" ignorance", "arrogance". Two words often used to describe Sony. For me those are the sort of words i use to describe companies who knowingly release faulty hardware to get the edge over their competition and then when it becomes apparent how faulty it is come up with a plan that gives them three years to get the problem sorted instead of product recall which in any other industry would be a given. For me i feel MS have been rewarded for damaging the console scene, for sure the build quality of all machines in the next generation is a lot more likely to be worse than in other generations, MS have proved it can be gotten away with and rewarded for.

So no I'm not happy, but that is life.

Sony knew they weren't going to be in first. This gen was a sacrifice with the PS3 to get Blu Ray through the door.

You obviously do not know what ignorance and arrogance applies to. Microsoft was trying to beat Sony to the punch. The word for that is called desperation, not arrogance. Sony had the fault hardware last gen trying to beat the Xbox out of the gate. Should I call your way of thinking a double standard or not? MS isn't alone in damaging the console scene because both they and Sony are in this console race for all the wrong reasons. Sony wants to monopolize the gaming market so they can use it to control formats, because in the electronics depardment they will get their asses handed to them by the likes of Panasonic and Samsung.

QFT.

''In February 2008, during the Game Developers Conference 2008, Microsoft announced that the "Failure rate has officially dropped", but without mentioning any specifics^[16]. The same month an examination of 1040 Xbox 360s by SquareTrade found a 16.4% (one in six) failure rate; 171 were "disabled", of these 171 units 60% failed due to a general hardware failure (and thus fell under the 3 year extended warranty) of the remaining 40%, not covered by the extended warranty, 18% were disc read errors, 13% were video card failures, 13% were hard drive freezes, 10% were power issues and 7% were disc tray malfunctions.^[17][18]. However SquareTrade also admits that their estimates are likely much lower than reality due to the time span of the sample (six to ten months), the eventual failure of many consoles that did not fail within this time span and the fact that many owners did not deal with SquareTrade and had their consoles repaired directly through Microsoft via the much publicized extended RROD warranty''

-Wikipedia

As you can see MS has been always saying failure rate has droped but without mentioning any specifics

Sony did not come out first in hopes of beating the XBOX. The original XBOX kept getting delayed of it's own accord.

"Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which was revealed at the end of 1999 following interviews of then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Gates stated that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times, confirmed by Microsoft with a press release."

~Wikipedia~

PS2's hardware issue was not because of it being rushed to market, just a mishap in production. Yet PS2 hardware failure still has nothing on 360 hardware failure.

Without specific numbers no one can assume. All we know is it dropped. We'll wait for more news, shall we?

Arrogance would be not recalling your faulty product when the failure rates became possibly the highest in consumer electronics history. Just letting the issue sit unsolved for almost 2 years and making people buy new consoles would be arrogance.

Ignorance is not observing the consumer trends (like HDMI and native 1080p TVs that were already on the market) when building your console.

Arrogance is saying that NO PS3 games would look better than X360 games.  Arrogance would be making a statement like native 1080p is impossible this gen.  Actually, that would be a little bit of ignorance mixed in as well.  Arrogance is thinking their money can get them out of any situation or make people highly compliant (see $3.2 Billion viral campaign against PS3). Etc, etc.  The viral campaign seemed to work for a long time, though.  Hell, there are STILL a bunch of people that hang onto that crap info they were fed a couple years ago. *cough, cough*  The same thing happened with MS support of HD DVD.  Remember, MS office of HD DVD Evangelism?  I think they just took off the HD DVD part and continued their style into the console war.

Ok, so they did. How does this prove that Microsoft was being arrogant though? Secondly, do you actually believe cannot make quality hardware if they put the time into it? Last gen was proof.

 So you are saying that PS2's had as bad as failure rate as 360's? as far as my research has gone, not even half the problem. As far as controlling formats, do they own the sole rights to CD, DVD & blu-ray? no of course they don't. Sure they have a lot invested in Blu-ray but so does a lot of other companies including MS (talk about backing both horses in a two horse race). Sorry if you find me thinking companies who knowingly release faulty hardware are ignorant and arrogant, to me it would seem they are ignorant to the damage that would be done to the whole scene and arrogant to think they would get away with it, which they did. Add in desperation and i think the ignorance and arrogance is magnified but this is an agree to disagree moment i would guess