Sony Responds to BBC Criticism

[hypothetical fact]

Anybody that brings up the RROD is a Sony fanboy running with strawman arguments. The problem is that the PS3 has a fault in its design which breaks the console and isn't covered after a year, while Sony talks about 10 year plans.

The .5% rate, the 10 year plan and the 1 year warranty are all fine on their own but mixed together you get another company that refuses to admit its own mistakes to save PR.

 

[Sovvolf]

Anybody that brings up the RROD is a Sony fanboy running with strawman arguments. The problem is that the PS3 has a fault in its design which breaks the console and isn't covered after a year, while Sony talks about 10 year plans.

The .5% rate, the 10 year plan and the 1 year warranty are all fine on their own but mixed together you get another company that refuses to admit its own mistakes to save PR.

What about Xbox owners who've gotten the RRoD? Don't they have a right to bring it up? Or did they buy a faulty hunk of shit, just to secretly harpoon MS using viral internet tactics? LoL. I could say 'Everyone who says the PS3 has no games' is a 360 fanboy. But I wouldn't. I'll just say they're plain retarded.

Points go to Mornelithe for having a sense of logic.

And BTW, Microsoft may have free repairs, but I've never gotten one and they take forever to return your console to you. Also, if they have the knowledge to fix the RRoD when you send it in, why not use that knowledge and fix it before the consumer ever gets ahold of it, just some food for though.

My cousins 360 as failed 3 times and he hasn't paid for a new one, just keeps sending them back, failed a fortnight ago, he sent it off and got it back within a week fully repaired (well fully repaired for a 360, it'll be dead again in a few months ). I've had 4 360's my self, the first broke down and Argos refused to replace it, so we went through a lot of shit with Microsoft and Argos who after a lot of shit replaced it. The third one was the same cept I had a ticket from Argos in case it broke down again, getting that through to the women at the desk was a pain, had all the papers but she refused, if it was a bloke I'd have been arrested for pulling him over the counter but eventually got it. The fourth one however I bought again after the 3rd broke down, I got this from Game however as I have much more trust with them... this one to my surprise is almost on it's third year and it still runs extremely well, has a few hiccups every now and again but other wise its fine.

I'm not a 360 fanboy, I don't get fanboyism for consoles, I don't like to say this (Because it makes me sound like a ZP fanboy) but yahtzee probably nailed it on the head, its because most people can only afford one console so they most criticize the other consoles at every turn because they can't afford it. Which is ironic for me because the only reason I don't have a PS3 is because I couldn't afford it, don't criticise it though. Fact is when it came to buying the fourth 360 I was wanting to buy a PS3 instead, I had about £300 of Christmas money to spend and needed a new console so I went to find a PS3. Then I saw the price, some were close to £500 for one, the 360 however was £130 (The arcade one but I still had my harddrive from the previous 360's so it didn't really matter too much) I had £300 so well obviously went for the 360 because they were cheap, I could have gone for the Wii but well I'm not much into them, they seem fun for party gaming but there's not that much you can play on your own with, at least no good ones plus this was back were Wii's were impossible to get hold of in the UK.

The fact is for me the PS3 has some awesome exclusive games for it and free internet but it's at a steep price and I won't be getting one till it comes down a bit, maybe at Christmas were the prices drop or January when the stores are trying to rid them selves of stock.

 

[Captain_Caveman]

The yellow light of death, seriously? Could they not think up of something that not similar to RROD.

what would you prefer they call it.

it's a light, that's yellow, that comes on when the system dies.

seem's pretty fitting to me.

 

[ThePeaceFrog]

To be fair to watchdog, I vaguely remember them running the exact same thing for the 360 a while back and I do know a few people who's PS3s have failed on them and it is fucking expensive, that said, I also know another guy who's 360 has broken 4 times in a row...

 

[Ekonk]

How odd, I was listening to the song based on this just yesterday in college. Very amusing, based on a Johnny Cash song, I believe.

AND IT BURNS BURNS BURNS

THE RING OF FIRE

THE RING OF FIRE

 

[Avernus]

The yellow light of death, seriously? Could they not think up of something that not similar to RROD.

what would you prefer they call it.

it's a light, that's yellow, that comes on when the system dies.

seem's pretty fitting to me.

Pretty par for the course name tbh. RRoD was an extension from the PC's extremely venerable Blue Screen of Death, YLoD just seems to be a logical extension of what has come before.

 

[VanityGirl]

worst yellow light thing to happen to a person was probably this poor guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmLlvRtpHrA

i felt bad for him

 

[Bat Vader]

Paid by Microsoft. Lies inside (c).

I highly doubt the BBC was paid by Microsoft to do this story

Either your making a joke or your a fanboy. I can't tell.

 

[Bat Vader]

Paid by Microsoft. Lies inside (c).

Wow, a conspiracy theory and the wrong company tagline in one post. Yes, Microsoft pays off everybody. The BBC, Adam Sessler, and all the gaming publications.

yes they do, otherwise Yahtzee would have to have been worshiping Halo 3, not fucking it in the ear. excluding the fact that the game has very few bugs, it is terrible.

Your opinion says it is terrible. Just because it is terrible to you does not mean it is terrible to someone else.

 

[Bat Vader]

I say for problems like the 360's Red Ring of Death or the PS3's Yellow Light of Doom they should come with life time warranties when you buy that product.

 

[skintrade]

Time for me to chip in - the "gas" that people keep mentioning is a gaseous by product of the soldering/manufacturing process and in ALL electrical products there is a chance that a gas bubble in the solder especially at the joints of components can "pop" (for want of a better term even though it doesn't actually pop like a bubble) thus breaking a connection. It's not a gas that is harmful to anyone and is not something that just starts to occur during use, it is a manufacturing risk in every piece of electrical equipment (Hell I learned that at school making circuit boards). games consoles tend to run hot, hell my Freeview box gets hot and I've had 10!. The one thing that every piece of AV equipment needs is good airflow, it even says that in the manuals.

I am not in any way shape or form defending Sony, The BBC, or Tony the Tiger.

Time for me to winge about the amount of Nokias I've had die a few days out of warranty.

 

[bad rider]

It's funny, ya know, a whole lot of people have been quick to defend the BBC and Watchdog, then I wake up this morning and see....:

http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/formats/playstation3/bbc-s-watchdog-accused-making-ps3-users-embellish-their-ylod-stories-$1328300.htm


Cute.

Um, no offense, but that looks to be like a small gaming news outlet. Hardly dismornings newspaper.

 

[bad rider]

But they addressed a serious problem, which has affected a large amount of consumers, (even if thats small in relation to total sales) shouting "it's a fallacy of journalism" is a little harsh considering the consumer was affected and they went a fought on their behalf.

The way in which they went about doing their piece, is the problem. I've no problem if you want to look at the PS3's faults, or Sony's Customer Service Issues...but, they 'targeted' the YLOD, then lumped every single PS3 failure into that category. Which, in and of itself, is nothing short of a lie.

If YLOD was _that_ widespread, a class action lawsuit would already have been filed and won by defendants, against Sony. Plain and simple. It's really that easy. We know it can be done, because we saw Microsoft get forced into 3 year warranties, due to RRoD (and then E-74) failures.

Why hasn't it happened to Sony then? The reason is, while yes, the YLOD does affect a small portion of the PS3's in circulation, it's nowhere near as numerous as the 12,500 failures that this piece led the consumer to believe.

Adding into that, the other issues with the show. Such as, finding a gas inside the machine while it's on...but not identifying the gas, figuring out why it's there, what potential health risk it poses to humans, and how it's produced. All are quite important bits of detail, handily left out.

Lastly, targeting 16 PS3's, out of country-wide install base of 2.5 million, and saying the results are concrete evidence of anything (other than a half-assed bit of journalism), is ridiculous. Absolutely, positively ridiculous.

If they want to identify issues with Sony's Customer Service, I expect them to hunker down and bite whatever bullet they have to, to actually speak with Sony themselves. They created a highly negative piece that Sony identified for what it truly was, right out of the box. They had the opportunity ot actually speak with Sony, but instead, decided the unsubstantiated smear campaign would work better for them. Sounds like they've been taking queue's from American GOP members.

So this quote war ends soon, lets put it this way. It's fair enough they covered it, there was justification to do it and some of the things they said were true. However, bottom line, they did go overboard, there was bias and the editors should have payed more attention to the piece.

 

[Abengoshis]

The yellow light of death, seriously? Could they not think up of something that not similar to RROD.

Or the Blue Screen of Death, the B(l***y)SOD.

(Yeah Bl***y isn't a cuss word really, but I'm afraid Escapist might ban me for it, i've already got a warning for having written a message "too short".)

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I ought to clear up something here, I think BBC News is still one of the most reliable sources out there, however, what people don't seem to realise is that BBC keeps an eye on what people like, and people like pointlessly grumbling far too much about minor inconveniences.

Therefore they've made a TV show which is just that, your parents or grandparents can sit down in front of it for an hour, sucking air thru their teeth and shaking their heads, all the time dropping such lines as...

'That never would have happened in our day'
'I can't believe they get away with it'
'it's an outrage, someone should do something'

etc, etc.

It's an entertainment show disguised as a consumer advice show. You know how your parent's never 'get' your music, or your favourite comedy shows? now you can understand, because you don't 'get' how they can love just joining in with a good countrywide communal grumble.

It's the reason the Daily Mail runs headlines about wheelie bins, and recycling rules and the EU rulings about hedge heights, it's all fuel for them to meet other people like them and have a good moan. There doesn't have to be any fact, just enough irritation to get a good head of steam worked up about the issue.

You only need to watch any episode of Watchdog and, provided it's an honest company, all interviews go like this:
Robinson: 'Well, you've let these customers down with faulty goods!'
Spokesman: We understand that a tiny proportion of our customers have recieved kettles that boil in 3 mins 8 seconds instead of 3 minutes, and we publicly and wholeheartedly apologise.'
Robinson: 'Well that's easy to say, but what are you going to do about it?'
Spokesman: 'Well, we've sent everyone a full refund, a new kettle, and a handwritten apology, and anyone who comes to our head office can kick our MD in the knackers.'
Robinson: 'Well ...um... that's NOT good enough, but we're out of time'

Nothing's ever good enough and they treat everyone like they're trying to con people.

/rantover

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Oh and if it IS a 0.5% failure rate, then sorry if you've been unlucky, but until we can summon actual Gods to do every step of the manufacturing process, some things will be imperfect, although Sony I feel could have offered a better deal.

However, again, I partly blame the consumer as a whole (not the individuals with faulty machines as such.)

You offer someone a TV with a 3 month warranty and no after sales support for £195, and the same TV with a 3 year warranty, and 24/7 freephone support and an engineer on callout for £199, most people will go 'ooh cheaper'. If you say you wouldn't, it's because you're not a fuckwit, I'm talking most people.

I experienced this to a different degree when working in a music store, people would come in, ask us advice, listen to cds, then piss off without buying anything and go order em online for a pound off, not realising that if you don't buy from us, we don't stay open, which is what happened. I don't blame piracy nearly as much as I blame people who'd rather wait a week for a CD for 50p less.

Therefore, companies have realised there's just not much in keeping customers happy and offering good service, you're better off strimming a few bucks off and being cheapest.

Then of course, when they go wrong, they ***** because for some reason the company won't send a limo around with a new bigger TV for free four years down the line.

I'm quite an advocate of Richer Sounds, they're not always cheapest, but they are pretty good, and they actually know what they're talking about, and offer good service, and their 5 year addon warranty is 10% of the price.