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Getting All 1,700 Parts of the Xbox 360 to Market

Posted by Zonk on from the complicated-process dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Microsoft is hoping its Xbox 360 will further the company's goal to 'link the Web and entertainment of all forms in consumers' living rooms,' the Wall Street Journal reports, but 'one manufacturing misstep -- a shortage of graphics chips or a recalled hard drive -- could derail those ambitions and drag Microsoft's unprofitable videogame business even deeper into the red.' The WSJ traces the 1,700 parts that go into the device through the supply chain -- from two southern China factories, Rotterdam, and on to Toledo, Memphis, and ultimately, retailers in the U.S. -- and looks at what could go wrong along the way."

6 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. "XBOX 360 DELAYED BY SHORTAGE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    OF #12 TORX SCREWS" sources at Micrsoft reveal...

  2. This is a first for the industry! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Most things are only made of one or two parts with a very simple supply chain. In fact, the computer industry's previous champion of complexity was the Apple Macintosh which consisted of only two parts: 1 mouse button, and 1 everything else.

  3. Re:Soundcard recall first, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Anyone without at least a Dolby 5.1 system is already used to hearing complete crap. They obviously don't care about sound, so mono is fine for them.

  4. No One Knows How To Make A Pencil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    The OP's reasoning exhibits a form of the fallacy of invalid decomposition by concluding that complexity mandates eventual failure. This is not so for self-repairing systems such as economies where, should one component fails, another steps into the gap.

    This fallacy is revealed in I, Pencil - My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read which explains that while not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make a pencil , pencils nonetheless exist in abundance.

    The Reality of Markets by Russell Roberts speaks of "phenomena that are the product of human action but not of human design": examples include language, economies and the WWW, all which work with neither oversight nor designer.

    In contrast many designed systems (CORBA, The Semantic Web, RDF, Ontologies) remain stunted and show little progress. Clay Shirky's writings: Web Services: It's So Crazy, It Just Might Not Work and The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview provide illuminating insight into why.

  5. Re:And a Toyota Prius has how many parts? by yurivish · · Score: 1, Funny

    "For that matter, how many "parts" does Windows XP have, and how is Microsoft managing to make sure they all work?" They don't.

  6. Re:Speaking of bieng in the red... by Basehart · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I pick mine up in two days. Christ, I'm so excited."

    Like Christ gives a fuck!