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Should Companies Delay Products for More Features?
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece looking at if it makes sense for companies such as Sony to delay the release of products to ensure that when they do come out they are absolutely top of the line. From the article: 'In the tech world, where consumer trends can rise and fall and product cycles are short, that's more often the exception than the rule. The penalty for a delay can be severe -- even catastrophic. One of the biggest risks in postponing a product launch is being out-hustled to market by rivals.'"
Should Companies Delay Products for More Features?
:-)
Companies should release products when they are *done*. This means that they define a set of parameters they want to meet and then complete them. Putting a product out in a date driven fashion is a sure fire way to release crap that you end up beta testing on your customers while trying to add in new features/technology results in version creep. Want to please your customers and get them to come back for your other products? Release a product when it is done and if you want to introduce new features, that is an incremental release.
*Disclaimer: This only works if you do not have a monopoly...
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
You just have to find the right balance.
Read the article and the real reason is plain as day:
"The main holdups were a copyright protection mechanism for the PS3's high-definition DVD player."
Yeah, right, top of the line cool features are delaying shipment. By the way, I have a bridge I want to sell you; and Vista is shipping this month!!
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
If a company can show sales figures at a particular time in the fiscal year, it may be more of an advantage over the lag in release date. It is a balancing act that is dancing between marketing promises, top line sales, etc. There is more to it that quality and features.
I gladly wait until it's done
If it wasn't for more features, we might actually have to care about the actual tech itself.
Isn't my Frogger mouse just the coolest thing ever? See how it matches the green case?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
they should delay until all the QA testing and debugging are done. Adding features to buggy products leads to Microsoft Windows-like products and no ends of pain for customers/users...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Purely by chance, this story breaks on the same page as the latest Duke Nukem Forever story...
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I will only buy games that incorporate the use of email!
I've been waiting so long it feels like Forever.
This explains Dunke Nukem Forever! They're just waiting for everything to be developed so they can implement it in!
Napalm is nature's toothpaste
No, you should just put the product out as soon as you can, get feedback and enhance the product.
:-)
Although, that maybe only works with open source. If you're selling it... it's much harder to judge.
Duke Nukem Forever is getting old. We need something new to make fun of for never being released. I want to see "OMG PONIES!" articles about the PS3 ten years from now.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
No matter what Sony or any other company does, someone is almost always going to come out with a better product after you release yours. Everybody knows that if you go out and spend top dollar to get a top of the line product, there is going to be something better in a month or so (depending on what product we're talking about). I don't see the point in waiting.
There is no correct answer to this question. If you put out a crappy product ahead of the competition, nobody will use it - look at the hordes of expansion packs that are released for every successful game. If you wait too long, everyone will have settled for what was available. The bottom line is that companies need to schedule a release date and meet it. If they can't get the product out the door with the original quality on the original timeline, somebody is not doing his job and the marketplace will reflect that.
Duke Nukem Forever Syndrome
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Bethesda is an example of a company that typically waits until everything is 'just right' before releasing.
The company rarely gives any public information about timelines, they simple say "It will be released when it is done". Which often includes many long delays, but when the product finally is released you can always count on getting your money's worth.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
In an industry where there is no originality, only evolution, having your competitor's product out before yours doesn't mean much. People will buy yours if it's better or has features they want. If you're making another XBox 360 but calling it Joe 180, it's your own fault. I for one wouldn't mind things slowing down some, more in software than hardware. Pay programmers not for the final product (or the nth iteration of the product), but for their work on it. Windows' backward compatibility and long next-version-time-to-market is probably the best thing going. Better than having to try to make your product for a particular version of Linux and then right 20 pages of documentation detailing how to get it to work with another version.
I don't see how this is truely a new problem. Feature creep has plagued the software development industry for decades. Considering that everyone wants thier new toaster to properly toast bread, bagels and muffins, the next logical step is of course: how can you bake cookies with it?
It's the marketing zombies that keep trying to one-up each other adding features and screwing up us programmers. There must be a limit placed on the madness. Get the thing working NOW, then worry about what you *can* do with it later.
-=- I tried going insane, and it was fun for a while, but I got bored and decided to go sane. -=-
That bluray copy protection thing keeps being trotted out, but it doesn't make any sense. The copy protection in bluray drives such as the one in the PS3 are upgradeable. They could have released the drive with incomplete bluray copy protection, and fixed that with an update later on. I think they just weren't ready to ship and used the copy protection thing as a flimsy excuse.
You can always make your product better by killing one feature.
This rule is recursive.
Better than having to try to make your product for a particular version of Linux and then right 20 pages of documentation detailing how to get it to work with another version.
This is FUD! You don't need to read the instructions to install programs - just 'emerge firefox', done! Could not be easier. Never had any problems, and everything works just fff#""!#%!"#%
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Delaying product release? Fine... But what a weird idea to release it top of the line and flawless...
- Microsuft
If you're asking yourself at the end of the development cycle if you really need some features, why have they survived the design phase?
This always comes down to the will of marketing vs the will of the developer; guess which group gets to work late into the evenings and weekends when a release is due? As for more features, it's usually a case of if you put in more features you'll introduce more bugs, before existing bugs are addressed.
Of course you can tag it 'Beta' and release it, ala http://.google.com/ projects!
fak3r.com
I wait until stuff is obsolete to get it.
Really.
You can get obsolete stuff (anything more than a year old now) for rock bottom prices and often you can pick it up off of trash piles for free.
I grabbed a really nice mf printer/scanner/copier off a trash pile the other day that works great, they even put the manuals inside. It was clean and in perfect working order. I guess they had to have the bleeding edge product of the week.
Works for me..
You can't imagine how much cool stuff I get out of trash piles and how much money I save. I wasn't born with the "trendy gene"..
Doesn't make sense to delay the release of a product to put more features in it, when you can just add them on later in the form of an expansion pack for a huge wad of more $$$!
The trick is to make it just good enough, so that people will want and buy it in the first place, but just incomplete enough as to make the expansion packs really worth getting to the point of being essential for complete fulfilment.
Best case in point that I can think of off the top of my head is Rollercoaster Tycoon. Good game (if you like that sort of thing), so definitely worth getting, but if you go back to the original after using the expansion pack(s), you'll realise just how limited the original was...
Perhaps, but then you'll reach Duke Nukem Forever status. :)
Slashdot, the only place where intellectuals can act like idiots... and still sound intellectual.
Decisions, decisions... Release a product before it's ready, and have your crap sell no copies, or wait until it is ready and have your competitors beat you to it?
Ah, capitalism...
...is to stop blabbing and hyping products when they are still on the drawing board. Look at Apple -- the iPod would have been considered late to market if they had announced it when they first started to design it. Compare that to Sony, which has been going on about PS3 ever since the PS2 hit the shelves. I'm not saying that they shouldn't say *anything*, but that they shouldn't get consumers' hopes up so far in advance that by the time the product is released nobody cares anymore.
Or, like Oblivion, remove content before the release of the game (Horse amror, the Orrey) and then sell it for $2 each just two weeks after the release of your $50-60 game! 3. Short turn profit at the cost of your good image!!
It all comes down to the dollars.
If it will make money like it is, ship it.
If the problems will cost more than they make, delay.
If it was promised to the market, ship it (limited release).
Managers make these calls, not geeks, and there is a reason for that.
The short answer to the query is "absolutely not."
Adding "features" is the last thing a successful company does. Added "features" are what delineates a Creative Zen or a Dell DJ from an Apple iPod. The former two concentrated on adding a bunch of superfluous "features" designed to placate a narrow audience, while Apple just built the best damn music player they could before starting to add things.
"Features" are the enemy of a shipping product in the same way the perfect is the enemy of the good. How do you know what "features" are really useful and what "features" are wastes of time and energy. You don't - at least not if you're honest with yourself.
Successful technologies like the iPod are based on simplicity. Bad products, like Windows Vista or Office, are based on trying to jam a bunch of features down the throats of their users. The iPod isn't a success because it has the most features of any digital music player, it's the king of the hill because it does what it does damn well. Hell, the iPod shuffle is about as simple as it is possible for a music player to get, and that simplicity is why it was the success that it was.
Good design isn't about adding features. It's about ensuring that every feature is essential . If you're delaying ship dates to add features you think are worthwhile rather than features which really are essential (and those are rarely overlapping sets), then you're doing something wrong.
Sony would have us believe that they only care about the consumers here, and just want to deliver the best product they possibly can. I think that's a load of malarky. Sony has essentially admited that the delays are due to blu-ray, which ads really nothing to the gaming experience. It's not about gamers, the best product possible, or even the gaming division of Sony. The reason Sony has included blu-ray is simply to try to gain a foothold in the HD-TV vs Blu-Ray battle, at the expense of everyone else.
Frankly I don't really care as I'm not a gamer. But it does bother me to hear this kind of spin coming out of anyone.
AccountKiller
Is the cause for delay relatively small feature that can be added without significant trouble, or is it a whole redo new design/rewrite? Is the product completely unsellable or unusable without it? Is it important or just eye candy? If not perfect, would it work acceptably as it is and get an upgrade to be even better in the near future, or is it not upgradable at all?
I work at a semiconductor company doing chip layout. There's been times when we're close to finishing what we were given to do and marketing comes in and asks for new stuff. When we get close to finishing the revised design the come in and ask for yet another change or addition. At times I wish I had the authority to tell them no, as I'd love to actually finish SOMETHING. Some additions make sense, others I'd like to chuck out the window.
What's holding up Duke Nukem Forever?
New technology is always becoming available. It's always possible to improve the specs of a product by the time its released. Unfortunately if you always try to have everything top of the line, the product never gets released. If you want to ever actually release the product, you'll have to make some cuts. What companies need to do is know what features they want to have and complete it with the best available technology. Constantly adding features to a product that's never going to release (or is going to be so expensive it doesn't sell one it is released) is pointless.
More features doesn't mean that the game is actually any better, Consider Metroid Prime and Half-Life 2; neither game came with any multiplayer (at least initially) and yet both games were some of the best games released in their given years. It is my personal believe that, on average, more features actually produces worse games; had XIII focused on having a really solid single player game and didn't bother with multiplayer the game would have cost less to develop and yet been a better game (and probably sold better).
The average FPS game now has to (in the opinion of certain people) have offline multiplayer in both competative and co-operative styles, online multiplayer (including CTF, Deathmatch and Counter-Strike like play), and an epic single player experience; all of which must include outsanding visuals and sound inside of massive seamless environments. Had (most) developers focused on one or two elements their games would be a lot more fun and original.
Iteration is a good thing. The "this will be everything to everybody" model of product development is a tar baby.
Check out Getting Real if you're interested in seeing how less can be more not just in theory, but in the real, rough and tumble world o' business.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And this is what to do about it:
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/
What's more important is that the features you do release work well.
The only thing worse than a product that is late to market, is a product that is early/on-time, but is buggy. You will only get a bad rep by selling hardware/software with broken or buggy features.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
A resounding maby...
It really depends. Will your product be competive with out it?
How much time will it take? Can you support the new feature?
Is there a demand for it? Will it sell more units?
How long of a delay? Is your product already on schedual? or is it behind?
How much will it cost?
It really depends.
If it's dead, you killed it.
Really, how much time a game takes to produce has no relationship with the overall experience the game provides. It depends on the developer.
Exhibit A: Blizzard and Nintendo. All of Blizzard's games are high-quality because the developers basically dictate their own schedule. Diablo II and obviously WoW have huge followings because they put so many things into the game to keep people coming back. Their releases are few and far between, but you can bet they'll all be worth your money--every time. The same can be said for developers like Nintendo and BioWare.
Exhibit B: Bungie, Rare, and Lionhead. Games like Fable, Perfect Dark Zero, and most notably Halo 2 could have been much more than they are. Fable was in development for at least six years, and was being hyped as the perfect RPG, but instead ended up being a 20-hour, linear hand-and-slash. Bungie wasted countless hours and manpower coding the Halo 2 engine, which fundamentally added nothing to the gameplay.
Bottom-line: Some developers do better by having more freedom, and others need to be kept on a leash.
From the article: 'In the tech world, where consumer trends can rise and fall and product cycles are short, that's more often the exception than the rule. The penalty for a delay can be severe -- even catastrophic. One of the biggest risks in postponing a product launch is being out-hustled to market by rivals.'"
Vista got delayed.... Caution stampeding rivals at the horizon!
"You fat cats didn't finish your plankton; now its mine!"
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
...the hardware ought to work first.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
If you turn that phrase around it becomes easier to answer I think. "Should companies rush products to market even though they are not complete?". This happends all to often and we don't like it. A few incomplete products from the same brand and consumers will start noticing.
Design the products as per the design requirements.
Make it *extremely* patchable.*
If new features are to be included during any time of the release, patch the same to it.
Even after the release, you release patches to make it jazzy and cutting-edge et al.
*This needs a VERY solid base design, though.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
I've spent quite an amount of time testing professional software applications. One thing I have found out time and again is that having all of the possible features does not necessarily make better software - it is just more likely to consfuse the user.
There is an old addage:-
KISS - "Keep It Simple Stupid"
Do your market research, put the features in the customer wants. If the customer wants more features, it can be used as a good excuse for an upgraded version of the software. Above all make sure your software delivers, because a customer can forgive a delay, but they can't forgive poor quality.
Maybe companies should spend less time marketing their products years before they come out. The hype surrounding new product launches is started long before hype surrounding films (which you rarely see or notice delays in). For film, usually you'll see maybe one "teaser" trailer up to 6 months before release and then nothing until around 2 months before release. In software, it seems like the marketing department hits the press as soon as the developers think about adding a feature.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
It's sane to delay if a fuature missing is "our main character dies when he's near wall" but it's insane to delay product if you'd like to add "an e-market where you can buy branded underware and send e-mails with .MID song attached"
Rocksteady, are you ready to ska?
By most QA standards, a product should be considered "feature complete" once it hits beta. If a feature doesn't make it in by that point, too bad. The rest of the development time should be spent in QA, and the product should ship when all of the bugs that were found have been fixed, or reasonably addressed.
Companies that do otherwise need to address perhaps a bigger problem. *points to management*
Communication between development and marketing is key.
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Should Companies Delay Products for More Features?
;)
Yes, Microsoft should delay Vista to put the features they touted long ago (that we all looked forward to, even if we'd never use Windows) that they since reneged on.
If that is what you were asking, you should have just asked it.
My company is following that philospohy with our latest product: http://www.turnwatcher.com/. It's an Initiative Tracker for table-top RPG DMs. The idea is when you buy a copy, you get free, downloadable updates for one year. Not just bug fixes, but features that are requested. This, I think, is the future way for software companies to develop. You've got to get yourself out of the feature war.
Duke Nukem Forever is being delayed is due to the addition of so many new features. I've heard rumors that Duke Nukem Forever is going to be THE best game ever, and also a fridge, stove, and deep freeze killer.
52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N
Sony's playstation has a pretty long lifecycle, i.e. years. If it is a feature that comes with the hardware itself, it is very difficult or kludgy to add it on later.
<digression>
Imagine if the first Playstation 2 systems had a half as much RAM initially? It would have been crazy for the developers to be able to depend on the system specs when the update came out. That's why I think it's a great thing to have a standard hard drive for the playstation 3 and why it might be a mistake to not have it standard in the xbox 360: because developers can't depend on it being there.
</digression>
If we are talking about a software package like Office or iLife something, that makes it easier to add a feature in a follow-up release or wait until the next version.
10 Delay product to incroporate top-of-the-line features
20 New top-of-the-line features are created
30 GoTo 10
40 Never End
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How about releasing something when it works correctly and stop this trend of releasing buggy, malfunctioning or incomplete products?
Stop excepting mediocrity as the norm!
Vote with your dollars!
...more stable!!!!
Seriously, from microwaves to cell phones to remote controls -- it seems that very few companies are actively trying to make their products usable.
As other posters have mentioned, the key to releasing a successful product is all about balance. As a product manager, I would love to be able to wait until the product has 100% of the specified features and zero bugs before we ship it.
That's just not feasible in the real world, though. While first to market does not necessarily provide an advantage, being las to market is a tough hole to climb out of. Additionally, there are always pressures to meet revenue expectations, especially in a public company. This is why I try, as much as possible, to define requirements early, to work with our engineering team early to get initial (and continually refined) estimates, and to know which features I can sacrifice when we get to crunch time and the product has to ship.
Having worked on both the software development side and the product management side, my impression is that most programmers and software engineers are not aware of the pressure to meet revenue targets. It is the reason (in a lot of cases) why the company exists. Waiting "until it's done," in many instances is just not feasible...at least if I want the company to stay in business.
It's "no one," not "noone." Who the hell is noone anyway?
But no one wanted my "mu" software :(
function mu () {}
I prefer KIS because it is simpler than KISS
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
There is no such thing as a stupid question. Only stupid people. Well, "Should companies delay products for more features?" is a stupid question . The only reason a company should delay is if it will make them more money in doing so. Like waiting till Christmas season to roll out a new game. Best to roll out WTF I early and incomplete while working on WTF II which will have cooler graphics but only be marginally better so people will have to buy the newer version. Delays happen for a variety of reasons, like poor planning or a fire destroys the factory. They don't have to be deliberate. Unless you are trying to build up the hype to grab more market share.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Why would you want to have the *all* the latest features? What if some of them aren't of any interest to people? Isn't it better to release products with a few features and try to work out based on feedback, what would be of most use?
Radio on your iPod
My basement has in it an old HP LaserJet 4 Plus that came out of a dumpster. One drum kit later, it was working, and has been churning out perfectly acceptable pages for two years now, maybe more. The plastic is yellowed and a bit of trim is snapped off, but who cares? The price was certainly right, and I don't have to by twenty-dollar ink cartridges every two hundred pages.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They barely had any launch "Video" demos that looked anywhere near a completed game (killzone and maybe 1-2 others, the rest were just tech demos) by last month. The hardware is so bleeding edge that they've only just started making the factories. Even if they launched it this spring it'd be rushed with bugs and possible shortages if it were popular.
Hmmm... Pie...
i) Divide requirements into two groups: 'Core' and 'Nice to Have'
ii) Schedule a realistic release of the 'Core.' Design, develop and test your core to bits. Verify the product against the original spec. Meet the deadline and release a really robust application/device around the Core requirements.
iii) Now that we have a stable and released core, move onto the nice to have's and release a pricier, enhanced or updated version in the same fashion. Yes, some will be gutted. I was gutted when my GB Advanced looked crap compared to the SP and I was gutted when my Nokia N-gage looked stupid next to the slightly less Stupid and newer N-gage ( I like to think that these failed due to a rapidly changing market for trendy looking phones and not the quality of the product itself. ) I am both gutted and excited at the prospect of my ibook being depreciated by the newer Intel based Mac's.
IMHO, the delta between the core and 'nice to have's should be performance and quality, but 'NOT' compatibility.