What do you think of MS' apology?

After all of the pain and suffering we went through with Live over the past few months, Microsoft is asking for forgiveness with...UNDERTOW!!! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif

On the positve side, I personally think that's kind of cool. I wanted to play the game, but I wasn't willing to spend the money on it. It gets lots of acclaim and looks like fun.

On the negative side, I would like to be able to choose a game of equal value because I actually have other games I want more. Ah well.

 

I think it's BS personally. It's a nice gesture, but that's all it is. What they should've done was re-distributed 1000 Microsoft Points to all Xbox LIVE Gold members who had a full membership throughout the "difficult" time period. It's really no sweat off their backs. Yes it's better to receive something than nothing... but this is Microsoft we're talking about and unfortunately it convinced a lot of people to turn to the Dark Side (PS3). There have been a ton of articles circulating the net regarding the whole situation. This is why I think it would have been more beneficial for MS to "donate" 1000 marketplace points to each XBL Gold user rather than one specific game. It would have meant something more than a simple gesture and that way the gamer gets to decide what they would like to spend the points on... it's quite simple really.

 

couldn't have said it better if i tried. it definitely would have been nice if i could choose what I wanted.

 

Don't really care. Just glad it's fixed.

 

Giving 1000 points to each member actually costs them money though. They have to pay up to every developer who gets something bought. If they give away just one game, which they publish/own the rights to themselves, they don't lose anything except potential sales.

I wonder what went wrong with it to mess things up so bad.

 

You do care and you just don't know it yet. The next time something like this happens, you're gonna say "I hate you MS! You need to pay me for this sh!t!"...well they already did. Maybe they'll give you a free patch for that copy of Undertow to you like so much.

 

If they had done things things right to begin with there would be no issue to begin I came on fairly recently and had quite a few problems as well. I don't see it as a bad things as long as they fix all the issues because it is things like this that keep MS from competing with their competition that I need not mention. They had all that time to fix their issues before PS3 and Wii and yet they refused to take any real action. As far as I am concerned MS are a bunch of idiots that do things that make their every success seem meaningless and this won't change anytime soon even though I wish I it would. They will find ways to mess it up regardless of what they try that is the only guarantee I know of nowadays from MS lately.

 

Take what you can get. Sometimes things just go to shit and no one knows why. It's XBL not your life.

 

it aint my life but it sure was a waste of my time and money.

seriously, MS should have done better being the computer juggernaut that they are. i can only speculate that they are going to give us a CRUDDY arcade game since they are being greedy and unappreciative of the people buying all the Xbox and the memberships. the time that we lost will never be returned to us and this little game that they give us does little to patch MS' rep of XBL

 

Maybe they should give back that extra month or two that they used up...

 

Ok well you're actually wrong about that. There's a class action law-suit against MS right now and I'm sure that it would be much more affordable for them to give each XBL member the 1000 pts than it would in court costs / lawyer & legal fees. It just doesn't make any sense to say that it'll cost Microsoft Money when they OWN the service and are supposed to be providing a steady and working service for the people that pay for it. It's simple and just plain good business practice to compensate your customers and loyal fans when they have been wronged or unsatisfied by your product/services. By giving the 1000 pts out to everyone this also encourages people to browse the marketplace and gives the XBL XNA developers a little more exposure and helps promote the XBL marketplace and XBL Arcade. And in the end the developers of the marketplace content and arcade games still get paid. Microsoft loses very little since they already take a large percentage of every piece of Downloaded content and arcade game that's paid for in MS Points. So to say that they would be "losing" anything is kinda naive and ridiculous. If nothing less it would show good faith to the customers and encourage them to keep coming back rather than jump ship and go to a free service.

Expect this problem to happen every holiday season from now on. Microsoft has not expanded or upgraded their servers. Things keep up the way they are, spring break and the summer are going to be a bitch!

 

there full of shit more money than godd and u cant give me points plz.. fuk ms they no no one iz gonna quit xbl anyway so they just do wut they want..ill say it again fuk ms

 

I'm not saying it's the correct course of action, or even a desirable one. Speculating on their legal costs is one thing. But I am right about how it costs them actual money to give away points. This is because they pay developers royalties based on downloads/sales/points spent. So everyone rushes out and buys different things with their points. Obviously they can write off sending themselves a cheque when they are the publishers, but they have to pay up to the other companies. That costs them actual money.

By giving away one game they own the rights to it costs them lost sales - which is potential earnings, so on paper they don't have to pay out a thing.

It's easy to say having people browsing and spending points is a good idea, that people will get used to the idea of using points for games and go buy more in the future. But it's more complicated than that. These days, CRM (customer relations management) is really complicated and based on all sorts of data. Companies these days can identify which customers to target in which way, rather than sending the same special offers out to everyone and crossing their fingers that it boosts sales. There's a strong chance that giving 1000 points away won't affect points spending positively at all. It also sets a precedent for the future.

Now I'm not saying I agree with any of it of course.

I'm not too bothered by it. It was annoying, but I don't pay very much for the service and long term it's been fine.

 

Ok, I'm sorry to say this Stiff, but you sound like one of the pricks that works for the Microsoft PR department. If they're not paying you then you should probably apply for a job in the MS XBL telephone tech support and customer service department. You'd quickly learn how many and how often people are dismayed, dissatisfied, and frustrated with both the service and the actual hardware that uses the service. As

Again you're wrong in assuming the costs that would be incurred towards microsoft. Yes, Microsoft would lose some money, 60% of the 1000 pts would go towards the developers of the marketplace content and games which is roughly $7 dollars per 1000 points. Now considering an Xbox LIVE Gold membership (for 1 account!) costs $50 dollars per year, I'm sure that Microsoft has enough overhead to manage the measly $7.00 they're losing when they have another $43 dollars in stock (per individual account) for a service which people are paying to use to it's full and promised functionality. So giving away 1000 points so that Xbox LIVE customers and consumers can spend them on what THEY want is very little to ask.

See what I mean? So it is in fact much more simple than you would like to believe. There losses would not directly impact their profit, especially since good practice (such as refunding or compensating for poor service) keeps customers coming back. So the logistics behind the finances in relation to the service and the negative affect of giving away 1000 points to every XBL Gold account member for the crummy services which were rendered over the holiday is just a steaming pile of bullshit.

So yes, I will take the free game, but no it is not what I would consider a compensation when I paid for something that I didn't receive in full I would either like some of my money back or a way in which to spend that money that I did lose to my liking.

MS is both greedy and lazy. That's basically it.

 

All in all, there will always be issues with Live at some point, but I have never once thought about canceling my service. I love it. On occasion I will do pelvic thrusts in my living room because Live excites me that much. I had a kid early and got married, so I don't get to go find people to play VF with. Ever since this came out, I always have something to do when I can't leave the house. Not including spending time with family...that doesn't count.

On another note, I can almost guarantee that if Sony had the amount of traffic on their network that MS has on theirs, it would explode.

 

Wow. The extent that some of you go to feel compensated for intermittent service...is, well, amazing. You give $50 to MS and you think you deserve service on a silver platter. Wake up people. You paid $50 for the opportunity to partake in online gaming while accepting the risk that the service is not 100% perfect.

Here's my thoughts on the letter: I don't care. I don't even want MS points, or a free DL of Undertow (whatever that game even is). I don't care. It's a huge waste of my time to try and talk out of my ass on what the impact of reimbursement would be to XBL gold members - which is what everyone's doing in the thread. Unless any of you work for MS, or are professionally involved in finance or litigation for MS and its videogame products, you have absolutely no hard facts to stand on. So give it up already and just move on.

 

I don't understand, you say I'm wrong, but then you go on to say that I'm right. All I'm saying is that it's more attractive on the bottom line - on paper, for MS to give away a game rather than points. Points will cost them actual money, a game won't. It's a basic fact, not really something you can argue against.

I've already said I'm not particularly keen on it, but that wasn't the point of what I was saying anyway.

You've just got a simplistic way of looking at things. I can't do much about that. Why don't you write them a letter explaining how you feel rather than saying I sound like a prick?

 

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Why don't you write them a letter explaining how you feel rather than saying I sound like a prick? </div></div>

I had to bring this out. Stiff, you have it bang on. Rather than mope about it and insult the company providing a service that you (in general) still, remarkably, pay for - write them a letter and complain constructively. Then again, when was the last time any of the internet whiners even wrote anything on paper?

 

This was not my original point, but you brought this up. Live is a "service" that we are paying for. Regardless of the amount we pay. No one wants to pay for a service that doesn't perform when they want to use it. We pay for the ability to play games online when we want to, not when MS wants to allow us. Being that it is a service, if it is not functional for an extended period time, then they need to make ammends for this. If not, it's just bad customer service...not a good idea. Word of mouth means a lot. Obviously MS already knows all this and that is why we are getting a well reviewed game. You may not care that the service you paid for didn't work, but the general public does. None of us are going to great lengths to get reimbursed. We are merely stating that forcing a game on us that we may or may not want to play as an apology for not being able to play a game we do pay to play may not be the best customer service move.

"Hey, I know you just paid me for a hamburger Llanfair, but since that burger was bad, heres a hot dog."

 

Wow, LLanfair, harsh... a guy posting on a forum, complaining about other people posting on a forum not being sufficiently involved in other activities, how original.

For the record, you're completely wrong. The issue is more about contractual obligation than it is about the actual intermittent service. Tycho from Penny Arcade summed it up best: "If I asked you to help me move, and you said yeah, but then you realized that you had to do something else, you'd apologize and withdraw the offer. If I pay you money to help me move - if you are a moving company - and then you apologize in lieu of the agreed upon service? I don't even know how to describe that, and describing things is all I can do."