Over at Mercury News, they’ve posted an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group. Now, the interviewer in this case asks a lot of tough questions concerning the problems gamers are having with the 360. Unfortunately, Holmdahl spends most of his time avoiding them.
For example, when asked what his response to the idea that based on anecdotal evidence, the quality of the XBox 360 just isn’t there, Holmdahl responded, “We’re very proud of the box. We think the vast majority of people are having just a great experience. You look at the number of games they are buying, the number of accessories they are buying, the Live attach. They love the box. They continue to buy the box. That said, we take any customer issue very seriously. We continue to look into these things very deeply. You have seen we have made some changes to our customer service policy.”
Sure they have made some changes to their policies. They even extended the warranty on some of the early boxes. But you notice how he says nothing about the actual issue of the quality of the console.
Then, Holmdahl was asked if he felt the return rate for the console was normal. He again dodged the question, saying only, “We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.” He also said that Microsoft would not disclose the actual failure rate, and would not even comment of the failure rate of the 360 vs that of the original XBox.
Basically, Holmdahl spends the bulk of the interview avoiding questions about the quality and the failure rate of the XBox 360. With the amount of anecdotal evidence that is out there, and the amount of media coverage these issues are receiving, even in the mainstream media, stonewalling like this is not going to work. Microsoft needs to step up to the plate, admit there is an obvious problem with the console, and do something meaningful for the people who have spent their money to support the console. Sending out a refurbished console that doesn’t work in some cases is not the answer they are looking for.
2 Comments to Microsoft VP of Gaming and XBox Products Ducks Console Failure Questions
by: BDev
On June 17, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Yeah, mine just went belly-up a few days ago and I am not enthused about it. I’ve had it a little over a year and I may have played games on it 20 times. I used the HD-DVD drive to watch movies and that was the main use. I think it’s pathetic of them for ducking and dodging the 500 lb gorilla. Too many of my co-workers are in the same boat for them to think that the failure rate is within the 2 – 5 % failure rate range.
by: used cisco
On June 17, 2007 at 8:40 pm
This is a major bummer. The 360 has so much potential, great games, LIVE, Arcade, etc. Why can’t they get this problem solved? Everyone I know with one has had a failure. WTF?