Microsoft dodge Xbox 360 failure rate quiz

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 19 June 2007 16:12

Your IT - Entertainment

The ECC has been involved with a please explain to Microsoft about perceived failure rates of Xbox 360 hardware.  In a recent interview VP of Gaming and Xbox products group, Todd Holmdahl dances around the questions.

In an interview with the Mercury News (Dean Takahashi), Holmdahl does his best corporate spin to weave around the delicate questions regarding Xbox 360 quality and return rates.

Heck!  I am on my second Xbox 360 already - and that one does not sound so good at the moment.

Takahashi of the Mercury asks a series of questions designed to extrude some detail that might prove the anecdotal comments that permeate gaming forums of the interweb.

Time and time again we read about personal experiences with the dreaded red rings of death, indicating a complete breakdown of the Xbox 360.  Too their credit, Microsoft respond well to these (within warrantee period) breakages, in a professional and swift manner.  But the bad press remains, that the Xbox 360 is suffering from a somewhat cloudy reputation for quality.

Throughout the interview Holmdahl comes back to his stock answer "...the vast majority of people love their experience...". 
The closest to a possible admitted issue within the conversation was when Holmdahl is asked about a specific changes between a warranty for a 2005 machine versus a 2006 one:
Q: ....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.

So the dance goes on, really you cannot expect Holmdahl to say anything but what he did.   Meanwhile the lines of forum responses to these types of stories continue to grow.  The Xbox 360 is a great gaming platform, comfortably straddling the line between technological prowess, price and fun, if Microsoft can quash the increasing chorus of quality complaint, the platform will continue to flourish.