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.'"

Comments

Is it soup yet?

[BWJones]

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... :-)

Re:Is it soup yet?

[Mazda6s]

But to start a project without any notion of a deadline is a sure fire way to never release anything. I believe that projects like this require a "happy medium".

Come up with a list of features to implement, estimate those features (and those features only), design, implement, test, release with re-assessments (and iterations) happening throughout the entire life-cycle of the project, adjusting estimates as necessary.

At some point the companies need to publish a release date to the public. That should be somewhere near the end of the project, assuming the re-assessments warrant it.

Do NOT allow new features. Period.

Re:Is it soup yet?

[hotdiggitydawg]

...and in the meantime your competitors have released slightly inferior products much earlier and captured your market share. Then they've used the funds from their initial sales to boost their resources, and started working on the next generation of your product before you've even finished the current one.

From a customer's point of view, your comments hold water. From a shareholder's point of view they don't. Guess which group of people companies care more about?

Re:Is it soup yet?

[AKAImBatman]

But to start a project without any notion of a deadline is a sure fire way to never release anything.

I understand his point to be that a goal with a reasonably projected timeframe needs to be set, then met. Forcing a deadline will only result in half-finish crud going out the door.

To use the aforementioned DNF reference, Id Software releases games when they are Done(TM). Yet they still manage to release them while 3D Realms has gone over a decade without a release. Why the difference?

The answer is in setting goals. Id Software sets goals they want to achieve, then they achieve them. 3D Realms keeps moving the bar (Quake -> Quake II -> Unreal -> Unreal 2.0, etc.), ensuring that they'll never manage to meet their goals. Thus "when its done" means "when we get tired of moving the bar."

Re:Is it soup yet?

[patio11]

You can find plenty of examples either way on this. iPod/iTunes was beat to market by essentially everyone, and they absolutely revolutionized the MP3 player industry, making people pay premium prices for what used to be commodity hardware. On the other hand, take a look at WinZip. WinZip got to market with its core functionality -- zipping/unzupping in a GUI environment -- and approximately nothing else. This would not have been difficult functionality to implement, considering the actually zipping/unzipping was originally handled by pkzip, which had to be present for winzip to function. Regardless, they got the lion's share of the market by being the first there with a product which worked and was targetted at non-technical users being introduced to the whole new "online" thing back in the early 90s. They're also *obscenely* profitable -- something like 60% of sales, even today when their products' core feature is built into Windows.

Like every thing else in life

[Lord Duran]

You just have to find the right balance.

Who is kidding who?

[WebHostingGuy]

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!!

Re:Who is kidding who?

[ClamIAm]

I think your quote should read more like:

"The main holdups were a desire for absolute control over all the bits that will ever pass through a PS3's DVD player"

or: "the main holdup is greed".

Remember kids: copy protection is the symptom, not the disease.

They need to show numbers

[iXiXi]

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.

No

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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...

Re:No

[tktk]

QA and debugging will never be done. There will always be some bugs.

Companies deal with the bugs that will affect a lot of users and ignore the bugs that will affect only 12 people. But the trick is telling between the two.

How coincidental!

[Rob T Firefly]

Purely by chance, this story breaks on the same page as the latest Duke Nukem Forever story...

So...

[monkaduck]

This explains Dunke Nukem Forever! They're just waiting for everything to be developed so they can implement it in!

It's a fine line

[teklob]

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.

Good Example

[XMilkProject]

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.

Re:Good Example

[sholden]

Yes, because there weren't any obvious bugs in Daggerfall.

Re:Good Example

[Lando]

Funny,
      The Bethesda products that I have purchased have all had major bugs that should have been caught long ago. However, I'll agree with the fact that when they are developing code to fix the bugs that they make sure those fixes are bulletproof. Of course, you can't prove any problems with bugfixes that are never released. Bethesda does/did have some nice concepts, but they are not, repeat, not a company that releases quality code. I did like the concept of their games originally, but it's been what 10 years and they are still following the same patterns? Nothing new there and they didn't have networking when I purchased programs from them.

However, I would offer a couple of other companies that have excellent reputations for releasing good products:

Blizzard: Probably the formost company that could be considered, barring Duke Nukem 2000 ever coming out. They pushed release dates back several times on Diable and starcraft and other programs making sure that the games had very few problems. However, I haven't purchased any Blizzard product since they abused the DMCA and decided to attack my peer group for fixing their network issues.

id also has an excellent reputation and I still purchase every product that they release, though I haven't opened any of the packages once I saw Quake 3. I'm mainly just contributing to fund the release of the source code nowdays.

The last one I would recommend is an online game, atitd.com, ie A tale in the desert. I don't have time to play atm, but I continue to pay my subscription because it appears to me that the developer is more interested in providing a good product than to make a lot of money.

These comments represent my opinions, nothing more. I am not an avid gamer and since I don't have a windows box, though I doubt I am missing much. Game design has gone downhill as the cost of producing the games have gone up, also my opinion.

ps, Just a brief comment. Half-life, counter-strike(not the same), and Blizzard games are excellent examples of how quality products can overcome idiotic business strategies. Stream is a joke, making it blatently obvious that you don't "own" your game and blizzard's suing over enhancing player experience is just stupid in my opinion and so I refuse to having anything to do with those companies. However, a great many people are more than willing to put up with the bs to be allowed to play decent games.

Re:Good Example

[Xugumad]

This would be an version of "just right" that involves spending 6-9 months fixing bugs that should have never got past QA? I can't remember all the bugs I've hit so far, but the most recent one is hilarious:

My character was being used as bait for someone to ambush... the ambush springs, my backup leaps into action... At this point, two Imperial Guards come around the corner and start mashing my attacker as well. This makes me happy. Finally, they defeat my attacker, and start pureeing my backup. Eek, glad I didn't need them for anything important!

Beyond that; game balance is poor, and clearly intended that you play a combat-primary character. Playing a stealth-orientated character is a painful joke - sure, I can do 3x/6x more damage on my first hit, but I'm still being slaughtered by single opponents while travelling. This is particularly frustrating when I've just fought my way through HELL, got back, recovered, walk outside town and am torn to pieces by a passing WOLF!!! Other times I've become so bored of combat against a single, random encounter opponent, that I've just given up entirely on the game and done something else.

Oh, talking of balance: http://acidforblood.net/2006/04/09/the-debate-abou t-gender-in-oblivion/

In several places missions don't provide options that should be fairly obvious , or doors are plot-locked (*cough* Dark Brotherhood haven *cough*) because they couldn't be bothered dealing with a good stealth character breaking into them.

Did I mention that the entire stealth system seems to depend on your footware more than anything else? Not to mention, many places don't provide enough cover to creep around, or you are expected to deal with dodging guards that go in and out of zone breaks (as in, doors which do not open, but instead NPCs simply materialise infront of).

Oh, and you can't kill the plot NPCs, they're merely rendered unconscious, which makes the escort missions a joke. Although the fact that you can fast-travel while escorting someone doesn't really help that either.

Then there's the points where the game engine holds your character in place so you can't interfere while a character is killed (the start being the obvious example, but there are others).

Hmmm... found some weird stuff too... broke into the Imperial Palace, pulled a key off a guard, walked down to the entrance to the main chamber, and unlocked the door infront of the guard. Okay, I can accept he didn't stop me there, just about. So I pull my bow out, and try assassinating the head guy whose name escapes me now. You know what happened?

The arrow goes straight through his head, and sticks in the chair. He continues to ignore me. I empty a few more arrows into the chair, before finally realising that whatever I do, the game won't let me hit someone sitting down.

Personally, I'd consider Oblivion "barely acceptable" in terms of polish. If Bethesda didn't produce such incredible freeform, diverse games I'd have given up on them years ago. As it is, I'm mostly incredibly frustrated by the wasted potential.

Competition?

[lymond01]

One of the biggest risks in postponing a product launch is being out-hustled to market by rivals.

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.

Tech's New Headache: Feature Creep

[crowtc]

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.

featurecide is easy!

[geoff lane]

You can always make your product better by killing one feature.

This rule is recursive.

Re:featurecide is easy!

[tktk]

Once I read an interview with an old school designer/architect(forgot the name). He said that when he was done with a product, he would start removing features. And if missing feature didn't make the product useless, it would stay off.

Too late

[Eric Bishop]

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?

No, crank it out asafp please!

[pair-a-noyd]

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"..

Re:No, crank it out asafp please!

[plusser]

You are a very wise man. The problem with a lot of computer products is that they still meet the needs of most users, even if they are 5 or even 10 years old. You would not build an aircraft and then throw it away after 2 years - why should we be doing the same with computers?

Re:No, crank it out asafp please!

[Skadet]

I'm too late to the game to be modded -- or possibly read -- but I love this line of thinking. It works in pretty much all facets of life.

For example, 5 years ago, I was driving a car from 1986. It was in great shape, ran well, etc. A buddy of mine sugguested, "Hey, let's go test drive some new cars! Just for the heck of it. It'll be fun!" And I said.... no, thanks. I know there are cars out there that blow mine away, but I'm *happy* with what I have, and I don't want to make myself unhappy by sampling the other goods.

If the parent's idea is the foundation of a solid, living-within-your-means life, this idea is easily the cornerstone: don't put yourself in a position to lust after new tech. Unless you're using it for your job and it's putting money in your pocket (in which case it could safely be called an asset), it's an expense you more than likely don't need.

How About A Product That *Works*?

[WombatControl]

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.

Re:How About A Product That *Works*?

[cgenman]

There is a big debate going on in the gaming industry right now about accessability. When these things started out, we had a joystick and one button. Then it was a joypad and four buttons. Now we're up to a joypad, four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, three menu buttons, two analog joysticks, and two joystick buttons.

Put the controller in front of a new user, and they will have no idea what to do with it. Even advanced users are getting confused all the time as to what each button does. I've met hardcore users who never knew there were buttons under the analog joysticks.

Games themselves are suffering from the same thing. In a lot of modern games, you can use one joystick to walk, the other joystick to control the camera, one button to shoot, another to jump, another for a secondary fire button, another for magic, D-pad to scroll through inventory, L1 R1 to adjust primary and secondary fire modes, crouch, reload, etc etc etc. Put a copy of God of War in the hands of a user who has never played videogames before and you'll see how quickly they get overwhelmed. Or those wonderful PC RTS games that use every key on the keyboard as the interface palette.

It is the zipper vs bra-strap debate. The zipper has one of two possible states, up or down. If you're up, you can only go down. If you're down, you can only go up. It isn't very precise, but it works damn well. And it is generally in a highly accessable location, masked by a small piece of fabric. Bra-straps, on the other hand, have multiple possible states. Not only do they have multiple adjustment settings, but they also generally have multiple hooks with which to make those settings. They are in an aesthetically pleasing but utterly inaccessable area, and are difficult to interact with. If you absolutely need a perfect fit, the bra strap model is the way to go. But for nearly all things, a simple zipper is your best choice. We're suffering through an economy of gadgets that are using bra straps when they should be using zippers.

It is also worth pointing out that the Shuffle was available on the day it was announced. For all we know, it could have been delayed for two years for revisions. But Apple knows what they're doing, and has decided to get users excited about things they can actually buy, rather than making them wait for things they may or may not want a year later.

It's all about balance

[jskiff]

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.