Perhaps being honest and forthright is not a strength of Microsoft, but a recent interview with Dean Takahashi, author of Opening the Xbox, just goes to show how little respect their corporate structure has for the customer. Takahashi continually pressed Microsoft’s Todd Holmdahl, vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group, about the defections that have plagued the Xbox 360 since launch.
Todd is responsible for the quality of the system going back to the original Xbox’s launch. Seven times throughout the interview, being asked to comment on the high defection rate, he made a point to say that, “We think the vast majority of people are having just a great experience,” “I would go back and say the vast majority of people love their experience,” or “The vast majority of people are really excited about their product.”
Instead of focusing on the failures of his company to address this issue and fixing it, with some people now going on their third or fourth system, he boasts that, “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,” Todd said. Takahashi then asks, “Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?” The one sentence response from Microsoft: “We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.”
