Please, no flames, just a couple of questions/thoughts on what you would do if you were in charge of MS marketing to overcome any general concerns or complaints about quality of the console.  The morning show that broadcast the quality issues on television last month plus general word of mouth most certainly will hurt sales over time but how much is anyone's guess.  The 3 year warranty is a great start but on the back end, what additional measures would you take to restore faith in the console?  Here's mine:

1)Start stockpiling refurbed consoles with the latest fix.  Offer customers a "hot" swap where they give a credit card and MS will ship a new console before the defective one even arrives.  Ship old one back within 30 days and customer isn't charged.   I'm fairly certain 80% or more would take advantage of this.

2)Maybe throw a game or three in the return box, an XBLA code for a free game or something.

3)Start the warranty over on the new console -- so a year starts when the refurb arrives.

4)Follow up with a phone call or two to make sure customer is happy with their console and everything is OK

5)Give customer a 3 month Live Gold Card.

6)Get the damn 90 day warranty cards out of the NEWLY SHIPPED BOXES!  Damn, this one seems obvious, but new units still have those stupid cards from a year ago.

7)Get the positive press out now.  Send a postcard to every registered or known microsoft 360 owner.

8)Make sure local microsoft reps are on top of their local retail chains to ensure they understand how committed MS is to restoring customer trust. 

1.Publicize the New Hardware.
2.Admit problems in the past.
3.Coupon, XBLA code, or XBLA points
4.Start a system swap service like Nintendo.
5.Phone Call Follow-up.
6.Extend 3yr to full coverage instead of just RROD.

#4 is the most important to me.

Purchase Wii's and give them to anyone who has a problem =P

Joking aside, I think they need to recall all units in stores and offer voluntary recalls for anyone who wishes to have their unit replaced/fixed even if it has not yet had a problem. They will never do this as they have no incentive since it looks like 360 owners are going to except the "Voluntary Manufacturer Warranty Extension" as a solution.

Aside from the recall route, I don't know that there is anything they could offer me that wuldn't seem irrelevant. I am glad I don't own a 360 right now, and I don't mean that as a dig, I just don't envy you guys going through this BS. Any time you pay a premium price for a piece of electronics equipment you deserve better treatment than this. Console propaganda aside, this is the type of customer service experience that could prevent me from ever purchasing anything from a company again.

Leave the console business, make Windows and Office free software, throw all the senior management over a cliff and start again.

I don't think Microsoft leaving the console business would be a good thing since competition usually pushes companies to do better.

To restore goodwill they need to get systems back to customers very quickly and ensure that people won't have overheating problems.  If they get this problem fixed this year it's likely in a year or so it wouldn't be a big issue for potential customers.

This is a good start. One problem is that they did #1 before when they claimed the issues were fixed last time and it was obviously a lie. Another big issue is #6 -- you shouldn't have to have to discern between different types of hardware failure for warranty issues. MS needs to acknoledge other widespread quality issues with the 360 -- including the disc scratching issue and checkerpattern heat-related crashes.

MS also needs to drop the price of the hardware further because they're obviously having problems competing, especially outside of the US. They should also make good on their "$50 first party games" promise that they made to gamers.

Right now, Microsoft's huge hangup is on becoming profitable. They've made mistakes which will keep them from being profitable. Rather than focusing on correcting those mistakes, they're trying to take shortcuts and get their division to profitability, which they've promised for fiscal '08. Instead of effectively fixing their mistakes, they're making them worse by trying to push them under the rug.

MS is continually deceiving the customer. My buddy's 360 died (his second failure) and they told him that the repair facility is being slow so it will take 6 weeks to get his 360 back. So he asked if it was safe to assume he'd get *his* Xbox back and not another refurb, and they said no. They'll just ship him a refurb. So why did he have to wait 6 weeks to get some random refurb back, he wanted to know. They should have been honest -- they should have said, "look, we have a ton of volume for failed units, we're unwilling to set aside money for an advance replacement program, and we won't be able to get your 360 back to you because of the massive failures on our part."

MS has squandered an insane amount of good will among the hardcore.  My buddy, who was a huge 360 fanboy, prefers his 360 over his Wii, and has piles of games, said he will never recommend a 360 to anyone he likes because he doesn't want them to have to deal with the hardware issues.  He is planning on getting a PS3 in the near future as well.

MS isn't doing anyone a favor by honoring their warranty.  They need to realize that having to send your Xbox away is an inconvenience and they should try to minimize it and compensate you for it.  Giving you a 1 month Xbox live subscription often doesn't even cover the amount of time you waited.  They should be have an option to advance ship consoles.  Basically, what MS is doing right now is shitting in your bed, then forcing you to prove they shat in your bed, then fixing it in their sweet time and trying to convince you that you should feel grateful that they cleaned the shit off of your bed.

I've never heard about a wait time of 6 weeks, do you live in the U.S.?

well I think on the current version the damage is done and not much can be done to convince the mass it's fine now.... (and tit's not anyway).....

apparently they already give MS points and XBL time in some cases... that's cool....

I agree they should have the extension valid for anything.... I wouldn't have to which the RRoD then lol :)... about the disc scratching I remember PS2 having the same issue and never addressed it...

now for the future

once the falcon is ready to ship, ship it and recall all the old ones from store... make a big PR announcement program to the media....

if no recall make bundles differing from the current ones so people can make the difference (but that would be stupid I don't see anyone willing to buy the old one then)....

and once the falcon is ready.... just swap it with the future XB being send for repairs.... it might then explain why the extension is costing so much.... because I don't see how adding a heatsink and shipping handling would cost that much.... if every 10+ million consoles were repaired it means it would cost more than a 100 bucks to them per unit (regarding what they said it would cost to extend to 3 years)... that number sounds really high to me.... admitting it takes 2 hours to fix one and the guys is payed 30 bucks an hour it leaves more than 40 bucks for the heatsink and S&H... that number doesn't sounds right to me and I took a 100% failure case scenario....
I'm probably dreaming about the swap but it's more accurate to me regarding what they said....

now free games why not they did it for the XBox when I bought it... I had a coupon to get a couple games... but if they do it, it's probably going to be on old games... which is still better than nothing though

 I asked you not to flame.  This was a serious post.  Thanks for providing your idiot comments.  They really helped.

Competition is good yeah, but niether MS or Sony seem to want to admit they have competition, for any sort of competitive market to exist we would probably need products that are aimed at the same market (something they wont admit) and for them to be similarly priced.

MS should leave the games industry, for their own good, they have lost so much money so far it makes you wonder when they are going to call it a bad job and forget it. Halo would be better on the PC, no more crappy ports accross the high end of the consoles. no more exclusivity squabbles. no more MGS4 rumours! developers can finally focus more on one piece of hardware instead of 2.