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Microsoft Reveals 360 Shortage Reason
Matt writes "In a recent interview Steve Ballmer has been quoted as saying that the shortages everyone is experiencing are simply down to lack of chips because of low yields - they even considered delaying the launch because of it. In the end they decided to push on and just try and get as many consoles out there as possible." From the article: "Repeating the company's official line on the shortage crisis, which is now threatening to entirely undo Microsoft's attempts to win the next generation war, Ballmer said, 'We are making more. All stores are getting new units each week. Can we make as many as people want? The answer is no, but not because we don't want to.'"
So instead of waiting until the Christmas-ish time to make everyone's gaming season merry and bright, they decided to tease us with a mediocre launch of a paltry sum of systems? Some of which were even admittedly defective, and still haven't been replaced.
It's not the open-source geek in me that says this, but as someone who has seen good and bad marketing: I can't buy that story. They want to keep the problems to a controlled population so they don't have to pull a massive recall across the nation. The thing that I can't quite get is why they did this for hype (which I'm still convinced of, until intelligently rebuked) when they could have waited a little longer to make everything go smoothly. They still would have been several months ahead of Sony.
This is why I never buy new systems until at least 6 months after release. I'll let everyone else go through the beta-testing machines and titles before I toss a few hundred dollars into something that could end up sucking for another few years. (and that goes equally for Sony and Nintendo)
Perfecting Discordia
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The picture of Ballmer in that article is priceless: all he needs is a shiny helmet and a big picture of the Bill "Our Undying Leader" Gates projected on the screen behind him. :)
That and electricity arcing between his outstretched hands as he creepily intones "De. Velop. Ers."
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
As I remember, the PS2 had its lower release number due to the complete meltdown of a chip forging plant. Yet Sony, by producing its own hardware, had enough in backup store in order to at least satiate a heathly part of consumer demand.
Ravenous demand is great if you can push your product out the door to feed the slobbering consumer zombies. How many parents are going to buy their kids $400-$600 giftcards so they can pick up the box later? I'll save myself by not wagering a guess, but my own experience is that kids want something to open and play with on Christmas, not the promise of getting something, and then maybe not even before they get back to school starting. This is not a debate on the merits of the system itself, but a revelation once again of how the marketing/finance departments simply don't communicate with the nuts and bolts guys. A bad situation just got worse.
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
Lets see here....
Who is making the chips???
IBM? Correct?
Think this is IBM's way of getting back at M$ for buying "licenses" from SCO?
Actually, I was just thinking, "Microsoft is now seeing why Jobs decided to drop IBM for Intel. Looks like the X-Box changed platforms in the wrong direction."
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
MS wanted to release this season so they could capitalize on having the Xmas season all to themselves and jump on as much early marketshare as possible in the next-gen console wars. Next Xmas will be too late. All three consoles will be available and it will be a free-for-all at retail. Thier window of mega-opportunity is right now, and they are failing to maximize on it.
Now the $500 purchases that would have gone to MS are now being spent on other gifts (not necessarily console related) and come January, people are going to be worrying about paying off holiday bills, not spending even more. How much in sales, and more importantly marketshare, have they thrown right out the window simply by not having an adequate supply?
Microsoft is all about ubiquity, not scarity. Having consumers not being able to buy however much MS product whenever they want is totally counter to thier MO. The admission by Ballmer about poor yields as quite telling. Publicly, they are disappointed. Behind the scenes, they are probably furious and ready to vomit with rage. The supply issues may not be thier fault, but that doesnt lessen the damage...
Preface: I love the PowerPC.
Okay, so, Microsoft is having problems getting chips. Don't know exactly which chips, but I'm going to make an educated guess and say it's those spiffy new powerpc chips.
Sorta makes Steve Jobs look somewhat less irrational, doesn't it? If Microsoft can't get all the chips it needs for something they're spending billions on, how on earth is Apple expected to?
That being said, I wish somebody- Motorola, IBM, whomever- had gotten their act together and come out with PowerPC chips that could compete in the (irrational) battleground that Intel laid out.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
One issue may be that they can't bin the cores or GPUs.
(For those unfamiliar with binning: With your general-purpose parts, any chip that can't run at, say, 2.4GHz gets tested at 2.2GHz. If it passes at that speed, it gets labeled "2200" instead of "2400", and doesn't go to waste. The only chips that are completely rejected are the ones that can't pass at the minimum spec'd speed.)
In the case of a game console, there's no "range" of chip speeds. There is one fixed target clock speed, so the final test is a strict pass/fail.
The typical pattern for a new chip design is for the lower clock speed parts to arrive first. It takes a while for the fabs to work out the kinks that keep the top-speed yields low. Since the X360's core and GPU chips are custom designs, it's no surprise that it's taking a while to ramp up production.
It's easy to pick on Microsoft, especially in these here parts, but look at the evidence. Overheating power supplies, low chip yields, Perfect Dark Zero discs being pressed before the game was certified...
"Deadline or Bust" == Bust.
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Yes, that's right. We all rely on Microsoft and Intel for serious business. IBM is just for games.
Who stole my freakin' reality!?!?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.