat sink wasn't as tightly attached as it could have been.

Microsoft believed that the problem would happen within a respectable failure rate, which they would then use the planned improvement outline to resolve the issue.  The problem was that it was a bigger issue in the real world than they anticipated.  You can't necessarily blame them when you consider the fact that there are still Day 1 Xbox 360's that work without a hiccup today, but there are some people who seem to have constant problems with older ones having the RRoD.

The RRoD issue wasn't as widespread as people like to believe.  Yes, every Xenos Xbox 360 will experience the RRoD in it's lifetime, if it survives that long.  Some Falcon Xbox 360's will experience the RRoD.   Fewer Jasper Xbox 360 will.    The vast majority of RRoD issues were resolved with the Falcon-based Xbox 360s, but that doesn't mean there weren't people who repeatedly experienced the RRoD.  Why, I don't know.  I only ever experienced one, and it was after almost 2 3/4 years with my Xenos-based Xbox 360, and my console was on many occasions for 18-20 hours and in extreme heat.  Yet it died in October.  Not exactly a warm month in the Northern part of the US.

Microsoft took a gamble that the problem would resolve itself.  Call it inexperience, call it stupidity, call it whatever.  Hindsight is 20/20.  It's easy to sit here today and say, Microsoft should have taken longer to QA the Xbox 360, but I can tell you from personal experience that in the corporate world risks are weighed versus the cost of delay, and often the better wisdom is often ignored.  It happens.

Ford knew the Pinto gas tank would explode before a single Pinto hit the road.  However, because the Pinto's engineering costs needed to be within a certain range in order to ensure Ford could sell it at the price they wanted, they couldn't afford to re-engineer the gas tank.  So what did they do?  They hushed up the engineers or fired them, and kept quiet until someone died.

The Xbox 360 debacle wasn't nearly as serious.  It did, however show Microsoft's inexperience in engineering a consumer electronic device on this caliber.   Microsoft took care of their customers that either had had their consoles repaired prior to the warranty extension, or had their consoles repaired after. 

S.T.A.G.E. said:

P.S.

RROD affected a little over 50% (Before the Slim) of the consoles WW at one point. That is an epidemic, which by definition is a temporary affliction that spreads far off affecting numerous people. 

It's not that I am a Sony fanboy, it's that I think its decent to fix your problems before the generation ends or have a quality product from the beginning. Your problem is that you're acting like a Microsoft fanboy. I made a clear point that Microsoft had to beat Sony, and articles which showed proof of neglect including manufacturers pointing the finger at Microsoft. They risked the console and it took them the whole generation to fix the problems. I am glad its finished (Proof in this is that I purchased a new 360), but it will forever tarnish their name. You have provided zero facts to back your statement.

My comment was reflecting on the assumption of some that the RRoD inflated sales figures, which isn't backed up by historic software sales.

You proved zero facts to back your statements also their are no offical documents anywhere that state Microsoft was afraid that the PS3 was going to launch before the 360 or that MS was in a hurry to launch the 360 because they where afraid of Sony.  Again the main thing that caused the 360 to lanuch early was the messed up business deal MS had with Nvidia.

You've blamed NVidia a thousand times for messed up business deal with MS. Even if this is true it doesn't explain why MS rushed the 360. As for the rest of the your statement....what....are....you...talking....about?