If they view HD DVD as short term as the XBox, it's good to stick to PS3

[joeorc]

Rings of Ire
Microsoft roiled the gaming world Thursday by taking a $1 billion charge to take care of problems with its Xbox 360. NEWSWEEK’s N’gai Croal talks to Xbox chief Peter Moore about the decision.

problem:
NEWSWEEK: All right. You're live and direct.
Peter Moore: OK. Let me take you though what we've just announced about 15-20 minutes ago. You know about the fundamentals. Business is strong; we're going to have a good E3, but to cut to the chase, there's something we haven't done so well, and that's that the rate of repairs that have been coming in showing the three-flashing-red-lights error message has been, quite frankly, unacceptable to us. So we've decided to take some steps to take care of that.

Peter Moore
John Smock / AP
Peter Moore
Firstly, we're making improvements to the console itself that will reduce the occurrence of these issues. But perhaps more importantly, we're implementing an enhanced warranty program to cover the general hardware failures, the ones that are indicated by the three flashing red lights. So we're announcing a specific warranty coverage extension to three years for any console that displays the three-red-light error message. If you get that, we'll repair the console, free of charge, including shipping, for three years from the purchase date. And perhaps equally important, for the people who have already paid us to get it fixed out of warranty, we're going to retroactively reimburse any customer that's had that problem and has paid us to fix their box—from the get-go. So we will be able to take care of everybody that's had this message from launch onwards. And the three-year warranty will be in place immediately, and will cover every box that's been bought or is about to be bought.

How did you determine the three-year period for the extension to the warranty?
Three years seems like a reasonable amount of time for somebody to have a piece of consumer electronics of this nature. We felt—certainly, I think it's unprecedented that someone's had a longer warranty on a console than this. I can't remember. But we felt three years—and certainly, the folks we've spoken to in the last half hour and some of the community feedback seem to think that this is more than fair. If you're a gamer and for three years we cover you, then we feel that you've gotten good value from the box. It's not an exact science. Two years, three years, it felt like fairness more than anything else for us.


Can you say whether it was a flaw in the design or the manufacturing?
No. I can't say that, no.

Did you consider a recall?
No. This is not a recall issue. This is not a systemic problem, this is not a safety issue, this is a completely voluntary action on our part. Nobody's forcing us to do anything here. We're just trying to do the right thing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19640605...wsweek/page/0/


well first off in my OPINION its a design flaw
Peter Moore
Firstly, we're making improvements to the console itself that will reduce the occurrence of these issues.

ruduce ..not fix..great

and second (3 years) 3 years

MOORE:
Three years seems like a reasonable amount of time for somebody to have a piece of consumer electronics of this nature.

thats why SONY has commited to 10 years while Microsofts is ..what 3 years...oop:

ITS VERY CLEAR TO ME who is thinking long tem for HARDWARE support and not short term.