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XBox Defects Draw Ire
jeffy124 writes: "An article at CNN indicates that the XBox is having problems with defects. But the defects aren't the problem, the issue is lousy customer support from Microsoft's repair contractors, which is really what's more annoying to those who got defective units. Customer support has been giving out conflicting advice and some customers are having their support records lost."
MS has fairly good support...the problem is their software is crappy and thus you always rely on it.
After the new console war I just don't see a real reason to buy an XBox or a PS2. I mean, if you don't have a DVD player, and you have lots of PS1 games, A PS2 is sweet. But there aren't any PS2 games that aren't available elsewhere that make the PS2 a must buy.
The XBox, if you take into account only the games available for it and not the defects and stupid gamepads and large size, etc. Has about ZERO games that make me want to rush out and buy it.
The GameCube, however, has. Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Brothers, Metroid, Pokemon, Zelda, etc. All of these games make me want to rush out and buy a GameCube.
The PS2 and the XBox have good games. I mean Devil May Cry, GTA 3, Halo, are some damn nice stuffs. But Devil May Cry has the stupid ending. GTA 3 will eventually be available on PC. And I can't play an FPS without a keyboard and a mouse.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
My best friends XBOX died last week. He's already received a replacement. I'd say it took about two days.
:)
My XBOX has been working flawlessly though.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
I wouldn't bitch about bad customer support for defects. I'd bitch about defects! They really shouldn't have any in the first place. If they're getting this many complaints about defects to make people notice bad customer support, I think that this indicates a more serious problem. This is yet another reason I'm steering clear of the XBox.
..after all they've been making TOYS for years!
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Man... Given that the money is made on consoles based on the royalties of the platform, I would think the M$ would have played a smarter hand in setting up the servicing contracts.
I guess this is just good news in the long run. No matter how big or how much money and sucess a company has, it can always fall on it's face.
That's a big lift to the little guys!
They've done this for years, from the very beginning. They outsourced the original version of MS-DOS.
oh that's rich, oh that's good.
hey guys check out my new toy, it's got the best graphics evar, wait, what's going on? darn it, why won't it work??? hey guys where are you going?
Hats off to jeffy124, you're concise and summed up the whole article in a few lines. Now i wish i hadn't wasted my time actually reading the article!
--why?
The stakes are high for Microsoft, which shipped about 1.5 million Xboxes over the holidays.
And then in a later paragraph...
Microsoft sales and marketing director John O'Rourke said fewer than 1 percent of the consoles have proven faulty.
Thats a hell of a lot (15,000) of people with faulty Christmas presents really. I'm surprised there hasnt been more publicity than this if that many are faulty.
Have any slashdotters reading this actually had any experience with faulty XBoxes?
over 940,000 Xbox sold. From that, only a hundred were defective, that's not bad.
Remember, AOL - CNN - TW
I can't possibly understand why they would go through the trouble of calling customer support when they could go back to the store and get an exchange. Even software (which is notorious of being a 'No Refunds' purchase) can be exchanged for the same title if defective.
Even if I purchased online I'd call the people I bought it from; not MS customer support. Ugh, some people...
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
...is HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA...
A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Sorry. I try to be more mature about things like that but PLEASE!? How arrogant can Microsoft be!? Game machines are supposed ot be simple appliances and always have been. At no time did the idea of even hooking a modem up to a Sega or Nintendo even come close to being a rare novelty. Even *that* was too complex. Just buy the box, buy/rent the games and play. THAT'S IT.
This, of course takes for granted that a "device" such as this shouldn't "crash" or become unreliable. It either works or it doesn't. In all the years I've owned games machines, I've never EVER had a problem except for the time my brother's bird chewed into one of the cables.
Then comes Microsoft thinking they can take the industry... I guess the jury is still out, but every seller of the XBox I've ever talked to will unofficially tell me, they hate the XBox and wouldn't recommend it to anyone in spite of the fact that it's got awesome graphics and stuff.
When I play games, I don't want BSOD. Especially not during network play that Microsoft intends to make loads of money from. That level of unreliability will be completely intollerable to gamers everywhere who are used to simple reliability of Sony and Nintendo.
So, once again, I have to say, "HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thank you.
All those of us that bought a PSX eary on have seen all the defects we'd ever care to. Ever since then, I just wait for the emulators to be released. Screw all the sneaky console bastards.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Well my initial response was yeah microsoft sucks, good for them for making crappy hardware. Then I actually read the article. And here's what I discovered.
"Analysts said the number of flawed consoles is probably too small to spell serious production troubles"
Well less then 1% of the 1.5 million systems failed. And out of those that did fail only 200 people received bad customer service.
My question is this, why didn't these people take there X-boxes back to the store immediately. There were plenty of X-boxes to go around, at least where I live. There was really no reason they couldn't have exchanged it.
If you look at the numbers Nintendo had a similar failure rate with the game cube. Was this news? No and neither is this story.
I hate microsoft as much or more then most people on slashdot, and I want to see them fail, but this is not failure. This is just the slashdot crowd chomping at the bit and jumping on any little thing.
I doubt MS has budgeted too much money to after sale support of XBox. Reasoning as follows:
XBox sells for $300.
Here's where it get's tricky...quoting consumer prices here, I'm sure MS buys this stuff by the truckload for a lot less...bear with me.
Processor inside cost $75-100.
Memory cost $50.
Hard drive cost $75.
Misc. hardware cost $50.
Worst case, that's $275. Add to that the BOX itself, packaging, controllers, docs, etc...we're talking an item with a VERY low profit margin. MS spent some quingillion dollars developing this thing, so obviously, some money will need to be directed to recouping development costs. When all is said and done, I don't think that MS is making a lot of money on each unit.
Is that an excuse for poor after market service? No, it's a lousy excuse! But, they had a price point they believed they had to hit, and something had to slide for them to hit it. As a tech geek, ask yourself, "Would I rather have a faster processor and more memory, or real good support that I'll probably never need?". Me, I'd pick the hardware and roll the dice on the support.
Now, I don't believe that MS has tried to make a faulty product...they dove into the console war headfirst, and HAVE to shine right out of the gate, if they don't, major egg on the face. So, it behooves them , as it does any manufacturer, to create a quality product. I'm just stating the facts as I see them, not defending or accusing.
A microsoft product defective?
Poor technical support?
Hell has now frozen over.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Is there really anyplace the provides good customer service anymore?
Wait on the phone for 1 hour to be transfered and then disconnected. A myriad of reasons why they can't accept a return on a particular item.
Also, it seems as more and more things are basically computers with a different front end, problems are taking longer to creep up. By the time you may experience a problem, you are beyond the return date and you get to go through support hell.
I had an APEX DVD 600a for a month. At the end of the month, I got Stargate and got the infamous branching/looping problem. Up till that DVD it had been working fine. The there was basically something that the software couldn't handle properly. I was just able to return it, but if it had been a week later, I would have been screwed.
Oh well...that's my bitch...off to bed.
"SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Hundreds of people who bought Microsoft's hot new Xbox game console over the holidays received defective systems, and some say they waited for weeks before the devices were fixed. "
I didn't get past that paragraph before I had to stop reading and go "what?" I think there is just a little melodrama here. At least on my Calendar the date is only January 5th. Which puts us almost at a mere two weeks after Christmas. Not even quite yet.
I know everyone is in a rush to get the holidays in and over, but I think this is seriously starting to stretch it. Pretty soon when there is an article double posted on slashdot, people will be saying "oh come on, I just read that story 10-15 days ago! Right after my cup of coffee!"
I know, I'll probably get flamed/modded down for saying anything in defense of MS, but... So what? The article is anti-MS FUD.
So, out of 1.5 million units, a few hundred are bad. As the article even states, this is in line with the industry average, even compared to Nintendo who has more console building experience than anyone else in the market hands-down.
XBox has been out about what, 7 weeks? Is it so surprising that the new player on this market might have a few snags with third-party customer service companies? Haven't you ever chosen to do business with someone only to find out your needs are not in harmony with their service? That is the real issue here. If MS had been in the console business for at least a year or two and people were have endless problems with customer support, then maybe it would be a big deal. Just because it's Microsoft doesn't mean their problems with third party CS companies equate to a poor product or a general neglect of their customers. This molehill is not that mountain.
Yes, we can always count on Slashdot editors to dish out informed, accurate, unbiased journalism.
Blame is placed correctly on Microsoft. Yeah, NVidia made the graphics chipset and AMD made the processor, but Microsoft put their name on it, not NVidia or AMD.
What you're saying is that we shouldn't blame the business that claims to have created it, whether or not they actually did. If I claim to have created something and put my name on it like Microsoft did, I will try to at least make sure I know how it was created and how it works.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Kind of offtopic, but it seems to me that if they had used Athlon's instead of Pentiums they would have had a faster product (selling point to both buyers and developers) and could have sold for less (selling point) than the PS2 making the same amount of money due to the processors being cheaper.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Then comes Microsoft thinking they can take the industry... I guess the jury is still out, but every seller of the XBox I've ever talked to will unofficially tell me, they hate the XBox and wouldn't recommend it to anyone in spite of the fact that it's got awesome graphics and stuff. :)
You must live in some sort of cave, then. Most of the ones sure tried to sell me the $300 box over the $200 box.
When I play games, I don't want BSOD. Especially not during network play that Microsoft intends to make loads of money from. That level of unreliability will be completely intollerable to gamers everywhere who are used to simple reliability of Sony and Nintendo.
That's great! Because Xbox doesn't have BSODs, or GSODs. 99%+ of people don't have issues with it. No crashings, no defects, nadda. 'Hundreds' out of the estimated 1.5 Million Xboxes sold had defects. Don't you think this is being overplayed a tad?
Playstation 2s had defects, Playstation had defects. No electronics have 100% success rates, this is about normal. Hell, my Sony WEGA 36XBR400 (expensive HDTV) didn't work at all. Called the Sony techs, they came and dinked around. Weeks later, a truck came, pulled it away. Weeks after, a new one came, and it worked.
To think this problem is unique to MS is just silly. What is unique to MS is this giant magnifying glass being put over the entire console by people who WANT the Xbox to fail. By people who already hate Microsoft and believe every product they put out is buggy and unstable. Then when the slightest inkling of this actually happens, everyone posts the stories to Slashdot and shrieks "I told you so!". It's almost funny, but it's too sad to be funny.
Consoles are sold at a loss, and the XBox is sold at more of a loss than any other console. Notice the business reviews of the XBox saying that Microsoft will lose several billion dollars and require over three years to turn a profit?
Console companies make their money on the software, and it will take quite a bit of software to make up the cost.
I'm sure that Microsoft knows what they are doing, though. They may not know how to design or impliment decent software. but nobody can argue that they know business.
The XBox, if you follow news on Microsoft, is to get their foot in the door of home electronics. The X-Box combined with Ultimate TV (Microsofts innovative clone of Tivo) can potentially allow Microsoft to eventually control advertising on your TV, track everything you watch, and conceivably eventually allow Microsoft to influence what is actually shown on television.
Compaq has a new business service called "Zero latency enterprise" which allows a company to look up your purchase history in less than one second. With an Xbox/UTV combo and a capability like this, Microsoft could display the absolute most effective ads for you and collect royalties from advertisers and networks.
Okay, enough conspiracy theories.
When Microsoft rules the world, I'm moving.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Besides, Microsoft will realize the current support contractor sucks, and pay out some cash for a better one. From the article it dosen't sound all that bad anyway.
This is anecdotal eveidence of certain individual's problems - not a big deal.
Jesse Wolfe Sr. Manager Systems Integration
Something that I have done to avoid having problems with a video game system is waiting a year or so before buying it. The price is usually much lower, and if I hear that it isn't worth it then I didn't waste my money in a rush to be the first person to have the system.
This is very bad for Microsoft's image in the console industry. Even if they try to say that these sorts of things happen on all systems, few consumers will buy into that.
Console games have hitherto been very plug and play and never crashed. The only consoles that had nearly as many problems were the old eight bit first generation systems. Not only that, those systems often did not have problems until they got old (anyone with an original NES can attest to this.) Playstation 1 had the same issue with regards to age and functionality.
Consumers simply will not accept this. To them, this is simply what game console systems do not do, lest they are aging. They may like the games, but they will wonder whether it is worth since the system's reliability is so iffy.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I bought a PS2 for this Christmas, and somehow ended up with a *very* early revision system. Within a week, it had stopped playing any widescreen DVDs; I suppose we tickled a bug somewhere. I tried updating to no avail.
So I went back to the store and exchanged it for another unit, this time a more recent revision. Problem solved.
My point is if it fails to work because of a defect, why bother calling any kind of customer service? Return the unit to the vendor. This drops it back in the manufacturer's lap, and you don't end up being hassled. That's why God created return policies.
And if you bought it from a place that won't accept returns on defective merchandise, I can only say: Caveat emptor, mon ami.
-- Cerebus
I've had ZERO problems with my XBox.
Although funnily enough, the copy of Final Fantasy X I bought for my PS2 arrived with a bubble in the CD surface.
Wow! I guess that means that FFX is DEFECTIVE?
Over the years, I've come to accept the unfortunate fact that >80% of 'production' desktop software I'm going to run will crash on a regular basis.
However, I have zero tolerance when an embedded system crashes, be it a consumer box or a commercial/industrial process controller.
When was the last time the firmware in your Sony Flatscreen screwed up? VCR? Microwave? Granted, we're talking about way less lines of machine code, and a lot less data/processing flying through the pipes...
I guess my major concern is that the almost inherent buggyness that plagues computer software becomes "acceptable" in embedded systems. M$ has been the catalyst in more than one "slippery slope" over the years...
Ken.
An OPEN mind is a beautiful thing...
Its completely off topic, and it gets modded up. A post on topic earlier was classified as off topic. /. mods need to start reading the post, and article, or at least the title of the article.
specifically, gamestop.com (software etc, babbages, planetx, funcoland, and super software
We have had two xboxes returned as defective. BOTH, were from physical damage resulting from the "bounce test" that occurs during shipping.
There were obvious gashes in the cardboard of the box. One one xbox, the 2nd controller port did not function, and the other simply didn't power up.
We've had similar situations with the PS2. There have been no Gamecubes returned and I can't even count how many defective dreamcasts we have.
xxx straight edge xxx
This has got to be a troll or just another GCN fanboy. Try the following unique games that are really great (and these are just the ones I've got):
Now how about the ones that are apparently will eventually be ported, but I already have them:
This of course doesn't include some of the lesser titles, the upcoming titles, and the ones I don't have and didn't include (like SSX Tricky and THPS3, the latter of which I know is available on the GCN already).
Now, maybe you think some of these aren't worth it. Maybe. But for most of us, these are all great reasons to get a PS2.
I'm no Sony fanboy. I've already got a GBA, and as soon as some of the scheduled GCN titles arrive (Mario, Zelda, and some of the RPGs), I'm getting a GCN too.
But there's no way you're going to get my PS2.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
HP, IBM, and depending on who you get, DirecTV are all good.
HP shipped a $400 scanner to replace my $200 scanner, overnight delivery, and paid for shipping both ways to me when my motherboard's USB controller was flaky. Not even their fault.
IBM offered to fly a technician to my house when OS/2 was refusing to use my soundcard. (it was a cheap SB clone at the time). Their suggestions got it working, so I was never able to test the offer.
DirecTV has at least reduced their wait time to just a few seconds, and now has around 5,000 customer service people in 6 centers. Quite a few of them are fairly clueless about DirecTC though, but at least they are willing to find an answer to a question they do not know.
Just wanted to point out some GOOD experiences, when there are so many bad ones to be heard about.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
...where the pointy-haired boss announces that management has discovered that 40 percent of sick days are being taken on Friday and Monday, declares they "know what this means," and wonders why Asok has fallen on the floor laughing.
Dilbert explains that the new intern can "probably do math."
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We're just seeing what happens when the US market gets a product first. Remember all those faulty memory cards and DVD drives that didn't work in the PS2? No one really cared since it was all fixed by the time the stuff came to the US. Now we're the testers for the stuff.
Reading the story will tell you that the Game Cube had a simaler defect rate.
The problem has been support, not the XBox.
mlk
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
First I think CNN is making an issue out of nothing.
:)
;)
AOL/TimeWarner owns CNN.
AOL doesn't play nice with MS.
I wonder why they'd post such blatant FUD?
Both systems have their merits. Though I am a bit disappointed with the PS2 in the Fighting Games genre. Dreamcast had things like Soul Caliber and DOA2. PS2 came out at launch with DOA2 but it was the same thing. I was hoping for something better than Tekken Tag Tournament.
Camecube has a few good launch titles. I have Wave Race and Star Wars. Star Wars graphics are impressive. But the PS2 Starfighter game is very good too. I hope to pick up Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X. Those are extermely impressive on the PS2. My brother rented MGS2. The only complaint is they over cinematized MGS2 compared to the previous version on the PSX.
XBox has nasty controlers, and about par games. Halo is about the only title I'm vaguely interested in, but then those controllers weigh a ton and are extremly awkward. For fraggin you must use a mouse for view, so I stick with my Desktops.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I didn't get past that paragraph before I had to stop reading and go "what?" I think there is just a little melodrama here. At least on my Calendar the date is only January 5th. Which puts us almost at a mere two weeks after Christmas.
"The Holidays" != simply Christmas Day. It's a journalistic abbreviation for "The Holiday Shopping Season," in this context, which for most retailers begins immediately after Thanksgiving.
Not to mention that a mere few words down from the paragraph you've highlighted there is an example of "waiting weeks"
John Kreis, 31, of Chicago bought an Xbox the day it came out. [November 15].
Granted, the story is a little blown out of proportion, but not for the reasons you pretend. And since when did a comment that admits to have not read the article past the lead-in paragraph get modded up as "Insightful?"
When my original NES died after only 2 days of play it took 2 months to get a replacement from Nintendo. The store wouldn't take it back, they said I had to deal with Nintendo directly.
When my Princeton Graphics monitor died I went through three remanufactured replacements before I got one that worked. Well worked well enough that I didn't feel the need to deal with those people any more.
It seems today bad customer service is the norm. I'm not sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that I never formaly complained to Nintendo or Princeton Graphics. I mean when was the last time you did anything but yell at the poor sap making $7/hour answering the phone. Do you think he reported your frustration up the managment chain? He sure as hell did not. He just noted your trouble ticket as completed in the computer and move on.
If anyone is to blame it is the consumers for puting up with this and continuing to purchase goods from these people. I know I'll never buy a Princeton Graphics monitor again, but I did by a Super Nintendo and a N64.
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
My only complaint is the ridiculous sensitivity of the DVD drive. If you have some dust on the disc or on the tray the system can spew "disc not found" errors after hours of playing. If you have a scratch on a disc you can practically forget it.
It's not enough to seriously detract my enjoyment of the system (it's "crashed" due to "not finding the disc" 2-3 times... it puts you out to the Dashboard and explains the reason), but it's still a bit more than my PS2 has blanked out. Overall I'm actually pretty impressed with the construction and design, with a few "extra" points given since this is MS's first console (I did the same for the original Playstation -- my system overheated regularly). But it's nothing a CD lens cleaner won't fix, and as long as the games are playable -- and fun -- I don't complain.
How would a company that makes crappy software be expected to produce quality hardware?
Went to the local best buy today. The xboxs were stacked, with quite a numorous supply, next to the Dreamcasts. Kinda sad.
I've played the various consoles, Gamecube is awesome and so is the PS2. But the Xbox is a hunk of junk. Xbox graphics are on par with my P4 system with a Geforce card. I don't need another DVD player, would like a comfortable controller, and kick ass games (you guys need to play Super Smash brothers melee! Sweet ass game), so the Gamecube wins hands down.
If this is a joke, its not funny.
It's first generation Microsoft, it'll blow up, just wait. Anyone remember how sweet Windows 1.0 was?
Any ways, enough with the trolling. I still perfer my Dreamcast to all these newer systems, for a few reasons. Online game play is real, and not simply a promise. The modem did not cost me anything extra. 4 controller ports (for you PS2 nuts). VMU's, 'nuff said. Phantasy Star online, cept for the pay to play in version 2.
Okay enough of that. I'll gladly admit that Sega's lack of diversity and creativity in content are what killed the Dreamcast, but admit it, you all can;t wait to see Streets of Rage, Shining Force, Sonic, and other Sega titles come out for your system of choice. And as it stands Sega is backing the PS2, so that's what I bought.
a problem with an M$ product?
holy fuck, wait till the slashbots find out....
Actually, the Japanese are more capitalist than Americans at least in one respect. When the U.S. Government places environmental restrictions on vehicles, it prohibits, say, GM from selling it's device's designs to any other company. Each company has to develop the devices seperately. Free market, or capitalism, would allow the sale of such designs between companies, but no, not in America. However, in Japan, this isn't the case. Not only does the Japanese government allow the sale of such designs between companies, it often assists companys making deals with foreign corporations. America is behind because it is less capitalistic, not more. BTW, there are other reasons why America is behind, not just the capitalism thing. We Americans have become lazy, not just physically, but also mentally.
-- It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
even if it was about support, this is nothing new. The situation is just being singled out because its Microsoft. Bad customer support is a fact of life. You wouldn't believe the number of arguements I've had over the phone with my cable provider.
Works fine :)
www.lonseidman.com
Contrary to popular mythology, the idea of selling a console at below cost
is a rather new phenomenon. It it not an ancient practice handed down
through the ages.
If you're going to take him as word of Go(r)d, at least understand his philosophy.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
If their RMA rates are down around 1% they are definitely doing something right. Many PC motherboards (eg abit) have RMA rates of 5% or more, and then there's other hardware (eg some IBM hard drives).
It would be great to see the Slashdot crew do more news reporting and not pissy ass high school tease the fat kid shit.
Okay, WTF? I thought that one of the reasons to get a console is that they weren't so flaky, didn't need babying, etc. (relative to a PC)
From what I hear (and the newest game system I have is an N64) these machines are nearly as flaky as a PC in many respects. They certainly don't sound like they can be kicked around as much as my 2600, my brother's old NES, or my N64.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Defective products happen occasionally, if everything was bug tested for every possible problem the costs of that item would be sky high, and then only a few people could buy it. Last time I've checked game systems don't catch on fire that often (if given enough ventilation room, space, etc). If the store has one, you can buy the Replacement Plan/Extended Warranty/etc. from the store (Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUsa, etc). As in life, you roll the dice, and take your chances... 1% or less that had problems is nothing. I don't like MS much overall, but this is not news...
I actually had a defective XBox unit. I took it right back to the store (Target) where I got it and asked for a refund. The immediate reaction was the standard line from the person at the counter about how exchanges are all they offer on certain products once any fingerprints have graced the case, etc, etc.
I asked to speak with their supervisor just to get a better explanation and such. After about five minutes of explaining I realize it's not the stores fault and would simply like them to handle the problem rather than me contacting Microsoft, I left with cash in hand. The store felt it actually cost Microsoft less in the long run to have them deal with it than if I started using their support channels and such.
And I'd buy it again from the same store.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
MicroSoft has bad customer support
ummm... this is news?
M$ has been outsourcing most of the customer service for it's Xbox... The article if you read it...states this... "Microsoft uses outside companies, including Harte-Hanks of San Antonio, Texas, and Sykes Enterprises in Tampa, Florida, to handle Xbox customer service. Xbox repairs are handled by Solectron of Milpitas, California."
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
That was my immediate reaction as well, until I thought about it for a second: the units were probably purchased much earlier, but how many people would have had the chance to turn them on before Christmas eve/day? I'm assuming these were presents.
I don't know about you, but I usually open Christmas presents at Christmas.
-Legion
Just wondering... when you call their customer support, do they tell you to reinstall Windows?
Which is insane. If a store sells 1000 units, thats about 300 that they're getting back from failures! If you read around, a lot of posts from people are starting to pop up now that the unit has been around a month and getting some wear in. I think the %1 failure rate from MS is a bit... OFF .. Even if 1% *is* right, that comes out to around what? 10,000+ units!? Thats a LOT of messed up hardware. And MS is LOSING MONEY on each unit sold (They make money off the games).
considering that Microsofts previous hardware (mice, joysticks, steering wheels, keyboards) have all been very solid and reliable products. I had a MS sidewinder 3D pro for years until I finally bought a Saitek Cyborg, and that was only because it could be specially adjusted fo rme (I'm left-handed). The mouse on my desk is from Microsoft, and the only niggle I have with it is cleaning the ball regularely for cat hairs. A friend of mine is a driving sim fanatic, and swears by his Sidewinder steering wheel and gamepad for arcade games. So that MS all of a sudden should go release a defective console sounds highly suspicious, unless slightly *cough* biased reporters went and blew the whole thing up to make MS sound bad. I'm not purchasing an X-box. but not because of bad reviews (and I like the controller. I have bloody huge hands, and the PS2 controller sits uncomfortably in them), but because I swear by my PC. And I foresee Microsofts logo to be on at least some of my controllers for quite a while yet. (There. Positive mention of Microsoft, without the obligarory replacement of the s with an $. Flame away)
-----------------------
I pushed the red button
...and conceivably eventually allow Microsoft to influence what is actually shown on television.
Please put down the tin foil hat and step away from the wacko!
As to why Microsoft is willing to lose money on them Xboxes? PC sales oddly enough.
A game written for the Xbox is for all intents and purposes a PC game. As we should all realize by now, it doesn't take a multi gigahertz machine to balance your checkbook. Gaming drives the PC industry, pushing for constant upgrades. An upgrade usually means a replacement PC for most folks, which subsequently means the customer is getting billed for some version of that OS them folks sell.
On the other hand, if all the really good gaming titles start to only come out for console systems that have no relationship to the PC, upgraded computers aren't needed nearly as much. No upgrades, fewer copies of Windows sold. Also, fewer copies of all that other software that can also be sold for Windows.
This is a way out there long term strategy that few companies could manage to finance. MS is not only working on eventually making the XBox profitable, they're also defending their core market.
Oddly enough, I see Microsoft's success in this area as being very beneficial to Linux as well. If for only the notion that it is far more likely to see Xbox games ported to the PC as both Windows and Linux games than titles found on more proprietary hardware.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
....misread website... the gamedisks are 1.5 gigaBYTES... I was surprised when I read gigaBITS myself, but neglected to correct myself. still a feat, imo. 9 gigabytes may be fun for fmvs and audio files... but it too often allows for lazy programming. efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. overzealous, der_m
The xbox has ONE game in the top ten. ONE! Even Harry Potter for the PS1 is doing better than Halo! Halo was suposed to make kids drop eveything and jump on the xbox. The kids did not care as much as ms hoped.
;)
It is badly made and franky, it shows. I think it was outsourced in Mexico and to be honest, Mexico is not the center the of world as far as high quality standards go.
It's not cheap to buy. Nintendio outsold the xbox by 2 to 1. And the PS2 outsold them both by 3 to 1. It's never the power of a machine, it's the software. Xbox had 2 good launch games and they were not all that amazing. More eye candy than fun.
You can not expect money to buy you a marketshare. The Money M$ has dumped into XBOX, they will need to sell millions and millions before they see black. They don't mind but the Xbox is a mistake. Not a BIG mistake but more of a misunderstanding of the market share. Xbox likes to deal with big companys and the xbox looks like a 45 year old in a sports car. No clue about the kids and what they want. They even kept the code name!?
The PS2 has won xmass. Nintendo has it's market and well, the xbox will be the new dreamcast. Supported till the end by zellots of dead tech. Like fans of betamax or the dreamcast. Dreaming of what the machine COULD have done.
This post is for the history books, In 2 years, Xbox will be dropped. I will put my house on it. M$ loves to drop shit projects. Anyone remeber BOB? or MSN? Those did not cost peanuts.
And to quote bill "MS is not a hardware company" How right you were bill.....
Jebus
P.S If you think I am biased, I have an xbox. It's on ebay right now. My PS2 has moved back to the empty spot
Here's my timeline:
October 26th, 2000: Was all alone at CompUSA for 3 hours before person #2 showed up at about 5AM - People were camped out at the Best Buy next door and the Circuit City across the street, but never thought of little ol' CompUSA. Even one of the radio DJ's came by to keep me company. Got the first of the 6 units at that store.
That day, take it home, stick my Madden 2001 game in, and nothing happened. Stuck in a DVD, and nothing happened. Nothing. Nada. No spinning. No "Detecting".
Called store, and they said they probably wouldn't get any more units until March of 2001, but would gladly refund my money.
Called Sony, and they tried to get me to run diagnostics on the CD, which wouldn't work since it has to be able to know the CD was in the drive to do the diagnostic. So, they said they'd send me an airbill and I could send it to their Repair Depot in California.
October 30th, 2000: Called Sony back, and said that they'll send the airbill tomorrow.
November 2nd, 2000: Called Sony back, and they said they'd send the airbill tomorrow. I said screw it and sent it on my own dime.
November 20th, 2000: After several calls to the repair depot, I get the tracking number of my repaired unit. They sent it UPS Ground during Thanksgiving. Thanks, Sony.
November 28th, 2000: Received my replacement PS2, plugged it in. Put Madden 2001 in, listened to the CD spin...But that was all. Put in a DVD, listened to the CD spin...But that was all. It wasn't detecting the CD at all.
Called Sony, and the guy said "Well we'll send you an airbill and you can send it back to the department..." Wanted to speak to his manager. "All of our managers are busy, sir, they'll call you back later tonight." Right. Sure.
Amazingly, I got a phone call 45 minutes later. He reiterated the "send it back to our repair depot". I then asked for the address where my attorney could contact them. He then told me that he would personally send me an airbill (via FedEx this time) where I could send him my PS2 and he'd just send me a new one.
November 30th, 2000: Amazingly, I receive an airbill in a timely fashion. I send out my PS2 directly to the guy.
December 8th, 2000: Receive new PS2, and have been playing it to this day. I also have two of those blue boxes I keep just to mess with people, as I only sent the unit, but not the packaging materials.
Remember, I sat in line for about 8 hours on October 26th to get a unit that I didn't get to actually play until December 8th. Let's just say, I'll never do that again. (Actually, I did, but I only was in line 30 minutes for an XBox.)
Moral of the story: This happens with ANY console. PS2 had just as bad of a launch as XBox did to this respect. I have gotten lucky with my XBox, but the Software Etc. I go to said that they had 10 returns on launch day from the hard drive crashing.
God creates dinosaur. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man... Woman inherits the earth.
MS creates xbox. MS destroys xbox. MS creates xbox-audience. xbox-audience destroys MS. xbox-audience creates linux-xbox-emu. xbox eats linux-xbox-emu... PS2 inherits the earth.
It could be the case management software they are using is new or the people are untrained in its use. Hell, support started what, three months ago tops, who knows? Launches are never flawless.
It happens. Any decent company will make big strides to straighten themselves out with the press though, now that CNN has made such a big deal out of it. Frankly though, I think that posting this story carries an air of FUD to it.
Slashdot tries to demonize M$ as much as possible, and most of the time with good reason. But bad customer support? Please. I work in the customer support field, and nothing can be worse than having to tell a person that some AOL lackey is lying to them about them having a modem virus.
I own both a PS2 and a GameCube because in my opinion they are the only systems worth buying. i have played Demos on several games for the Xbox and found them all to mave very poor controllabillity and for me that is the most important thing of any game.
I do not care that Halo looks graphicly awsome i tried to play it and i could hardly walk around the room. I would much rather play Perfect Dark (N64) for five minutes then to Own Halo on an Xbox. Also the football game that microsoft makes is awfull and nothing like Madden or NFL 2K2. all the games made directly by microsoft have always sucked they sould go back to making Office and windows better and lay off the games.
I would love to own Halo but not on the Xbox i would like to play it on my PC as with most of the Xbox games. they are mainly PC games made into a console game. On the PS2 and Cube they have been making games for consoles for 15 years or more microsoft is just starting and SUCKS at it.
To me there are really no games for the Xbox that make me want to go buy one
For my GameCube i have
Suber Monkey Ball (VERY FUN My favorite)
Super Smash Brothers malee
Madden 2002
Pikmin
Waverace
For my PS2 i have
Twisted metal
Grand Theft Auto 3
Super Bust-A-Move
Final Fantasy X
I am a hard core Nintendo fan and have had every system since the NES so i guess you could call me a Nintendo bies. but around christmas i was thinking of buying one of the other systems for a wider variety of games. so i compared the Xbox and the PS2.
Before i even looked at the game selection i compared just the look and feel of the two systems. The PS2 had a nice feeling and easily controllabe controller and the console is about the size of a normal DVD player and looks very nice.
On the othe hand the Xbox controller is Much to big. it simply is not desined correctly for my hands at all it just did not feel right and the jewel buttons that it has are awful. the console is a Gigantic compared with the other two. It is the size of a PC tower and way to big for a gamming console, i really don't like how it looks eather it is trying to be to flashy with the big XBOX bubble thing in the middle and designed like a big X. I feel as thogh Microsoft is trying to program me into buying their product
They are both Equally pricend and both have a DVD player
then i noteced their game selection. since the PS2 had been out for a full year it odviously had more games than did thee Xbox. but i the large advantage to the PS2 is that it ans the hundreds of good quallity games for the PS1 i could play. I love final fantace and more so Grand theft auto 3. i saw no games that even came close on the Xbox that i would love so much
So in short THE XBOX SUCKS. I don't care about it's "better graphics" if it does not have good controllabillity. I think Nintendo and Sony will continue to peoduce great console games in the future and be far better then everthing that the Xbox can put out. I think that all the defects the Xbox has is due to the fact that it is not really a game console but a PC in a pretty box that you hook up to your TV and has a controller insted of a keybord and mouse. The PS2 and Cube are much better gamming CONSOLES and will outlast the Xbox in the future due to their loyal gammers that want the best games there is to have.
Those kinds of numbers make me wonder how much of the return rate of XBox's (or even GameCubes) was due to profiteers bying XBoxes to sell on eBay, then realizing they couldn't double thier money and returning them.
Even at the peak of eBay XBox demand, I think people were making around $100 profit - but even then most of the sellers already had numerous good remarks, 0 comment sellers were usually ignored.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...I can't say much against the X Box just yet. I do own a Playstation 2 and I wouldn't trade it in for a X Box, but if Microsoft dropped it in my hands I wouldn't be upset over getting free stuff.
What angers me is that even on launch, Dreamcast had some problems. Overheating is one thing that came to mind. Even NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gamecube, PSX, PS2, etc have had problems of such calibre. What I see here is direct biasism towards Microsoft and that is generally unfair (even though MS isn't quite the fair company).
Hell, there are defects in EVERYTHING. For instant, my video card does not like to sync properly unless I edit a few lines in my XF86 configuration file, but I don't go around saying XFree86 or my video card is crap because of that. It is just one of those flaws you have to deal with.
Now, I am not saying that flaws are something we should ignore. Microsoft (and any company or developer) should acknowledge it's problems and attempt to fix them for future releases. Flaws are mistakes, if we acknowledge them and fix them, we have learned from them; if we ignore them, then we have not learned anything at all.
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I am going against this article.
We turned it on, and it said to get tech help. I laughed, and we just got a new one.
rev A devices always have bugs.... as do MS products.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
The thing the people have to keep in mind is that the console market is directed primarily at those who are (partially or mostly) tech-illiterate, and aren't even old enough to drive.
Sure, if I got a faulty system, I'd complain, and fiddle with it for a while, I'd know to take it back to the store (if they'd take it... no way of getting my snazzy new gift replaced until after the store gets a new shipment.. who knows how long that could be), or to be forceful with customer service when they started jerking me around... but think of the target market.
Imagine yourself back in grade 6, you get a brand new console for Christmas, plug it in, just start getting excited, and it blue screens. What do you do? Fiddle with it, then complain to mom or dad. Chances are they won't be able to help, so they have to spend 20 minutes talking to customer support and another 2 weeks waiting. Meanwhile, you are determined that this Christmas sucked, and that mom and dad don't care about your gift. Will I tell my friends how cool my X-Box is? Will they want to buy one? Will my parents ever talk about how happy their kid was, or how good the service (that should be included in the price) is?
Well?
The problem with this disaster is not so much that computer problems happened, or that service sucked. It's that the people producing and servicing the product aren't used to the new customer base they are getting. 10 year olds... impatient 10 year olds.
When you are producing products for children, they should be durable, reliable, and long lasting. A successful console is one that will stand up to all of the difficulties of having kids play with it, and one that will be around long enough to develop a loyal customer base.
Do you remember Nintendo's, SNESs... even playstations? Those things are indestructible. And the service really is great.
Anyhow, my point is this: This is not a product that can be dealt with hap-hazardly. These consumers are vicious, and uncaring. If it doesn't work well... every time... its crap. Period. In this kind of market you have to be able to back things 100% and this manufacturer isn't ready to do it.
My prediction? With the exception of a few software manufacturers, the X-Box will be gone by next Christmas.
Just the other day I heard someone new to consoles but interested in getting one, think that the PS/2 was the one having the problems.
It's not a joke, it's just a hoax.
The idiot that posted it didn't even do his homework. Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947. Therefore, he is 54 and he will not turn 55 until September 21, 2002.
Customer service... whut-ev'r.
This is a no-brainer... 1)call CS and ask for RMA number 2) go to _any_ retailer that has an xbox (even if you bought online) 3)give them defective xbox with rma number. They give you a new one in the box. 4) go home and play your game.
The guy that waited for a month isn't too bright imo, nor is anybody that waits that long when a few simple questions would have solved the issue. Perhaps the cs person on the other side of the phone should have known better for whatever reason but I doubt that the $7/hr that person makes gives him/her any desire to be truly helpful.
Yeaah! Cool! A new Microsoft bashing story! Get it on /., quick!
Enough said I think.
-- Cheers!
Bad experiences with:
I don't work for any of these companies or their competitors. It's interesting that the companies that provide excellent service also provide poor service on their low-end product, and that even service providers with traditionally loyal client bases (airlines, hotels) treat their best members like crap.
The reality is that Joe Consumer who buys the cheapest available causes a tragedy of the commons: each person's greed for lower prices and the company's greed for the already small profit margin kills customer service, since it's never evaulated. Look at airlines: while there are the very frequent fliers, who may fly 100,000 miles or more in a year, airlines tend to minimally cater to them, and more to their bottom line.
Yes, but how many XBoxes/GameCubes/PS2s that were purchased during the holiday season were presents?
I don't know of anyone - ANYONE - at my employer (arcade game developer) who got an XB or GC for christmas. They all bought the units themselves, for themselves.
Hell, my family even agreed on a $50 cap for christmas presents several years ago, and we've kept at it.
If you've got a group of people spending $400+ on christmas presents for one another, may I suggest you all cap the presents at $50 and donate the $350 to charity instead? You know, christmas, goodwill towards men, and all the rest?
Hmm. Then again, maybe someone needs to buy you some "They Live" sunglasses. Then maybe you can see all those "Consume" signs for what they really are...
Moof!
Well, we imported an xbox (to Australia). You can imagine that we were doubly annoyed that when we got it the DVD Drive wouldn't open. We're going to have to send it back, obviously, but defects like these are even more annoying when you can't just send it to your local service centre.
And while everyone is saying "Yeah, but it's less than 1%, and Nintendo has less than 1% too", think about what you are saying. With these figures, MS could have shipped 10,000 faulty boxen, and Nintendo 100, and they'd still be both under 1%. The only difference is that one has a 1 in 100 chance of failing, which isn't good odds in anyones book, anti-MS fud or not.
...but the most comfortable controller I have ever used was the sleek little 6-button controller for the Sega CD.
It would have been nice to see that design brought to life in the PS2 as an optional controller.
--
This sig intentionally left blank
A 1.3% problem rate for customer service is pretty damn good, and much better than what some companies I've been invloved with consider an acceptable rate. Just like the delivered product, there are bound to be failures in service. Restaraunts try to deliver a meal the same way each time it's served, but sometimes the steak is overcooked, and every now and then a ride is down at Six Flags. Get over it. Mistakes happen.
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Xbox community when recently IDC confirmed that Xbox accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all consoles. Coming on the heels of the latest Credit Suisse First Bank survey which plainly states that Xbox has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Xbox's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Xbox faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Xbox because Xbox is dying. Things are looking very bad for Xbox. As many of us are already aware, Xbox continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Credit Suisse First Bank has released the latest sales report on video game hardware sales for the pre-Christmas week between December 16 to 22. Sony has sold another 596,000 units of PlayStation 2 during the week, pushing the installed base to 6.6 million units in North America. During the same week XBox has sold 165,000 units and GameCube has sold 259,000 units. For the handheld market, Nintendo has sold a total of 639,000 units of GameBoy Advance, pushing the installed based to 4.6 millions.
The number of defects means nothing, the poor customer service means nothing, as long as Microsoft is allowed to use it's Monopoly power to force sales in new markets. Get used to it, this is the time of monoplies and giant powerful corporations and when either type goes belly up, such as ENRON and destroys thousands of Americans lives, just forget which politicians helped make these giant corporations so powerful. Without a stong DOJ enforcing anti trust laws people are stuck with whatever they can get, just go on, wave your flag and be happy, but don't ever question what they are doing because that is unpatriotic and helping the enemy....
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
Big deal.
What a petty, pointless story. I think my slashdot reading days are over.
Can anybody recommend any other sites that cover similar tech and science stories without the childish stories and comments here? and without the boring Linux/open source stuff too. I've always thought they sat uneasily together: Stories on cutting edge science, followed by story about an open source team managing to release a basic spreadsheet or something. I'm interested in software if it is new and interesting, not because of it's development philosophy.
Yeah...so? Why would they handle it in-house?
How many manufacturers handle customer support in-house again?
i've had a gamecube since christmas and it's froze up twice on me. this is the first time i've ever had a video game console "crash". i've been expecting to hear something about gamecube having defects but as of yet, haven't seen anything. has anyone else had trouble with their gamecubes?
...if you are a "true" gamer you'll choose one side of the console war (unless you can't afford it, and I barely can). I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, but I see the XBox having great potential (and hopefully some great games). I know for a fact that both the XBox and the Gamecube are going to have games that I'll want to play, and choosing one over the other just wouldn't be fair to me. ;) I have my complaints about both systems, but who doesn't?
/., of course))?
On the subject of the XBox being defective and having poor customer service, I wonder if this is a normal thing for consoles (1% or so being defective)? Maybe we don't hear about the Gamecubes and the Playstations because they aren't Microsoft (and not as big of a "target" either (and this is
proton != antielectron
People have already done the math on the statistics, and have found that this is basically a non-news story.
So why IS it a news story? On CNN, no less?
Karma, baby. You don't pull the shit that Microsoft has pulled and expect to get away with it. You won't hear the complaints if the PS2 or NGC approach this level of failure rate coupled with poor customer service.
(I guess it doesn't hurt that CNN and MSNBC are rival networks, either.)
-------------------------------------------------
charlton heston is more of a man than yo
to just give the 200 people that had problems a new video console if it is going to take more than about a week to fix the problem?
A lot less expensive than the bad publicity that they are getting.
Hell, giving these 200 people an all expensed paid trip to Hawaii would be cheaper than this report is going to cost them.
And this is cnn saying that XBox support is crap.
Maybe MS saved money on the consulting from these firms because the firms have had poor track records in the past.
DNFTLinuxTroll
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
The main reason X-Box support ranks so low right now is that it is outsourced to Harte-Hanks in Austin. Believe me, I've worked there. Despite the best intentions of the companies that hire them, somewhere down the overly deep trail of managers, the intentions get twisted into "screw the customer."
The employees are undertrained high school students, college students, and poor saps like me who just couldn't find anything better at the time. Since management is never very forthcoming with information, and eventually, a phone tech gets tired of having to dig for information that should be readily available. So we give up, we lose any joy in our jobs, and the customer loses any hope of decent support. Welcome to the outsourced call center.
In fact, having worked the Sega account there, I can sqarely place a large chunk of the blame for death of the Dreamcast on Harte-Hanks. As much as I dislike Microsoft's general business practices, the XBox is still a very nice system and I'd hate to see HH kill it, too.
IBM outsourced DOS out to a small company called Microsoft.
I don't doubt this happened at all. Sony is about as bad at support at MS is. Which is why I will *never* buy a Sony laptop, because a friend of mine did....
He bought a Sony laptop which has problems with MS XP. So I helped him flash his BIOS, still problems with XP. We even tried installing ME on it, but Sony has no drivers for his laptop with ME, and has stated they had no intentions of producing drivers for users with *older* VAIOs to upgrade to newer OSes.
Sonys support line boasted a broken link so now I understood his tremendous frustration level. So armed with a boatload of documentation on this issue, I went with him to Best Buy, and they let him exchange his VAIO for other hardware matching the price of the laptop. The magic words that resonated with Best Buys manager where: "Hey man he just wants to play games on his laptop". So I helped him pick out a HP desktop (No Compaqs or eMachines nosirreebob), and a boatload of hardware, all equalling the price of that crappy laptop.
Sony wants to lock you into proprietary firewire and audio hardware, and hang you out to dry after they get your $.
This sig is taken
No shit. Thank you.
... in the UK anyway. Instead of trying to argue with the store or ship it back to them, you can actually take it to one of the Sony repair centres (located in quite a few towns and cities). They'll fix it right up for you, and if it doesn't work they'll order a replacement for you. None of this ship it back to them garbage.
Sykes is laying off and consolidating right now.
http://www.crmdaily.com/perl/story/6574.html
Wonder if that has impacted their XBox support? Could be just a temporary blip while they get their support staff realigned.
That would make it "Several weeks", just. Although an X-Box is a little pricey for a Hanukkah gift. :-)
I'm the stranger...posting to
Recently, as of last November, they implemented a new policy for exchanges.
Basically, they will do no business with you without the sales receipt. Even if an item is defective and you want to exchange it, you can't without the receipt. (This sucks if you got something as a present, and the gift-giver lives out of town! This happened to me.)
Furthermore, they do absolutely no exchanges after 90 days, and if something goes on clearance in the meantime, you will only get the clearance price, not the price you paid.
Target's customer service totally sucks, and would be the last place I buy something now. Especially electronics!
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
>Why the xbox will die. Facts and reasons. (Score:0, Troll)
>by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06, @04:03AM (#2793183)
>The xbox has ONE game in the top ten. ONE! Even Harry Potter for the
>PS1 is doing better than Halo! Halo was suposed to make kids drop
>eveything and jump on the xbox. The kids did not care as much as ms
>hoped.
It only proves that the brain-dead PC Gamers that designed and were/are hyping the XBox don't understand the Console Game Market. There really isn't a whole lot of interest in Quake/Halo type games and gaming in the Console market. Notice the reaction to Halo from the *REAL* Console gamers. It was basically *SO WHAT?*
It is badly made and franky, it shows. I think it was outsourced in Mexico and to be honest, Mexico is not the center the of world as far as high quality standards go.
There was an article in Wired a few months ago about Flextronic (I think)--the company that does the actual building of the Xbox. These guys are all about quality. The people working in their plant are not the same quality of people putting together your VW. Don't get images of Juan Valdex\z in a sombrero putting PIIIs into Xboxes burned into your retinas. They employ skilled labor. Flextronic is all about maximizing value. If they can build a plant in Mexico and hire the same caliber of workers for less money and get the same quality, they're going to build the plant in Mexico. The Xbox isn't their only product either.
Go to the library and look back a few months in Wired. It was the cover article.
--Mike
Outsourcing houses can shrink like crazy, even if one or two projects within the company are growing explosively. At the moment, pretty much everybody in that business is shrinking, mostly because of a shrinking number of clients and new endeavors to replace the businesses that went bust over the past 18 months. Xbox is probably one of a very few bright stars on Sykes' horizon. The Xbox project is probably benefiting from the shrinkage in other projects (all their best people will be xferred to xbox instead of getting canned).
It works like this: If you have clients, you fill as many seats as your client will pay for, you cannot lose money on that. If your client wants X number of people on the phone, you put them there, or your contract will bite you in the ass.
If you still must shave staff, you take them from middle management, not people your client pays you for. The guys on the phone are "revenue-producing." The supervisors and the managers are "non-revenue producing."
One thing that's certainly happening right now is that none of their support staff is experienced. How can they be? The things just started rolling off the lines a few weeks ago, when their staffers were out looking for work. Since we are talking about outsourcing here, we are not talking about highly-paid technical staff. Usually a client will specify a minimum rate of pay for new hires, and I guarantee it's no more than $12 an hour, possibly as low as $8. There's a fair number of bright, technically-adept people who will work for that pay, but the vast majority of applicants are not those people! Guess who gets hired? Well, if a project has a tight deadline, everybody,, because if the seats aren't filled to the client's quota when the date arrives, you lose big. The real incompetents, the ones who make you scream and tear your hair out when you get 'em on the phone, tend to weed themselves out over time.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Imagine 5 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. Odds are slashdot is closed down. Odds are slashdot is taken over by another news for nerd website created in China. But the slashdot culture will never die. First prost, goatse, Turd Report, Klerck page lengthening prost, Taco Snotting. They will forever live in the hearts of all the nerds. When history books are talking about history of computer, they will always start with "First prost". When CmdrTaco becomes an old grandpa and tells stories to his 5 years old grandson, he will always start with "First prost". Yes, you can find serious discussion on Kuro5hin, CNN discussion forums, ezboard, Yahoo groups, but they will be forgotten by people as time goes on. Why? Because they are "yet another serious discussion forum", they are faceless, they don't have a culture to represent them. Only slashdot will be remembered, because slashdot have a unique troll culture that distinguished itself from other forums, identified by First prost, Turd Report, Klerck, Taco Snotting, goatse, etc.
So remember, never, ever, again, call a first prost redundant.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Mexico that prevents quality. "Made in Japan" used to mean junk, then Korea, then Taiwan, and with each turn the cycle has grown shorter. Globalization is not my favorite thing, and there are plenty of reasons I'd rather see the Xbox made in the US, but globalization has helped in the area of global quality standards. If you want to implement quality, you can do so, anywhere.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Actually, I rented HALO last night and me and my room mate played it for 5 hours straight and didn't even realize it! HALO IS that good. And I love my XBOX... so :p ;)
Must... clear... mind of... Rowdy Roddy Piper's... bad acting... argghhhh!
In your vast wisdom, surely you know about the ability to not show stories that belong in categories you don't like. Even if you don't, you ought to know how to skim the front page and not read stuff that doesn't interest you.
Why, then, are you deliberately reading articles that you know you won't like, and then whining about them? You must either have some grudge against Slashdot, or just have nothing better to do with your life. No matter - the new system just came out, and now we won't have to see you whine any longer. Take your bellyaching to one of the IDG websites. You don't want us, and we sure don't want you.
Get off my launchpad!
Some US State have laws which require this, some don't and there's variations for those that do.
if something breaks, you take it back to the place you got it, thats who your deal is with.
The sad part here is, in the rush to get these things people have thrown by the wayside the wisdom of choosing your merchant. I'm usually careful about buying medium ticket items (>$100) and will steer clear of merchants which do not have liberal returns policies.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
a buddy of mine is the manager of The Game Stop (aka Babbages). he told us when we purchased ours (1st release day) that MS wanted all returns to go thourgh their contracted companies. His store (the most active store in Houston) was providing customers with this same info.
:-)
not sure what would happen if an angry customer came in and demanded a new unit within 30 days, but i do know he was told to refuse giving out his stock as replacements.
his MS rep told him there were two reasons for this:
1) giving out a new unit in exchange would lower the Xbox's launch sell total. MS was adamant that they would sell all 1.5 million units pre Dec 31st.
2) MS wanted to be able to tightly manage returns - which it has greater control over when owners ship their defected units to centralized locations.
sounds like the contracted company that MS chose sucked. guess i was fortunate...mines been playing 3-5 hours a day for the whole time!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Why is this unreasonable? Why should they exchange merchandise purchased at other stores? *ahem* Of course, you wouldn't do that, but others would.
Just about all large companies will outsource their call centre-based customer service to companies set up to do just this sort of thing. It's unfortunate because it seems that no 1-800 number you call will ever be able to answer an advanced question.
Call centres are just sweatshops full of min-wagers who can usually only dole out information from FAQ lists they are given about their products.
"Thank you for calling Colgate, this is Kevin, how can I help you?"
"I was calling about my Xbox, actually."
"That's odd, you came in on my Colgate line. Hold for just a moment please. (long wait) OK, I spoke to my supervisor, he says this call definitely came in on the Colgate line. What number did you call?"
"Look, I just have a question about my Xbox, can you help me or not?"
"Oh, OK... let's see... here we are. What's the problem?"
"My hard disk is making a chattering noise and I was wondering if that's normal."
"OK, well I see if you try to raise the back of the bed too far past its maximum position it will start to make a chattering noise, is this what's happening?"
"Huh?"
"Oh, wait, sorry... I clicked Xbox on my computer, and it took me to Sleep-O-Matic! Hold for just a moment (long pause) OK, I spoke to my supervisor, and I definitely clicked on Xbox."
"Right, but can you help me with my Xbox?"
"Well, I'm trying... I can't bring the screen up."
"Oh, OK... let's see. What database are you running?"
"One moment... [long pause] OK my supervisor got me into Xbox. How can I help you?"
"Hard disk chattering."
"Oh yeah right. It says here that if you're playing 'Space Zombies' it's normal for Zog's entourage to make a hi-pitched chattering sound. Double check for me and make sure that's not what you're hearing."
"That's not what I'm hearing."
"OK, it also says that if Zog's entourage doesn't make the chattering sound, you probably have an audio connection problem, could you please check to make sure it's properly connected to your TV?"
<Click>
"Hello? Hello? Hmm, that's odd. Oh well... Thank you for calling Colgate, this is Kevin, how can I help you?"
Wow! Actually think about what you said.
MS is going to make up money on free support. Really think about what you said.
Thank about what you said. Damn its stupid.
You think MS does not make profit selling consoles. Selling a product which does not work does not make you money? Think a about it. If it does not work thats because you did not put any work into it, and yet you are charging a full price for it.The console may be sold at a loss but MS is going to make up the money SOME how.
And there you are. Thinking MS is a charitable company. Laugh. How stupid can you be?
Rod.
Since when do you need support for a console? From my first 2600 to my current PlayStation, all that was necissary to play it was connecting the cables correctly (it's almost impossible to connect them incorrectly), drop in the game and turn the thing on.
Leave it to Microsoft to create an entire new industry just by entering a new market.
second society
The category was games - not we've got an inferiority complex about microsoft category.
I don't think I was whining. Just a bit disapointed that the story was obviously a bit lame and that in general the editorial standards seem to be getting worse.
>>'You don't want us, and we sure don't want you.'
A bit harsh. As I said I like the science and tech stories and sometimes the comments they generate. The line implies that you view Slashdot as an exclusive community for people like you. Which is sad.
Less than 1%? In Microspeak, that means .0099, right? So, at that defect rate, you get over 9,306 (not 93) broken boxes out of 940,000.
Basically, they will do no business with you without the sales receipt.
Why is this unreasonable? Why should they exchange merchandise purchased at other stores? *ahem* Of course, you wouldn't do that, but others would.
Because some of us misplace receipts, or have family that replace receipts when giving as a gift. Or have family that live out of town giving gifts.
This happened to me: My mother bought me a shirt as a Christmas gift, which was one size too big. She made the purchase at Target. I wanted to exchange it for the exact same style of shirt with a different size. There was nothing wrong with the shirt that I brought back, and the shirt was obviously purchased from the store. They refused the exchange without a receipt, and my mother had to make the 1-hour trip to bring me the receipt.
I know there are a few people out there that try to defraud retail stores, but I think the percentage is pretty small, and the store writes it off. (It's a tax break!) It doesn't seem worth it to hassle customers this way.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
I bought a cheap ($400) blowout IBM PC from Egghead to play around with. It was really flat, so in order to get full height PCI cards into it, I had to cut two long slots into the case. About 2 days later it died completely. Called IBM, they sent a technician over. Anyone else would have seen the holes in the case and gone home. But this guy tried some stuff, determined it was a bad CPU and had me a new one in two days. Frankly I was amazed. On a $340 PC no less.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Works fine as well.
The unsaid side of the story is that there were 1 percent (or more) returns of this product in the first few days of release. It is supposedly a game console but it has a HARD DRIVE. It also runs a version of Windows. It doesn't take a quantum leap in thinking to realize that either the hard drive will eventually fail or Winblows itself will commit suicide. You would have been better off going into your bathroom, tossing your cash into your toilet, and flushing it!
Coincidentally enough, we had a $50 cap this year. We can't afford anything else.
-Legion
It may suck for all you Linux lovers to have to admit this, but Micro$oft put togther a nice machine in the XBOX.
Actually, the two are totally unrelated. I am very pro-Linux on the desktop, because in my opinion it is a superior OS to Windows, and because MS has a monopoly their (I don't like monopolies). However, MS doesn't have a monopoly in the console world, far from it. So in that sense it really is the outsider in that very different market. So there really is no reason why a Linux "lover" couldn't or shouldn't own an Xbox.
Anyway, I'm getting an Xbox + Halo next week and playing it on the internet through my Linux LAN, proof that the two can coexist... Also, I may try one day to put Linux on my Xbox (when it will be reasonably safe to do so... it's still quite an expensive toy to mess around with).
Reminder: find a new sig
I'd really like to watch my Aliens: Special Edition disc.
California law requires California law requires in-state repair capability. Otherwise, the retailer has to honor the warranty. The retailer always has warranty liability in California unless they put "AS-IS" or "WITH ALL FAULTS" on the product where you can see it before the sale, like used cars.
...and won't for a few weeks. My XBOX stopped reading game discs. It said it was not an XBOX game or it was dirty. 2 of my games were brand new, so that wasn't the case. I called XBOX support, after navigating through the menu (maybe 4 buttons) I spoke with someone immediately. He told me something I could try that might fix it. I tried, it didn't, so he mailed me a box. I sent the unit off Dec. 27th and got it back Dec. 31st. It works great now. And I'm satisfied with the support.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Silly me accidently left the XBox on for about four days after watching a DVD. Looked at the console and noticed that the green light was on. Turned the TV to component-video and it was still chugging the DVD's main menu, complete with animations.
The first one I got didn't work. The little green ring flashed orange/red instead. I could eject and insert DVDs, but nothing much happened. Orange/red wasn't listed in the error codes section of the manual, so I have no idea what was actually wrong.
Fortunately, I had bought an extended warranty on it, because of the hard drive. I almost never buy those, but in this case I did. Circuit City tried to tell me to call Microsoft but I got rather upset about that; the warranty I'd bought said that THEY handled it, not Microsoft. So after a minute or two they backed off. They didn't have any in stock, but they held one for me out of the next shipment and I returned it then.
New one works great. Halo is awesome, particularly on component video! It really makes the PS2 games, even the new great ones, look kinda pale and low-tech in comparison. I'm not a religious zealot: I have all three consoles. PS2 has the best games right now, but XBox looks far better than either of the other two. Given some time to develop I suspect it is the strongest of the three. I just wish the controllers were a little smaller. I prefer the ones on the GC.
And Halo really needed a mouse; crippling it to work on the dual-analog sticks was a real shame. I hate when politics ("The Xbox is not a PC!") gets in the way of the best solution.
If this is what is happining with a hardware device, which may have spiratic errors in the manufacturing process,imagine the posibilities when people are relying on microsoft support for software as a service.
I'm not waxing poetic about the usual tin- foil-hat-wearing anti-microsoft-troll-zelot spiel; this is a pragmatic consiteration when one consiters all the intermediate problems involved with providing any type of service -- especialy one where consumer computing is involved. What incentive is there for end users to intrust all their data to the transient conditions of network conditions, improper interactions with the computer, and administrative error?
If one knows the internal support mechnisims used to support the needs of traditional network (and comutational/computer) apilications, one can just barely fantom the resouces required to faciliate an application -- say an application like "Word" -- for the entire world. Even with curret conditions, people are on hold for excessive dirations of time, and -- when they do get a support represenitive -- support personal at level X can only spend X number (because they have a quota on number of calls/day); if the problem is to taxing, the ticket will simply be put in a diffrent queue, and delt with in due time.
With all that given, is microsoft going to entice end users into embrasing the idea of software as a service, if they have proven that they don't have the support mechinisms in place to deal with the problems in their current markets? Will "dammit bluescreen" simply be eclipsed by, "'subscription lapsed, call sales...' but I just paied them yesterday!"
What's the point of this stupid stat on the number of people killed in the Middle-East. The number of people killed has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong in a conflict. Japan lost many more troops and civilians than the US during WW2 in the Pacific but there were the aggressors.
Welcome to the world of the corporate Christmas.
Why deal with customer service - after a long wait, you've now got a 'repaired' Xbox, that might have other stuff wrong with it.
I know if I got a bad one that failed 2 weeks after I bought it, I wouldn't bother calling Microsoft, I'd got straight back to Best Buy or Circuit City.
arg... another response far too low to ever be read
At any rate, I'm surprised that bad customer support would be MS's big X-box problem. Being a Nintendo fan, I can count offhand like a dozen random little issues with the X-Box hardware that theoretically could have gone severely wrong, but I didn't give a second thought to customer service.
So, is this the O-Ring in the X-Box space shuttle? Probably not... had they been marketed toward kids, bad customer support could have been tragic. I'm sure it will prevent the sale of say, one, maybe two X-Box units worldwide. It just surprises me b/c MS was always so nice whenever I needed tech support for my illegally bootlegged copy of MSDN.... I mean... legal.. yes..... I buy MS products..... really.
and my mother had to make the 1-hour trip to bring me the receipt.
What, she doesn't know how to use a mailbox and/or can't spare a 34 cent stamp?
Something in my xbox dvd drive or the software that drives the dvd is defective. It is highly prone to claiming that it can't read the dvd because it doesn't wait long enough for the dvd to spin up. If I leave a game in the xbox dvd drive, it will always fail to recognize the game when I turn the xbox on. If I open and close the dvd tray, it is more likely to read the dvd correctly when I close the dvd tray with the button rather than by pushing the tray shut. So everytime I want to play a game, I have to turn the xbox on, and then repeatedly open and shut the dvd tray until it finally reads the dvd.
Does anyone else have this problem?
It is a festival that is determined by the lunar calendar.As lunar months are shorter than solar months, the Muslim lunar year is shorter than the western solar year by about 11 days. Ramadan thus occurs about 11 days earlier each year and can thus occur at all times of the year.
When I was in Morocco about 13 years ago, it was in about April. 13 years later year, Ramadan is about 11 x 13 = 143 days earlier, or November-December, which is where it was last year.
http://www.colostate.edu/Orgs/MSA/events/Ramadan.h tml has some basic details.
In my family (don't know about others, sorry), $200 is usually the cap for total money spent on gifts per person.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you've ever read "Only the Paranoid Survive" by Mr. Groves you'll remember he talks about much the same problem at the launch of their "Intel Inside" campaign. Ordinary consumers who were buying PCs began calling Intel for support. They were *not* ready to handle support to everyday non-technical people. Intel thought for sure the people would call compaq or dell or whoever, but some cusomters like going all the way to the top. So much so that Intel had to totally re-vamp its customer support structure. It looks like the same thing is happening to MS. Sure MS has been selling computers and software to people for a long time, but I would suggest that the cross-section of people who buy consoles is slightly different from those who buy OFFICE or even use a PC for that matter...
Electronics Boutique is the same way. I lost my receipt, my Playstation2 died, and I was up shit creek without a paddle. By the time I found the receipt 30 days were up and Sony was responsible a that point. A Sony rep told me 'oh your dvd remote probably broke your ps2' which is completely ridiculous but that was the best I could get, call after call. Sony sucks ass. Offering a 90 day warranty on the PS2 compared to an equally valuable Sony stereo with a 1 year warranty? Sony can kiss my hairy white ass.
Yeah, this may be off-topic, but think about it...
I got a karma point anyway, true or not.
Dont know about microsoft, but Sony and Nintendo both require you to scan the serial number of the unit when you buy the unit. Therefore they know when it was sold (call for service, they know it was purchased in February, instead of the yesterday you just told them) and the stores themselves can see if they even sold it or not.
Hiring harte-hanks is the corporate equivalent of saying "We don't give a F***"
During my time there, my MANAGER told me that if a company really cared they wouldn't have hired the firm.
They're somebody you hire when you want to say you have a call center, but don't care if anything is actually accomplished by it.
One of the accounts I worked for was the warranty number of a defective tape measure that was being sold by Sears. Our job was to essentially tell them that unless the rivets had come out of the little metal tab that was attached to the tape measure itself, it wasn't covered by the warranty.
The case fell apart during the first day of use? Too Bad.
The spring that recoils the tape broke when you opened the package? Too Bad.
The tape broke when you uncoiled it for the first time? Too Bad.
And don't get me started on how they distribute "Information." Fuzzy photocopies thumbtacked to the cubicle walls.
The training session consisted of a video on how to handle brokerage calls. Nothing to do with our jobs, but it was "phone etiquette" training.
They also placed a lot of outgoing telemarketing calls. While I was there I made sure to put myself on all of their "Do Not Call" and "Do Not Mail" lists.
We were also told not to put someone on the "Do Not Call" list until they asked to be removed for the second time in the conversation.
I made the mistake of getting my manager when a caller wanted to "speak to the manger." I got chewed out for 20 minutes after the call. Apparently, you're supposed to hand the call to whoever is in the next cubicle and they become your "manager" for the duration of the call. This is to save the real managers time. I was once "Fired" by the girl next to me for the way I'd handled the call. After the caller hung up she and I had a good laugh at my "unemployed" status.
I'm now VERY glad I got a PS2 today. Now that I know harte-hanks is handling the calls, I know Microsoft doesn't care about providing service to ANYONE who buys the product. "Ship it and forget it."
www.matthewmiller.net
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
That is probably because getting good service from most tech support departments is alot like a lottery. You hope you get the right spot in the call queue and don't have someone who is either a. asleep at the wheel
b. realizes they are in a shit job
c. Has no wheel to be asleep at
d. has dealt with too many shitty customers that day and just feels like being a dick to you
e. you are one of the shitty customers (see d)
Most times I call tech support for and get bad service, I call right back, go through the whole process again and am satisfied.
Anyone would think half the people here were emotionally attached to their choice of OS.
GROW UP AND GET A LIFE
Sure MS suck, but childish Linux nuts suck more. and fortunatly for MS, there are hell of a lot of childish Linux nuts.
Microsoft sales and marketing director John O'Rourke said fewer than 1 percent of the consoles have proven faulty. Analysts say that's in line with the industry standard, and competitor Nintendo reported a comparable rate for its new GameCube.
... and it's nothing that Nintendo isn't dealing with ... and it's typical bashing of a Microsoft product for the sake of bashing a Microsoft product. A couple hundred out of 1.5 million is pretty damn good if you ask me. Why don't they release the statistics about how many kids dropped them on the way to their bedrooms, and how many soccer moms tossed the xbox package into the back of their minivans on the way home from the mall?
So it's nothing different than usual
I started my Taurus up during an Upper Michigan cold snap, put it into Drive, and the transmission OverDrive light started blinking at me. I parked the car, switched the motor off, restarted, put it into Drive, and no more blinking (procedure sound familiar?).
This happened before, and the guys at the Ford place scuffed their feet about wanting to trouble shoot this (does the car shift OK? Is the light still on. Welll, we could run a diagnostic but we are kind of busy right now, and if the car runs OK . . . ).
Maybe it was a firmware problem (transmission has its own computer) or maybe a mechanical problem --something got hung up and the computer logged a trouble code.
But this thing about firmware burping probably happens more often than we think. I was on a plane to Germany that got delayed 2 hours in Chicago -- the Captain spoke of a ``computer glitch'' and they had to pump all of their gas out and pump it in again to know how much they have (big jets don't have a gas gauge -- it is all done with fuel flow meters -- they measure how much the pump in (just like buying gas by the gallon), how much they pump out into the engines (the same kind of flow meter as on a gas pump).
So this FLIGHT CONTROL computer burps and we have to sit on the ground pumping gas in and out. Jerry Pournelle's Web site had some Air Force guy talking about F-15 avionics burping all the time and the various levels of reset available to the pilot.
As embedded systems get more complex, the Blue Screen is not just for Windows anymore.
Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2? I prefer too play games, not *watch* them, Thank You very much! PS. FFVII is one of my favorite console games. I started playing NES from the original, but no FF game afterwords had the great characters or theme FF7 had that made the FF series.
True true... The only problem is that the next tech can see that you have called back right away and may wonder what is going on (maybe you are e). Where I work (no not Microsoft) all calls are date and time stamped in the database. If you get a repeat caller for what looks like a good solution you may wonder what is going on. Of course as a tech if you see the case notes that the previous tech was a) then well I suppose a good solution is warranted. I can attest though that some of us suck and some are very good.
M$, we don't make things, we make them suck.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I rented Halo during christmas and played 4 player deathmatch with my cousins. We were all addicted to this game, it was so much fun!! I have never enjoyed SNES or N64 games before...those stupid brainless mario brothers type games annoy me. I prefer Halo and games like it. another good game is Madden 2002. Xbox rocks
This is completely bogus. It was the truck driver who was found dead, and this happened more than one year ago
Before Christmas, the twelve-year-old crowd in the neighborhood was talking about the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube with no big proportion going to any single platform.
Now that the big day has passed and a lucky few have collected, the crowd has had a chance to congregate and drool over each and the talk of the neighborhood is:
The PS2?
I don't get it. It's been out a year, right? But that's the one the crowd want, including the twins whose parents purchased an Xbox. (I gather their Xbox plays for less than an hour and freezes up and tech support has been less than helpful).
Anyway, the slightly pre-teen buzz round here is for the PS2. I don't know if that's the demographic Microsoft wanted, but if they were aiming for it they missed.
... so I could buy two GameCubes. :)
My friend bought a GC a couple of weeks ago - the system works fine, but the rumble feature stopped working on the pad that came bundled with the system. He brought it (the pad) back to Wal-mart and they replaced it, no arguements.
When I feel excessive heat or hear excessive noise come from my PC, I can open the S.O.B. and fix it. But that would void my XBox warranty, on a device that is meant to be built right the first time. That is, after all, the advantage of consoles: NO UPGRADE HEADACHES
Maybe if all those people had just LISTENED to M$ and went to http://xboxupdate.microsoft.com and downloaded the newest drivers...
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
I do not know where you get your info but gamecube is third in the race and trying to make up for the failed N64. Xbox and PS2 are the top two units sold. I have played both systems, and while both are good systems, the xbox is just so much better in my opinion. I have had zerro problems and do not have to use those blasted memory units.
I am glad I have a PS2 since the Xbox seems to have so problems.