First off can I say you’re the ONLY intelligent poster trying to argue for the other side. Secondly, I think comparing buying a house to buying an xbox is like comparing apples to oranges but I’ll try my best to prove my point. It basically all boils down to due diligence. Say you were to buy a house, according to what you said you read everything and checked everything out and signed and shit happened. Well if a person had brains (not sure if most of SRK qualifies) they would do the responsible thing and get a PROFESSIONAL inspection. That way if anything does happen you have them on record saying it was okay and you can go after them for recourse. NOW would anyone pay me $50 to inspect an xbox before they buy it guarantee that it would work for 3 years (Personally I think that’s a really good console life span). Of course no one would. But they do have extended warranties just for that purpose. It’s the same idea except in reverse.
Honestly though, people just need to do their homework and roll with the punches. OBVIOUSLY early adopters are going to get screwed since there’s no history. But for the guy buying his 5th xbox and still bitching about how M$ is the devil blah blah is just a sad individual.
Thanks for being a non-e-warrior like the other douche bags in this thread who’s best defense is to say “You’re a fucking idiot” etc etc
However it’s that professional inspection that I’m including in the scenario I presented to you as well. As life is unfair, no one is perfect, so it is just as easy to assume that while the company or people providing a faulty product or service; the inspectors could also produce a less than thorough report and miss items not up to standard that causes you financial grief (and possible emotional grief).
Talking about early adopters and continuing on the real estate angle I produced, here in Vancouver we had a relevant situation which we named the Leaky Condo Crisis:
Long story short. Gov’t in midst of an energy crisis of the 80’s wanted to make houses more energy efficient and produced guildelines to make houses airtight. Problem is airtight houses doesn’t allow for the residual water houses normally get to evaporate out of the walls. Result from a gov’t produced plan was condos that collected water inside it’s walls and roofs and resulted in a large amount rotting within years of being built.
The thing is I’m not comparing the company products of houses to video game consoles, which one is a necessity and therefore have more avenues of recourse. But I’m using this example to address the point that while you say life is unfair and suggested options/studying to avoid these problems; sometimes it’s unreasonable even if you’ve done all the homework. In the example above, people probably did their homework because the gov’t set the guidelines of what was right at the time. I’m not saying to blame the gov’t, but addressing the idea of you saying to be responsible and hire an inspector, it still resulted in your house breaking down sure recourse is an option but would you feel angry about the unfairness of the situation? Or would you keep to your belief that life is unfair and you shall roll with the punches while your house, now devalued beyond it’s selling price with no potential seller, falls apart around you?
It’s the same feeling that some of these people feel about products they buy assuming it should work longer than the warranty says. Yes warranties are supposed to be within reason as the car example was suggested earlier in the thread, however I imagine that I should have an legitimate expectation that a console should last the length of the time they continue releasing games for it during that generation. It’s through this idea and the examples that I wanted to show that while the onus is really on the consumer to learn about the product they are buying and our choices determine our happiness and aggravation with it later on; there should be an equal common respect of the company to produce a product to not set unreasonable guidelines that doesn’t necessarily protect them (I mean companies should have some protections afterall) but more importantly wanders into the area of hurting or limiting the consumer as an owner.