Sunday, November 20, 2005

XBox Delay

Ok, I rarely get really personal here, but I am angry. Yesterday night my husband got a call on his cell phone from an long distance number we didn't recognize. It turned out to be from GameStop. We are not getting an Xbox 360 until around JANUARY 2006. We ordered way ahead of time, pre-paid, and confirmed twice that we'd receive one in the first shipment. Apparently, they way, WAY oversold. We also pre-ordered, and prepaid for several games. Elder Scrolls most likely won't be out until March, which is fine... we also have a few games that came in and are available, but will not have a console to play them on.

I understand that Microsoft is having trouble keeping up with demand. I'm upset with the store, for taking preorders they couldn't deliver, and for getting their customers informed in such an inpersonal way, making me seriously reconsider the patronage we give them. A recorded call to deliver bad news is terrible customer service. Most likely they had so many calls to make, but I bet they didn't want upset customers screaming at them over the phone. It's downright cowardly.

1 comment:

John said...

I think the Xbox delays work out like this.

No retailers (or journalists for that matter) were expecting Microsoft to announce a simelataneous (I can never spell that word) worldwide release of the 360. So they made pre-order sheets based on that and the number of Xbox 1's MS delivered in 2001.

Enter the worldwide launch and that number gets cut down to a third.

What do you get? Pissed off gamers with pre-order slips that now say January on them.

It sucks for everyone that pre-ordered (I'm really sorry about that Beth, you have every right to vent and vent some more), but you have to admire Microsoft's balls for finally getting the whole world involved in a console's life right from the start.