Todd Halmdahl Dodgy Interview

Here's another piece of shit at Microsoft demonstrating poor business ethics, spitting in customers faces.


Bullshit interview with Todd Halmdahl

Now, a 'professional' response to this genuine 'great' guy:
"...Q: I’m sure you’ve seen some of these complaints that we’ve written about from the guy who went through seven machines. There are a lot of people posting on the blog saying they still have problems. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the quality of the Xbox 360 isn’t there. How can you paint the bigger picture for me there?
A: 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.

Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?
A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it."

He dodges questions with elegance and finesse, no wonder they picked him, after all, he does have all the answers.

"...Q: I’ve heard varying accounts of what is considered a normal return rate. Some people say that 2 percent is normal. Sometimes 3 percent to 5 percent is considered normal. Back to that question, can you address whether you are within those rates or within a normal rate.
A: We don’t disclose the actual number.

Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?
A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.

Q: I’ve heard varying accounts of what is considered a normal return rate. Some people say that 2 percent is normal. Sometimes 3 percent to 5 percent is considered normal. Back to that question, can you address whether you are within those rates or within a normal rate.
A: We don’t disclose the actual number.

Q: Normal compared to the Xbox?
A: We don’t comment on that.

Thanks Todd, thanks for addressing my concerns as a (former?!) paying customer! Please, spew more shit at me.

"Q: What explains this anecodotal evidence that it’s out of whack, compared to the Wii or the PlayStation 3 or other consoles.
A: I would go back and say the vast majority of people love their experience. We continue to go back and address all of these issues on a case by case basis. There is a vocal minority out there. We go off and try to address their issues as quickly and as pain free as possible.

Q: There were some folks, who are not totally guessing, who said that when you had three million consoles in the market, you have a bone pile of bad ones. That seems to suggest a pretty high defect rate as far as the yield goes. Can you address that?
A: We don’t talk about our production.

Q: Can you say anything about the yield? Do you have a good yield? Can you say anything about the yield?
A: The important thing here is that each product that comes out of the factory is rigorously tested. To ensure highest quality for our customer."

Like Petey essentially said, it's not about about making a quality product. It wasn't about that, not to mention it's too late for that, now it's just damage control. When a 360 fucks up, lots of them are replaced for free, the three dead ones I was involved with were. However, some are charged up to $170 for repairs, for another shitty, unreliable unit, I sure as hell wouldn't pay that.

You know the problem is real bad when MS is running short on boxes (aka coffins) for the dead systems.
It took MS 8 days to get me my most recent coffin, compared to the complete 12~ days the entire process took last time. I'm not even XBL Gold anymore (another MS screwup), but I feel for the people who are paying to play online (another 360-only 'feature')and are without a console this long, just throwing money away. It's pretty re-goddamn-diculous.