Q: How many times does an Xbox 360 unit have to be sent in and repaired before they will replace it with a completely new unit?
That's not how it works. You send in a broken box, you get back a working box (hopefully). So there is a rotating stock of the original units that get repaired and returned to service. Plus, they keep finding these cashes of launch units here and there and using them too. Didn't you hear during the holidays that bundles were found with units made in 06? Those were pulled back from the retail channel last spring when the new heatsink was done, and had the new heatsink placed on them and then put into the shipping flow like any other box.
Back to the rotating inventory of launch units. You risk getting one of those back until the last one is out of the system. I imagine the next big outrage will be when some of the folks who waited till Falcon to buy a console for reliability reasons, and has to send it in for service, gets a Xenon back! Even when all of the Xenons are gone, you will likely get a newer gen repaired one back rather than new. Unless the fail rate gets so low there are none available. I'm holding my breath...
Q: How could the wireless racing wheel have overheating problems with the AC adapter? I can't think of any external video game accessory that had similar problems.
I don't know. I heard that one was an over reaction, and no test could have found it. That happens sometimes. A supplier changes something, or it happens so rarely that it can't be seen in any reasonable or even possible sample size. Like Xbox 1's catching on fire. That happened 25 times out of 25 million units. How can you test for that unless you know exactly what causes it? If you know, you design it out.
Q: The original Xbox had a recall of some of the power supply cords. Did that affect the design of the 360?
Safety became a paramount concern. We realized that we could meet all regulations and still have problems. So extra effort was made to have zero safety defects. See the comment about 25 fires from this, above.
Q: There has seemed to be an executive exodus from the top of the Xbox project. Seamus Blackley, Peter Moore, James Allard. Do you think that there something that has been causing the "fathers of Xbox" to want to move on?
Seamus left a long time ago, and I think there was some conflict so that it wasn't entirely voluntary. J Allard left to go do Zune (along with Greg Gibson), and is a big part of the team who owns the strategic vision of MS E&D under Robbie Bach. Peter was a surprise. He sure left in a hurry, and not the way top people usually go, which is usually with a longer notice. And right after the warranty extension announcement. I don't know if they are related, but it looks like they could be in some way. I noticed you didn't mention Ed Fries, who left in 04. I heard he landed at Sony, but can't verify. But I don't see the senior team wanting to move or moving. Very few people who leave do so voluntarily. Note: I did forget to mention Ed Fries.
Q: Do you see much of a long term future for Microsoft?s Entertainment & Devices Division? I saw that they just got a new campus and troubled projects rarely get new expensive buildings. Do you see that division ever turning a profit? So what do you think their overall hardware strategy is? Do you think that they will still be selling videogame systems and music players in five years?
Xbox's mission statement is to preserve the Windows monopoly and extend it into the living room, as a media extender for a Media Center PC, along with a host of other MS and other company's hardware devices that fit into a digital entertainment lifestyle. MS has the bucks to keep losing money on Xbox for a long time, maybe forever. They've already lost around 6 billion dollars. How are they ever going to make that back on Xbox? They can't. Maybe they don't think they have to. That amount might be just 1 or 2 quarters of profit for an integrated hw/sw portfolio, with windows, PC Hardware, Xbox, Zune, TV, Movies, ads, etc., all providing some revenue stream to MS. You should check out their jobs site sometime. You can learn a lot about what they are doing. And their patent applications. They have a team working on making PCs now. That voice activated thing they did for Ford? Where do you think you will see that next? MS devices and sw is my guess.
That new H&E campus says that MS is getting into consumer electronics in a big way, and you can bet they are working to refine a strategy of integrating their offerings into a digital lifestyle universe, with most everything covered that we could want to stay productive, connected and entertained. Not piece meal, like some companies seem to be approaching electronics. Look at Apple. They are doing great, keep rolling out innovative stuff, but what's their vision and strategy to implement? What's their roadmap and timeline? How does it all go together, work together? I can't tell from what they say or do. But I can see what MS is trying to do. They are just getting started I think. So yes, they will still be doing this in 5 years. But they really need to mature their business and change some blood in there. Hire some key people who have experience running large hardware companies who can put the right organization, process and infrastructure in place. If they don't, they may continue to have quality and operational issues that will really dampen their progress. And with all of the external challenges in consumer markets, even MS can't afford to be it's own enemy for too much longer.
Q: Do you think that there is going to be a third generation Xbox?
I understand they are working on it right now. But don't look for it any time soon. It's years away. News flash: Sony and Nintendo are working on their next boxes in some way too.
Q: So do you play games?
Just a little. I lack the hardware abstraction layer in my brain that allows me to translate body motion into controller commands. If I am playing a racing game and I want to turn right I tend to turn the controller to the right. Just like the Wii. Funny thing. In the middle of '03 I tried to convince our director of "innovation" that we needed to do motion control, simple and intuitive controllers, and focus on family oriented and just plain fun content. Well before the Wii came out. He completely disregarded it. Oh well. I bet they wish they had that decision back as a do over.
Source:
8Bit Joystick