Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Monday 04/03/2002

All that scratching is making me X. Reports from far Nippon suggest that Microsoft's Xbox is proving slightly more abrasive than planned. Some users report that their DVDs are coming out of the machine scratched around the periphery, and they want it fixed. Microsoft says that there's no problem, it's all the users' fault for putting the disks in wonky and no, it won't be doing a recall.

Hm. I remember Intel saying much the same about a certain FDIV bug in the Pentium: there wasn't a problem, then there was a problem but it affected vanishingly small numbers of people so if you wanted a replacement you had to prove you were doing Hard Maths, and finally -- free Pentiums for everyone. Not because Intel was in any way incorrect in its assessment of the severity of the bug, but because people didn't trust the company and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Intel learned a big lesson from that. Microsoft, it seems, has not. And in the Japanese games market, which is huge, conservative and not overly fond of Microsoft to start with, Microsoft may already have taken its pulse cannon and aimed it firmly at its feet.