XBox360 Losing the PR battle from the Start

[perseusprime]

Matt got a call from GameStop to come get his XBox360 today. He preordered it, so presumably, he should have had it 3 weeks ago ... while those people that didn't preorder should still be waiting to get theirs

Comments

[anonymous]

Actually, pre-orders are not something that the individual game company tends to look at. That's more of a service offered by the gaming store itself. Granted, MS should have made sure that individual game stores weren't promised a huge batch of consoles and only received a few on launch date, but most game stores don't really do much to keep those pre-orders limited. They often just allow anyone to preorder, regardless of how many units they expect to receive on launch date, with the stipulation that individuals will be sold their consoles based on what order they pre-ordered in. I know that when we were launching the newer consoles the bit of time that I worked in retail, we were told that the expected # of ship consoles wasn't guaranteed, but that we should keep taking pre-orders. MS isn't responsible for the individual companies keeping those expectations in check, and some of those companies blow it big time when it comes to keeping consumer expectations in check. Granted, I think MS should have had a larger supply ready

[perseusprime]

Perorders for the XBox360 were done through Microsoft. That is, the retailers who wished to do so could sell orders prior to release with the understanding that Microsoft would fill them. Instead, retailers like GameStop got less than 1/10th of the orders that were already bought and paid for at the initial release, while retailers like Best Buy and Walmart got huge shipments. My problem isn't that all the preorders weren't filled in the initial release, but rather, that they were not filled prior to sending huge orders to other retailers. My friend, Matt, was #5 on his store's list. Two other friends of ours went to Best Buy on November 22 and both got a 360 (along with several hundred other people). When PS2 came out (and the original XBox), if you hadn't preordered your console, you couldn't get it for weeks (until the preorders were filled). That is how it should be, yet the vast majority of people around the country who had preordered the systems still have not received them, while Best Buy is scheduled to get over 10,000

[perseusprime]

I can't find the press releases for the pre-release preorder information since there are so many post-release articles up. I do remember Microsoft issuing a statement a while back saying they would recognize the preorders that were taken prior to the date they had set to start them, but I can't find that one either (probably should have bookmarked it when I read it months ago ... but at the time, I wasn't planning on buying one until March/April anyway

[perseusprime]

Darn ... I was hoping some anonymous person at Microsoft had saw it, decided to respond ... and then I could bug them to get my preorder filled :P

[perseusprime]

Oh, and Yes, I have called Sony for support. I actually had a problem they couldn't solve over the phone (the PS2 I had had for over a year stopped reading discs -- they wouldn't even spin). They paid for my shipping, repaired my console free of charge, and sent it back to me, despite the fact that the 90 day warranty was well expired.

On a slightly different note, I've never had any problems with my Nintendo systems. Interestingly enough, the GameCube has much more horsepower than either the PS2 or the XBox, and I have never run into any issues with it overheating.