Microsoft responds to Watchdog

[Spartan_X]

Microsoft responds to Watchdog

Ellie Gibson 11:00 (GMT) 14/02/2007

Admits there are "isolated reports" of faulty Xbox 360s

Microsoft has responded to claims by the BBC's Watchdog programme that it is charging excessive amounts for Xbox 360 repairs, stating that there is "no systemic issue" with the console.

Last night's episode of the consumer affairs show featured two gamers whose Xbox 360 units had broken after just over a year of use, and were told they would have to pay around GBP 80 to get their consoles fixed.

In an official statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz, Microsoft said that the "vast majority" of Xbox 360 owners have had an "outstanding experience" with the console.

But the platform holder went on to concede: "That being said, we have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected.

"It's important to note that there is no systemic issue with Xbox 360 - each incident is unique and these customer inquiries are being handled on a case-by-case basis."

Microsoft has not revealed details of how many Xbox 360 units have been found faulty, but did state that the return rate is "significantly lower" than the CE industry average of between 3 and 5 per cent.

"Customer satisfaction is our highest priority, and we do everything we can to take care of gamers who may be having problems with their consoles," the company said.

"Anybody having an issue with their Xbox 360 console should call customer service immediately so that we can help. Microsoft voluntarily provides customers with a one year manufacturer's warranty in the UK which operates over and above the legally required retailer warranty for all consumer goods."

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Isolated reports? Did they print this up from "ourproducthasreliabilityissues.com" or something? Honestly, nothing of substance was said and they are obviously under playing the issue. Even with all the bad press people are scrounging up for the PS3, reliability issues on this scale have not been mentioned.

[American Ninja]

Isolated reports? Did they print this up from "ourproducthasreliabilityissues.com" or something? Honestly, nothing of substance was said and they are obviously under playing the issue. Even with all the bad press people are scrounging up for the PS3, reliability issues on this scale have not been mentioned.

I agree. "Isolated reports"? lol This is not an isolated problem. I have heard on IGN podcasts that about 80% of people that work at IGN that have had one died and most are on their 3rd 360 :( Mine is also starting to go down the tubes and I just got it in June 2006 :cry: I am glad I bought the extended two year warranty that came with the 360. :yes:

Just a little off topic but when you send in your 360 to Microsoft do you have to send your hard drive with it? :blink:

[Fabian-]

I love my 360 but those are NOT isolated cases :p

[Guest]

I think I'm going to pay the ?59.49 for the additional 2 years of warranty coverage.

I mean, they charge us ?80 to get it repaired, so ?60 for 2 years of warranty is great.

[WelshBluebird]

One thing I would love MS to answer. I doubt they will, but Spartan (or anyone else), if you know of a decent reason, please say lol.

Why the hell do we in the UK have to pay ?80 to get consoles repaired, while in the USA, if you have a launch period console and it goes wrong, MS will repair it for free?

Any real reasons why this is the case? Or is this UK consumers being screwed over again.

[Pc_Madness]

I love my 360 but those are NOT isolated cases :p

Indeed. :(

Welsh:

Perhaps the cost of sending the consoles to the states? :\

[HawkMan]

They are technically isolated incident when you take total numbers into account.

as they state they are under the 5-3% CE standard. so now lets assume it's 3 percent then just at the level where they can claim that, now 3% of 10 million, that is still a LOT of units. but all in all it's few cases, far fewer than what was expected, and seeing as they said it was less than 5 in the months after release. the fact they have now gone down on the numbers means that the number of failed units are significantly lower since then.

Worst case I suppeose they're actually around 1-2% of failed unit on all those 10 million. and probably below 1% on the ones that are on sale right now. that's still 1-200 thousand units. more than enough to be noticed, but not very many in the big picture.

[Elliott]

I've had mine since 11-22-05 and it's been running perfectly. They are isolated incidents when you take the actual numbers into account like HawkMan said.

[Pc_Madness]

as they state they are under the 5-3% CE standard..

Is it though? What are they classifying as faulty? The three rings error thing? Or drive issues or whatever? Or all of them?

[Spartan_X]

One thing I would love MS to answer. I doubt they will, but Spartan (or anyone else), if you know of a decent reason, please say lol.

Why the hell do we in the UK have to pay ?80 to get consoles repaired, while in the USA, if you have a launch period console and it goes wrong, MS will repair it for free?

Any real reasons why this is the case? Or is this UK consumers being screwed over again.

Kool Aid is a lot more expensive in the UK and that's why most pay a higher wage to the janitor cleaning toilets over there, which in return, makes our operating cost higher than the rest of the EU??:laugh:gh:rofl:fl:p :p

/me close and hides "SCE Management and Excuses for Dummies"... :shifty:whistle:le:

[lardboy]

I'll add my comment from the news item here as well -

So Microsoft provides a one year manufacturer's warranty over and above the legally required retailer warranty.

The legally required retailer warranty in the UK is 12 months replacement on faulty goods so this guy is saying we then get another year return to manufacturer warrant which would extend the UK warranty to 2 years.

Either that or this "platform holder" is talking out of his backside.

[Lingwo]

Well i've had to send my 360 back twice and that is to many times for me.

Not in my life since the 360 have i had to replace a console.

I can safely say that the 360 has probaley had 1000's of replacements. Especially with that fall update, what a bloody mess that was.

[spenser.d]

Isolated reports? Did they print this up from "ourproducthasreliabilityissues.com" or something? Honestly, nothing of substance was said and they are obviously under playing the issue. Even with all the bad press people are scrounging up for the PS3, reliability issues on this scale have not been mentioned.

Eh? Tech sites are always going to report these and make them seem way out of proportion to what they really are. I'll conceed to the fact that there were a lot of problems with the launch batch, but they seem to have toned those down extremely.

That being said, I got my 360 on Jan. 2nd, 2006, and I've had 2 problems: It froze up once on the first day - I was excited and set it on some carpeting :pinch: . And I got the red ring of death once - I hadn't plugged in the AV cord.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't exist based on my experience alone, but in any case, it's probably blown way out of proportion. And at that, what else is MS gonna say, "Our product is faulty, don't buy it." That would be a lie in and of itself. I'd be willing to be most of the 10 million 360 owners aren't having problems. It's far easier to make yourself heard when you have something negative to say. You have to pick one side though. You can take MS's side and say it's under 3-5%, and it's not that much, or you can take everyone else's side (it seems) and say 300,000-500,000 consoles and say it's a huge problem. It's just relative.

-Spenser

[George P Global Moderator]

We don't really have any official numbers at this point, but if it's under the 3% CE limit or legal limit for goods then it's technically fine. I personally think it's lower then 1%, or 1% at the most, we hear about all these cases because the 360 is a hot topic and well, the websites we read/post on will always bring up every little problem that a user has and posts about.

That's not to say that they don't have problems, but no other console, until the PS3 hit, was as complex as the 360, the more simple the design, like with the older gen, the less hardware issues come up.

We don't hear of PS3s dying but then again, they have, the simple fact Sony only has, at best, 1.4million out in peoples homes means any defects are limited in scale at this point. But there are even youtube vids showing the PS3s blinking red light of death (BRLD). oh, and it even makes a nice beeping noise.

Just to show an example though, I still have my original PS2, from when it first came out, a few months after the original release actually, and it still works fine and everything. Now on the other side, I have a cousin who's on his 4th PS2. And the PS2 isn't anywhere near as complex of a design.

Maybe luck also comes into play, I don't know.

[elONEam]

Eh? Tech sites are always going to report these and make them seem way out of proportion to what they really are. I'll conceed to the fact that there were a lot of problems with the launch batch, but they seem to have toned those down extremely.

That being said, I got my 360 on Jan. 2nd, 2006, and I've had 2 problems: It froze up once on the first day - I was excited and set it on some carpeting :pinch: . And I got the red ring of death once - I hadn't plugged in the AV cord.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't exist based on my experience alone, but in any case, it's probably blown way out of proportion. And at that, what else is MS gonna say, "Our product is faulty, don't buy it." That would be a lie in and of itself. I'd be willing to be most of the 10 million 360 owners aren't having problems. It's far easier to make yourself heard when you have something negative to say. You have to pick one side though. You can take MS's side and say it's under 3-5%, and it's not that much, or you can take everyone else's side (it seems) and say 300,000-500,000 consoles and say it's a huge problem. It's just relative.

-Spenser

The point he made was that the Xbox clearly has reliability issues to a far greater extent than any similar products, because if it happened to Sony, we definitely would have heard about it, but seeing how all the noise is coming from 360 owners, there is definitely an issue. I agree.

Yes, there is a small percentage of people who have been affected, but it is not right for Microsoft to brush them away and claim them as insignificant.

[Pc_Madness]

the websites we read/post on will always bring up every little problem that a user has and posts about.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...518690&st=0

They did a poll about it a while back, but if you do a search in this forum you'll notice just how many failure threads there are. :\

[planetik]

I have a feeling that the failure percentage is significantly HIGHER than 3 or 5 percent.

Maybe the 3-5% is only for the UK? Anyways, I'm on my first and xbox, and it's still chugging away :)

[ToneKnee]

I have a feeling that the failure percentage is significantly HIGHER than 3 or 5 percent.

Maybe the 3-5% is only for the UK? Anyways, I'm on my first and xbox, and it's still chugging away :)

Doubt it, with 10 million consoles out and about, you are certain going to be hearing a few stories about problems.

[Pilsbury]

Kool Aid is a lot more expensive in the UK and that's why most pay a higher wage to the janitor cleaning toilets over there, which in return, makes our operating cost higher than the rest of the EU?:laugh:h::rofl:l::p:p

/me close and hides "SCE Management and Excuses for Dummies"...:shifty:y::whistle:e:

Sorry, but, that is complete trash. Operating costs in the UK are normally lower than most of the rest of Western Europe, as most companies base their UK operations in northern England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland as wages and property are much lower. The government also give grants for setting up businesses there - that is why most call centres are based in those regions for example.

Yes, there are higher costs in Europe, but, that's why the price of a 360 is higher to begin with.

If they can afford to provide free replacement in the US, they can afford to do it in Europe.

BTW, whatever happened to this exciting new 360 HDMI info you professed to have?

[spenser.d]

Yes, there is a small percentage of people who have been affected, but it is not right for Microsoft to brush them away and claim them as insignificant.

And my point is that they aren't saying that that small percentage is insignificant - far from that, actually, as I've heard they've been plenty helpful. What they're trying to point out is that relative to the 10 million 360's out in the wild, it really isn't as great a deal as people are blowing it up to be. Yeah, some consoles have problems, but most of them are fine, and the one's that do have problems, they fix without a fuss.

-Spenser

[kylejn]

The fact that some people have had to replace their systems multiple times, whereas other people (like me) who have had no problems from day one seems to indicate that it's an end-user issue rather than a flaw inherent in the Xbox 360. I dunno if those people are morons who cover their systems in dirty clothes and get surprised when it overheats or what, but that's the only explanation as to why some people have had to replace their systems over and over while other people haven't.

[HawkMan]

And for anyone claimign they think it's siginficiantly higher than 5-3%

Well I'll simplifiy and assume that by siginificantlyyou mean 10% or more.

10% of 10million consoles is 1 millions consoles.

do you REALLY think that1 million failed consoles wouldn't be noticed and that that wouldn't lead to far more than what 240 reports to wtahcdogs about broken consoles ? 1 million or 10% wouldn't be a PR disaster and much more it would be a economic disaster for MS, especially with the extended 1 year warranty.

Luckily my xbox 360 is bought in Norway though (though I currently work in Sweden) so I have at least 2 years covered free of manufacturing faults, and in reality I'm probably covered by the 5 year one. Consumer laws are good :) Not that it seems like I'll ever be needing it.

[ToneKnee]

People were getting charged ?80 because their console was out of the 1 year warranty, and they are surprised that they are getting charged? haha!

[Guest]

People were getting charged ?80 because their console was out of the 1 year warranty, and they are surprised that they are getting charged? haha!

That is the real annoyance of the story from point of view. Paying ?80 to have it repaired, whilst our buddies over the pond get it for free.

I don't expect the 360 to constantly die on me, but it is technology. Technology is never 100% reliable or stable. As a proud 360 owner and a wise consumer, I have my 360 set uperfectlyi> to ensure that there is no extrernal influence on the systems performance or stability. If it fails, it's totally hardware. I learnt (the hard way) that you should protect your investments, which is why I'm going to be taking out the 2 year extended warranty plan for ?60. You can't go wrong.

Like somebody already pointed out, I bet that the failure of some of these consoles is down to the owners and their general stupidness. My friends 360 is wedged in between his PS2 and Freeview box. I did warn him.