Microsoft Evasive on 360 Hardware Changes

From all reports Microsoft has upgraded the Xbox 360 consoles coming from their factories, and modified the consoles heading back to consumers from service calls. The trouble is, they're having a hard time admitting it. The company has always maintained there aren't any excessive heat problems with their console, so admitting now that they've added extra heatsink capabilities would be ... somewhat embarrassing. Dean Takahashi at the San Jose Merc has an interview with Todd Holmdahl, the 'hardware guy' at Microsoft: "We're very proud of the box. We think the vast majority of people are having just a great experience. You look at the number of games they are buying, the number of accessories they are buying, the Live attach. They love the box. They continue to buy the box. That said, we take any customer issue very seriously. We continue to look into these things very deeply. You have seen we have made some changes to our customer service policy."

Comments

So What?

[ClosedSource]

If the system has a heating problem don't buy it. MS has no obligation to inform anyone about their hardware design.

Embarrassing?

[Green Light]

I am not sure why adding a heatsink would be embarrassing. If they find an issue, then they should fix it going forward.

Re:Embarrassing?

[powerlord]

It would be embarrassing because they have vehemently denied there was a problem since the console launched.

Also, admitting that perhaps it has an issue might open themselves up to class action lawsuits (perhaps requiring that the change be made available to every console shipped free of charge), not to mention the bad publicity that would follow.

All and all not something MS wants to contemplate as the Wii and PS3 don't seem to have that problem, and are competing with it at both ends of the market.

RTFA...but whats the actual issue

[svendsen]

I must be missing something. Rev 1 of hardware goes out the door. Some people have issues with it. They have a fix. So when Rev 1 items go in for repair they put the fix in place (whether or not that's the reason it was sent in).

What am I missing here?

Re:RTFA...but whats the actual issue

[ichigo 2.0]

But it's Microsoft! Obviously something evil must be going on. Maybe the heatsink is made of kittens?

Marketing to the Rescue!

[Shadow Wrought]

"We opened the Next Generation of consoles with the hottest one out there! Now we're making sure it gets nothing but cooler from here on out!"

Remember kids; it ain't marketing unless it ends with a bang!

I'd say it's an intermittent problem

[JohnnyComeLately]

I work in a tech support department for a manufacturer, and it's a tightrope to balance Sales desires versus Engineering's desires. Engineering wants to come out with a fix, but yet they want to keep a lid on the idea that they designed a defective product. Sales wants to hear there's a fix but then gets upset when distributors want to return hundreds of product. So, applying my experience to the observations of Microsoft, I'd say it's either a bug they can't reproduce, or a change mid-production for a bug that isn't going to happen a high percentage of the time on the original design.

For example, we had a problem with the open cell foam behind buttons for security panels that were installed in the upper-NorthEast areas of the US, and Canada. Water would get into the cell and freeze, and then subsequent freeze/thaw conditions killed the foam. We revised the design. There's no reason, however, for a Florida or Arizona distributor to return thousands of units for a "button upgrade", even though everyone wants the "latest and greatest". One other example is a "hypothetical" condition. You've got hundreds of products with "reported heat issues". You might think this is an issue, but when you look at the fact there are millions of units out, hundreds is nothing. Engineering on their own makes a heat design change, and you decide to implement it on returns cause the retrofit is cheap and practical. You're not going to recall millions of units that are currently working fine, and there are a couple hundred with REPORTED problems. I have a feeling if you look at other consumer devices stuck in entertainment centers, the number of overheating XBOX360s is on par for the industry.

Re:We Are Seeing The End Of The Xbox Project

[twistedsymphony]

...It is now just a question of when the plug gets pulled. Does Microsoft want to spend the billions to to keep the 360 artificially alive in the market just to save face or pull the plug now and deal with the short term PR hit and move on to other markets.

Are you kidding? Reports from most financial analysis claim MS has been turning a profit on the Xbox business since last November and plan on getting back into the black after the next holiday.

MS extended the warranty on the Xbox 360 for over a year, they repair these boxes without question or hesitation... if the problem was really THAT widespread one would think it'd be cheaper to do a recall or maybe fix the problems earlier in the consoles life when they could have started producing consoles that didn't come back in for repair.

I find the idea of Ms leaving the console business over this positively absurd given their current market position.

The drake...

[spocksbrain]

I don't even like XBox.
You don't like The Box?
I hate The Box.
I loooooove The Box!
How could you not like The Box?
Who's The Box?
Who's The Box!
The Box is good.