A lot of people in the gaming community are raising a stink right now about the instability Xbox Live has shown since Christmas. When Microsoft announced that people would be getting a free Xbox Live Arcade game, a lot of people were happy, but there were still some vocal folks that weren’t. I guess you could count me into that latter group of people that aren’t “happy” about how it’s being handled. I’m not under some misguided assumption that our complaints will amount to anything with Microsoft, but I feel I lose a little bit of “me” if I don’t speak out.
Check out the rest, after the jump.
My issue with this whole thing is that Microsoft is never really held accountable for their actions when they do something wrong. When they do make an effort, it’s a cold calculated effort, designed to maximize their bang for the buck and that, in and of itself, isn’t horrible. It’s when you compound that with the asshats running around saying “You should be grateful they gave you something, they didn’t have to!” I absolutely agree with the latter part of that statement and would actually prefer it if they hadn’t.
Let’s imagine this situation: I own a racing school with a giant selection of race cars for sale and a really cool selection of race tracks that are unparalleled anywhere else. You come in, wide-eyed and excited and buy a race car from me. By all accounts, you’ve made a solid choice that should bring you lots of good times. Be happy.
Two weeks later, your car breaks down. You can’t take it to just any shop since it’s a proprietary car and the rest of your warranty would be voided if you did. So, you’re forced to have it towed back to my shop where I work on it for three weeks. To make up for your car breaking, I’ve extended your membership to the racing club by a month. Be happy.
You get your car back and the problem is fixed but you notice now that the passenger door doesn’t open half the time. You drive it back to my shop and complain. I apologize and hand you a free copy of last year’s race car calendar. (it was very popular.) Be happy.
Three weeks later, I call to let you know your car is fixed. When you arrive to pick it up, I tell you I’ve extended your racing club membership for another month and hand you the keys. Be happy.
Right around Christmas time, heavy use deteriorates the race tracks until they’re full of potholes and are largely unusable. I promise to fix the potholes immediately but as quickly as I say I’ve fixed the problem, more potholes appear.
Your racing experience is most definitely not to the level you were expecting. I announce that I’m going to make it up to everyone soon. I tell everyone that I appreciate everyone’s patience and that you’ll all be given a gift for bearing with me. When the time comes, I give everyone a complementary James Blunt CD. I realize James Blunt may not be to everyone’s taste (and frankly, they weren’t selling so well), but you didn’t have to pay for it. Be happy.
Meanwhile, the potholes are still a problem for some. I’ll ignore you. Shut up, and be happy.
See where I’m going here? It’s not that I wouldn’t ordinarily be happy to receive a free copy of a game, but these actions aren’t meant as a “gifts,” they’re being given out in the guise of compensation. Why aren’t we being compensated with an extension of the very service causing us problems? Why is the compensation never directly related to the issue at hand?
Frankly when I’m being compensated for something that’s gone wrong and the compensation is bare minimum (in my book), I’m not going to jump up and down, hootin’ and hollerin’ (I don’t know if I’ve ever actually hooted. or hollered) I’ll likely be slightly disgruntled and accept that I’m probably not going to see anything else out of it and pile those feelings in with the rest of them until they (eventually?) cause me to take action, or to make my own personal little stand.
This rant is two parts “Microsoft get your act together and address problems appropriately” and one part “People, don’t tell me I should be grateful for Microsoft’s misguided generosity.” You’re entirely free to get down on your knees chanting “We’re not worthy!” until your Undertow codes come in (oh, I mean until you remember you have a very small window to actively redeem your compensation for a problem that some say still exists). But please, stop telling me that I’m an ass for not feeling Microsoft has done right by us.
I already intentionally passed on Undertow so getting it free for Live outages means little. I’d already intentionally passed on Kameo so getting it free for being sent a broken replacement 360 meant very little. Most importantly, I’d already paid money to subscribe to live and PLAY MY FRICKIN’ XBOX 360 when it broke multiple times and in the end, giving me an additional month of live doesn’t exactly compensate for the two and a half months I was without a functioning Xbox 360.
Yes, I net-gained two weeks of Xbox Live Gold out of the deal, but they gained a whole ton of animosity from me.
What are your thoughts on compensation versus gift? If I took your Xbox 360 for three weeks and handed you a $4 Gold Membership card, would you feel grateful? If you answer yes, I’m calling you a liar. I don’t want to hear any of this “they extended their warranty for us” crap either, they extended the warranty for one single situation strictly as a strategic move to ward of a lawsuit, plain as day. Now, discuss amongst yourselves. Oh, and be happy.
![[Post to Twitter]](http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this-small.png)
Tweet This
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
17 responses so far ↓
1 clstirens // Jan 22, 2008 at 3:11 pm
You’ve got a VERY good point man. This is the very reason I am starting to look into the realm of sony. I know PSN isn’t as good as Live, but it is free, and I sure haven’t heard of any ps3s breaking.
2 andyg8180 // Jan 22, 2008 at 3:16 pm
they should have given us points instead… Not everyone wants undertow, or will even use undertow… I’d buy some rockband tunes or even put it towards an expansion pack…
Undertow is a cop-out, and i wonder how the owners of undertow are feeling about this…
They offer undertow because:
1. They will assume a bulk of the people will not download it in the given “window”
2. Theres less value to giving away a game as compared to a cash value of microsoft points
3. people who already own undertow will get the run-around until the window is closed and those people are eventually screwed…
overall, since the dashboard update, the dashboard has been horribly slow for me… BOO for the dashboard… Bring back the Spring 06 update lol
3 clstirens // Jan 22, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Yeah, it doesn’t mean crap that the blades move faster now. They load 10x slower lol.
4 refinedsugar // Jan 22, 2008 at 3:43 pm
While you’re ripping MS and Live a new one with your race car scenario, I want you to list all the times Sony accommodated us gamers for their past mistakes.
Your lack of counterbalance or neutrality is a huge tell. I don’t know how anyone can read what you said legitimately without labeling it the words of a PS3 fanboy.
5 Sean "rothbart" Workman // Jan 22, 2008 at 4:21 pm
@refinedsugar: Take it as you will, I _do_ prefer their camp. But I’m calling it as I see it _now_. I’ve had no fewer than FOUR run-ins with Microsoft over their system and service in the first year. I’ve had ZERO with Sony in the entire time I’ve owned any of their products. For the record, I’ve owned all the gaming systems Sony and Microsoft have put out, so it’s not one of those “always been a Sony fanboy” things. I prefer the systems and services that I think are good, fair, and not a pain in the ass. While I favored my Xbox over my PS2, this time around it’s Sony’s turn in my favor.
6 Nathan Z // Jan 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Rothbart, thank you…. I’ve been shouting this to my friends since the news dropped and they didn’t agree. At least someone does.
BTW refinedsugar. We’re not talking about the PS3 here. A person an criticize a mustang without comparing it to a corvette. That pedestal you’re on is awfully tall.
7 NoneOfYourBusiness // Jan 22, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I have never had or heard any problems of Sony’s systems on the scale of RROD.
Why dont they just fix the hardware so the problem doesn’t exist? I’m not completely hardware savvy, but think about it.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to find a problem and rid themselves of it completely then take a loss of over a billion? Unless of course the 360 has a basic archetecture flaw that would require the system to get redesigned.
Enter new systems…with cheap fixes hoping to cope with the issue, but failing.
This is probably a fanboy rant but it makes you think if MS is playing a misinformation game with its users with these gifts.
8 commander121 // Jan 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
microsoft should just give us points and whats the deal witht the blades taking ages to load
9 refinedsugar // Jan 22, 2008 at 7:29 pm
My contention has been you’re throwing so much flak at MS that it’s as if Sony has never done any wrong. How can anyone not read this article as anything more than a fanboy rant-bash?
You don’t have to be some die-hard bulb to see a company’s goodie-goodie actions in this day and age have a self-serving benefit. It’s great PR, makes most people happy (whenever they know the real reasoning behind it or not) and it limits their legal liability. With retarded lawsuits commonplace, companies rarely do anything just because ‘it was the right thing to do’ now.
Don’t like listening to people who tell you what MS had done is great? Don’t listen to them. You wanna call out MS on their slip-ups because you’re felt/feeling the pain? Fine. You wanna label their responses counter spin or bs? Go right ahead, but while your off railroading them try to keep in mind Sony doesn’t get a free pass as a company just because you haven’t felt their wraith personally and there is no pleasing everyone 100% of the time, all the time.
10 NP Sage // Jan 22, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I understand where your coming from but think about this,
How many people own more that one live account? ( i own 2)
how many people would take there codes and sell them on ebay? Admit it there would be people who claim their codes dident work and sell 1800+ point on ebay for free.
by giving away a game they are also allowing teens who have parental controls on (trust i know people out there with that problem) to get something.
11 NoneOfYourBusiness // Jan 22, 2008 at 9:07 pm
With half a billion+ in subscription income though, they shouldnt have these problems in the first place. They pride themselves on having a badass network, and say how it is the standard, then they should treat it as such.
Prepare and be ready for when people join LIVE.
PSN gets no money from those who join it, and granted they have less users, there have been less problems on it. Even if they had the exact same problems, Xbox still has half a billion.
These shouldnt happen as often or ever for that matter. Throwing a cheap game out is not the same as owing up and keeping their players in the loop.
12 Sean "rothbart" Workman // Jan 22, 2008 at 10:04 pm
@refinedsugar: Learn to separate the two man… me saying something MS-related sucks is NOT me saying Sony doesn’t… why do people CONSISTENTLY drag that garbage into discussions?
If Microsoft does something suck, I’m judging it’s suckiness all on it’s own merits (or lack thereof).
13 Harag // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:02 am
i think refinedsugar should possibly check a couple weeks ago where rothbart did a rant on SONY’s flaws quit spouting crap off if you dont know what your talking about
14 Harag // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:03 am
i forgot reading the site would almost be like having a informed opinion and thats just blasphemy in this day and age
15 Inexile // Jan 23, 2008 at 7:57 am
I totally agree with Rothbart’s rant , and not only stemming fromXbox related issues , microsoft has been screwing us since Windows began an OS , as a retailer for computer systems i know full well their level of customer service , which is next to non existant, 20 years of headaches for me , Xbox 360 problems are just the icing on the cake
16 refinedsugar // Jan 23, 2008 at 12:54 pm
omg Harag … you so got me. A winner is you.
17 patrick // Jan 23, 2008 at 2:58 pm
If all of you are having problems with microsoft why don’t you sell your xbox 360 and shut up about it already. If my ford truck were to break down on a monthly basis I would sell it and by a chevy or etc .RROD problems have been around for over 2 years now so there is no reason to go on complaining about it anymore . Sony has a good system go buy that . Here’s an idea ….take the xbox 360 and shove it up your a - hole and I’m sure you guys would just complain about how it does’nt vibe hard enough or something. SELL IT -DON’T TALK
Leave a Comment