Interview with Todd Holmdahl, about Xbox 360 failures Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Interview with Todd Holmdahl, about Xbox 360 failures Posted by XanTium | June 16 18:13 EST | News Category: Xbox360

Mercurynews.com posted an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group. Dean Takahashi tried everything to make Holmdahl say something meaningful, but clearly Microsoft doesn't want to talk about the Xbox360 failure issues. Here's an excerpt: [QUOTE] Q: What is the post-mortem on Xbox 360 manufacturing? How has it turned out for you? A: Like any other post mortem, there are some things you would have done differently that you learned and that you incorporate back into your processes. Overall, it was really smoothe compared to the complexity of the product we were building. Q: I'm sure you've seen some of these complaints that we've written about from the guy who went through seven machines. There are a lot of people posting on the blog saying they still have problems. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the quality of the Xbox 360 isn't there. How can you paint the bigger picture for me there? A: 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. Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console? A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it. Q: If you have a high defect rate, won't that ruin the business model? Won't that ruin the profit? A: I would say we don't have a high defect rate. The vast majority of people are really excited about their product, and that we are targeting profitability for next year. Q: You guys did get rid of Wistron. Was that related to product quality? A: We didn't get rid of Wistron. It was a voluntary decision between the two of us. We try to run as efficient as possible. With our supply base the way it is now, two high quality contract manufacturers satisfy our needs. Q: I remember one of the warranty coverage changes was to offer a different kind of warranty for any of the machines made in 2005. Or any of the machines bought in 2005. It sounds like you learned something between 2005 and 2006. A: Out of warranty repairs were for early production batches coming out of the lots in 2005. We addressed that as part of that policy or that issue. Q: That wasn't due to a specific thing. Was it due to the graphics memory? A: There were no systematic issues that we responded to when we first offered that warranty. Q: Was there any issue here where I didn't ask it the right way but you could say something. A: The overriding thing, Dean, is that people have the product, they love the product, it continues to sell well. The stuff we talked about with Live has been very successful. The game attach has been very successful. The accessory attach. We are absolutely committed to delivering a high quality experience. When people do have issues, the leadership team works to make sure that those issues are dealt with as pain free as possible. We go out of our way to try to ensure that happens. Q: At this moment, I consider this to be your critical issue for this whole generation. What can you say about that. A: My job is to make sure the customer is happy. This is certainly part of making sure the customer is happy. We have other things. You saw the release of the spring update. I certainly view customer happiness as one of my No. 1 responsibilities. [/QUOTE] Full Interview: mercurynews.com

[Chancer]

They can not make any admissions of that type on failures or possible inherent problems with the hardware.
Everybody with a faulty box would be putting in the claims once MS sets a precedent.
The only times companies cough to problems witha product is when they are forced to because of a safety issue.

[vicious6969]

Sitting on the fence hardly describes this guy.

It's pretty obvious the failure rate is unaccetable and the longer microsoft live in denial the more face they'll lose.

The truth will come out sooner or later.

I think someone should do a freedom of information request to find out the failure rate.

Surely they'd have to provide the info then?

[bucko]

You can get more sense speaking to a brick wall than this guy.

[Chancer]

Sitting on the fence hardly describes this guy.

It's pretty obvious the failure rate is unaccetable and the longer microsoft live in denial the more face they'll lose.

The truth will come out sooner or later.

I think someone should do a freedom of information request to find out the failure rate.

Surely they'd have to provide the info then?

I am not sure what that is but here in the UK manufacturers are only obliged to notify the public of a manufacturing defect if it is a safety hazard.
Sometimes manufacturers will replace stuff without admission if it is not a safety part but try getting an admission of failure out in public and you have very little chance.

Example:
Toshiba CTV 36ZP48P (and related smaller screen models). failure of the Scan Converter Module (MDFS03) is absolutely widespread. The problem is a manufacturing one but not safety. I ring up Toshiba many times a week and am supplied with this part Free of Charge (It costs £140). I have on many occasions asked why the sets were not recalled for this. The reply is always the same. "It is not a common failure, we are replacing this as a courtesy and in the interest of good customer relations"
Come on!! They know it is common and a defect from production (The new ones are modified) I know it's a common defect but no way will they admit it. If they do they are then faced with claims from everyone who owns the sets, but at the moment do not realise they can get FOC replacements for the faulty module. It is damage limitation.

I would never expect MS to admit the shortcomings in public, but it still doesn't stop them assisting the customers who ring in purely from the viewpoint of good customer relationships.
The failure rate will not be as high as some imagine but no doubt there are some problems.
Public admission means nothing . What people want is their faulty consoles sorting out. Sort them out without direct admission of a fault from manufacture and people are happy and the outcry goes away.

This post has been edited by Chancer: Jun 16 2007, 11:27 PM

[Altima NEO]

Although he is doing his job, I still gotta say


way to avoid the questions man.

[scottmuller28]

By the looks of poor sales figures for a system one year ahead of the competition it is already impacting on their business. People are not prepared to pay top dollar for a system that dies just outside manufacturing warranty. Word of mouth & people knowing people with dead consoles makes people think twice about getting one.

They need to lower the price to match the quality you are paying for, crap. When it works is is the best system out on the market, however the truth is it is not reliable and sales figures prove that.....The 360 by now should be doing as well as the Wii....I can see the 360 pulling back even further if they dont resolve the flaws.

I have seen to many pissed of consumers with faulty 360 systems and are prepared to jump ship once the Ps3 is cheaper and has more games!!!!!



This post has been edited by scottmuller28: Jun 17 2007, 12:36 AM

[throwingks]

I think you are confused on the numbers.

Microsoft believes it isn't in the same market as Nintendo.

The 360 is selling double what the PS3 is.

Microsoft is very happy with their position right now, hence no price cuts.

[Big Al]

I think you are confused on the numbers.

Microsoft believes it isn't in the same market as Nintendo.

The 360 is selling double what the PS3 is.

Microsoft is very happy with their position right now, hence no price cuts.

Anything that competes for my dollars is the competition, and I got to think MS is smart enough to know that. I haven't heard MS pushing the Wii360 concept that they talked about when the Wii was first introduced. Apparently they're smart enough to realize that Nintendo doesn't need any more help.

[1nsan3]

there whole deal is to make the customer happy,
but when you have to return a 360 back 3 times, or even more, and then u make US PAY FOR IT, that is satisfaction?

when i call tech support and get someone i can hardly understand, and then hear them and sounds like there just reading from a cue card i supposed to feel secure? i remember when i used to call xbox live tech support, and get basically an american, someone who actually talked like they knew about the system. I was happy then!

now its harder than hell to get xbox live tech support to actually figure out my problems, and fix it!

Im not racist, but im sick and tired of calling live, and getting a damn over seas person who ic an hardly fuc*ing understand!! and at that they can hardly understand what there even dealing with. M$ cant get anything right on there first try or even second. but hey oh well they own the business, We buy the products and deal with the crap.

Keep up the good work M$!!! you get the hang of it some day!!

maybe bill should of stuck with mac!!

[throwingks]

Anything that competes for my dollars is the competition, and I got to think MS is smart enough to know that. I haven't heard MS pushing the Wii360 concept that they talked about when the Wii was first introduced. Apparently they're smart enough to realize that Nintendo doesn't need any more help.

I whole heartedly agree. That is just what Microsoft says. I was explaining why I don't think Microsoft will price drop.

They don't want to be seen as an equal to the Wii. They believe they are better bang for the buck. I know I am a minority with the opinion, that they are in direct competition, on these boards. But, a game console is a game console. The numbers show it. Microsoft is losing to Nintendo. One could argue that Sony is losing to both, but the PS2 is keeping them in the game.

Scottmuller28 was saying the 360 is selling bad, and I was trying to explain, he is wrong.

This post has been edited by throwingks: Jun 17 2007, 01:23 AM

[eX_Do0mY]

It's pretty obvious why M$ isn't talking about 360 failure rates. If they admitted their consoles had a less than acceptable failure rate, immediately no one would buy their console, simply because the company admitted they have a less than quality product.

As stated before, M$ definitely needs to revamp their customer service strategy, start to conform to their customers' needs, and start increasing quality control standards.

This post has been edited by eX_Do0mY: Jun 17 2007, 01:28 AM

[slunk]

If the 360 wasn't such a great platform these guys would have lost their jobs by now.

Seriously though, what can we do to make their failings know in the mainstream as the few people I know that haven't yet experienced the 3RLOD seem to be completely unaware of its imminence. It's just not right that MS are still selling and profiting from this flawed hardware.

[dom0012]

flawed hardware indeed. i just joined the 3rlod club a few weeks ago. thanks MS for selling us bunk hardware and finally adding the extra gpu cooler oh so late

[jimbobjim]

What a load of s**t, we all know the 360 is massively defective and so do M$. I have never heard so many avoidance answers come out of someones mouth as this bloke. Why don't they just admit their failings and move on? It would be much simpler than dragging out this huge line of bulls**t for years.

This post has been edited by jimbobjim: Jun 17 2007, 02:37 AM