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Robert I'm sorry you lost your job, but those papers that you signed when they hired you meant you cannot "spill the beans" while you are being paid by them. That's just stupid and you arrogance with comments like "Bring it on!" just exacerbates the fickle you're in. It says more about you with your future employees, you cannot be trusted. If you cannot live with the fact that they are "tricking" the consumers, then quit, or do what a genuinely concerned person will do, do it anonymously. In the end you just wanted your 15 mins. of fame for "battling" the big guys and appearing like a hero for the benefit of your own ego.
The problems are that an employee has gone on record acknowleging what the blogs have been saying for 2 years. The other problem is that people have brought class-action lawsuits against Microsoft, and this adds potential liability for Microsoft. If I'm Microsoft, I don't want this guys statement to cost me $50 million from one of these pending class-action lawsuits... especially for a temp employee... this isn't Bill Gates making the statement, which you have to own up to.
I feel sorry for the guy. It's really pathetic that you have to fire somebody for not only telling the truth, but a truth that's been reported on 10 previous occassions over the last 2 years, because of libility reasons. Perhaps MS can re-hire him now that they've sent a message that he doesn't speak for them, by firing him. Stupid BS.
1. Dean Takahashi is doing a great service and good journalism in reporting this, and not letting the subject of Microsoft and the XBOX 360 scandal fade away- Kudos Dean.
2. Mr. Delaware violated a NDA with his employer, by turning to the media............i'm sure he knew this from the beginning of his talks with Dean. What i am not sure, is, if he knew or was able to comprehend from the beginning to what extent this lawsuit could reach in financial terms: He literally dug his financial grave with his bare own hands. Microsoft's army of lawyers are not the right guys to mess with, especially when at stake there is such a strong case to their credit (this case has no uncertainties and i guess that the trail will be short and brief. i do hope that the judge will show mercy on Mr. Delaware and will fine him with relatively small restitution in favor of Microsoft).
3. None the less, i agree with Dean and other posts that Microsoft should focus on improving their products prior to releasing them to the market, and that if Microsoft has screwed up they should not cover up for their misdeeds and lie to their consumers, instead of hunting down low level ex-employees on such a subject (Mr. Delware already got his punishment by being fired, and the fact that his future as a game tester or hi-tech employee is completely destroyed and no HR manager will ever hire him in that industry again).
If he know, why he took the risk?
Must be carefull Mr. Delaware!
You really need to get away from your console more often. "Law Enforcement" will not help anyone avoid breaking the law. Their job is _enforcement_, not "compliance".
The one and only recourse is to contact a lawyer, and hope that their advice doesn't get you into more trouble than otherwise, since ignorance of the law is no defense.
In this age of entire libraries of laws, I believe that ignorance of the law deserves to be a positive defense!
Mr. Delaware violated his employment contract. That's all, and that is the entirety of any recourse Microsoft has against him.
Nobody wants a cowboy like that in their company.
Yeah, he's a real hero.
As for me, I bought my Xbox 360 in November 2005 within the first few days of launch and I've *never* had a single problem with it (knock on wood). However, I know tons of people who have gone through 2 or more consoles to find stability.
That should be very telling. Whrrl is a young/hot company and I can't imagine who would leave to be a contract tester (again).
Of course it was Delaware's rightful decision to come out and talk with VB, but it's also a rightful decision of Microsoft's to fire him. I am SURE there are tons of NDAs that forbade him to talk in such specificity with VB, but he chose to do so.
Now that Delaware has done so, he has to sleep in the bed he made, which in this case means Microsoft firing and coming after him. You don't get to do whatever you want and not expect consequences.
Once you get past that, what is so "ridiculous" about covering the aftermath and having an opinion that what MS is doing, even well within their rights, is counterproductive? Certainly this writer is entitled to have one and it does pertain to the overall story here of MS and the 360 failures.
Your comment is ridiculous.
We should all just roll over and lap it up and ask for more. Those darn whistle blowers!
NB: Trolls are an excellent addition to the VentureBeat comment community. May your page views increase!
This is just the last drop in the glass, that is the point.
MS is repeting mistakes again and again, minwhile, thousands of people(and pockets) suffers and pay for that.
I wish SONY hire Robert Delaware.
not unless you are Microsoft. THEN, you can buy the law, media, people, juries, and do whatever the hell you want and face no consequences.
Interviewing a game tester (even if he has worked on Microsoft product) is a lot like interviewing a sales clerk at GameStop (who sells Microsoft product). Neither of them are especially knowledgeable sources and neither or them know a single thing about why the Red Ring occurs. It's virtually pointless.
Game testers are the absolute lowest level people in game development and they have very little, if any access to information about actual hardware construction or why defects are occurring. Even when they find a bug and it gets fixed, they get no information about what the defect actually was (they only report the symptom and any obvious trigger), or how it was fixed. Meaning... they know nothing. Their opinion is 100% speculative based on isolated pieces of information (their bugs) which have no context.
In addition, testing Microsoft games doesn't mean you test Microsoft hardware, or that the two are even related.
This particular game tester seems to have spent most of his time working for a company other than Microsoft while testing their games (a QA outsource job), which means he sat there playing Halo (example) looking for bugs and that's it. He is a thousand steps removed from anything remotely connected to the 360, its manufacturing, or such complicated engineering problems.
My point?
This is a guy off the street. Literally hired off the street as all game testers are because it takes no genuine aptitude. He works for a temp agency. He doesn't care if he gets fired because he has no real gaming career to speak of. He's replaceable and interchangeable so there's no bravery here in risking an entry level job. He likely earns somewhere around $13 an hour. In other words, a gig stacking books at Borders is a fine alternative to Microsoft.
This story and this person and his plight is plainly ridiculous...
It's like turning to the guy in the mailroom to explain where Enron went wrong. Do you think he even has a clue?
This kind of vested and wild faith in a simple game tester can only come from people who really don't know how the gaming industry works. Or journalists looking to promote a book that doesn't seem that investigative or that clever. And I don't buy his love for the community one bit. Frankly, he stands to make more money by being involved in this so-called controversy, than he'd ever make testing games for a living. If he's even that smart.
The heroism is pretty hollow.
Game testers always like to be vocal. They always like to champion the cause of quality and consumer loyalty. They're the first to complain when they think something is broken and the last to accept an explanation (when they get them). And why is that? Because they're the most unprofessional "professionals" in the business. They're as buttoned up as the tween taking your order at the drive through, and just as apathetic. They're regularly sophomoric and immature. They don't actually make games - they just play them and hunt for bugs. So they know nothing about how games are actually made, they know nothing about the business involved, and they certainly don't appreciate the realities of the marketplace or the many entities involved. They just sit there like a bunch of ignorant bastards, shaking their fist at any game that isn't perfect (according to the glossy definition in their tiny little minds), not realizing that no game is perfect, no piece of hardware is perfect, and no bug is exactly what they think it is. They're not programmers - they're stoners that would be sitting on their couch all night playing games anyway (paid to do so or not). They deal entirely in the superficial.
How that leads to them being a credible source or a reliable "whistle blower", I don't know.
I don't see any substantiation to his claims, only that he "believes" many of his own ideas and opinions to be true. Again... how would he know? It's like expecting the valet that parks your car to know how the food is prepared within the kitchen. Their so disconnected from that process that an honest bloke would look at you sideways for even asking.
As for his legal troubles...
His statements are pure conjecture. He may have found problems. He may have found problems he could reproduce reliably. But he doesn't know why they're happening. It's such a limited perspective that it can barely be called an informed one. So why go public and make these kinds of suggestions and statements that may actually damage Microsoft? He will never know if his dash board bug really caused those defects or how. But he'll go public and suggest bold-faced that everyone saw it coming and everyone must have known it was an issue!
You can't do that. He deserves to get sued. You signed a document saying you wouldn't do that. You lack integrity.
If he were more informed or in a position of more knowledge, there might be reason to care what he thinks. But he clearly knows nothing, so what he's doing is simply irresponsible and stupid.
He'll never work in gaming again. Violating an NDA is death.
I'll never read VentureBeat again. Reporting unsubstantiated conjecture is not worth my time.
One thing that really struck a chord with me was the point made about how they write a bug and assume they understand the 'why'. That is epidemic among testers, especially the less experienced ones. The fact is that code can have literally millions of paths and combinations of paths for execution, regardless of whatever logic a tester has worked out in their head, nine times out of ten they WILL be wrong. Not just off a bit, but flat out wrong in thier speculation about how or why something occurs. Thier job(at the lower levels) is simply to find a scenerio where it is reproducable, then let the developers figure out the why's of the situation.
At the least I'd have liked to know this guy's level. At MS(and most companies) they are assigned levels, there are Software Test Engineer levels from one to five, and game testers are typically STE1's, which are the least experienced. There is no way someone who isn't at least a STE3 should ever be given credibility on something like this, and any STE who hasn't done development has no credibility regardless of thier level(I've worked with plenty of STE3's who can't get to the root of a problem).
As for the issue specifically, I find it dissapointing that reputable reporters like Dean are not stating the real reason for the failures. The real reason has been covered very lightly, instead they'd rather pretend there is some grand conspiracy and every few months come out with a rehash of the same old crap. The truth is much simpler and far less conspirital: The 360 was one of the first consumer devices that complied with the new European lead-free requirements, including lead-free solder. This solder as it turned out had issues with high heat, and as a result fails easily allowing chips to desolder themselves. This was really not forseeable as it was cutting edge at the time of the 360's release. MS has since then been trying to correct for the issue, including changing chip packaging to better spread heat, die shrinks, and better cooling, but had they used the older lead-based solder this would likely have never been an issue. Of course then they could not have sold the 360 in Europe or would have had to have a seperate assembly line.
Yes, it is that simple. Its a learning curve the company clearly did not anticipate. MS is not a consumer hardware company and their lack of experience with something so cutting edge definatly bit them in the ass. Give a point to Sony in this regard. But end the conspiracy chatter, its ridiculous, unfounded and unnecessary. We got our extended warranties which is better than Sony ever gave anyone for the mass failures of their first three years of the PS2(yes, a gratuitous swipe).
I have worked at VMC. It is pure, frozen concentrate stupid over there. This guy was taken advantage of. If you're at VMC working as a game tester, there's nothing to differentiate you from gibbons at the zoo flicking their own poo.
These guys have no marketable skills and are surly, emotional, combative wrecks. I don't need to know this guy to know who he is. VMC is an american sweatshop and they hire the stupidest, cheapest talent they can find. This guy was taken advantage of by the author.
If you can't take it and have some moral dilemma then fucking leave, then spill the beans.
He deserved every bit of it.
Anyone here that worked on this kind of field or hired by software companies know that there are a lot of restrictions on your contract. You just don't go out tell the big guys to "Bring it on!" and still expect to go back to the same field. Oh well he can be a blogger.
Your analysis of lead free solder in consumer products is spot on, but only covers some of the problems involved. One of the worst issues is the growth of microscopic "fingers" of metal causing micro electronics to develop short circuits. Lead free solder is now used in almost ALL consumer electronics and has resulted in making modern electronic devices ticking time bombs waiting to fail. Give me lead solder or give me death.
If lead-free solder is so difficult to use by hand, imagine getting the bloody stuff to work properly in an industrial wave solderer!
Perhaps MS should've run different lines on different stuff, a lead-free one for Europe and a lead one for the rest. Us lot in Europe would soon be up in arms about unreliable consoles, but at least the others would probably enjoy the same reliability as those who owned the original Xbox.
But instead, both in the original article and this one, you praise his courage as though he ran into a burning building to save a baby. In my experience, game testers and CS/tech reps want to be important and recognized for working at a game company. Delaware knew what he was getting into, but he wanted you to use his name so people would know who he was. And the simple fact of the matter is that he's not a whistleblower - the problems with the Xbox 360 are well-documented, and Microsoft replaces consoles that are affected. If they were denying that there was a problem, then it would be a different ballgame, but they've owned up to it.
In short, both this and the piece that preceded it was shoddy journalism at best. Hell, half of the article above this comment is devoted to self-congratulation. But at the end of the day, you didn't uncover anything new and you got a guy fired. Good work.
First... It seems like a blatant exaggeration to call Microsoft's reaction a witch hunt.
I think their response to your article was reasonable. They've said as much as they want to about the Red Ring - fair or not. Do you really expect them to get into a public debate or discourse with your or anybody else about a collection of suggestions from anonymous or unreliable sources. Nobody would do that, and for anyone to suggest or imply that their lack of response lends credibility to your article or accusations, is not only unfair, but manipulative.
Second... Delaware violated an NDA. He did so by participating in an article that makes some pretty serious claims against his employer. Microsoft fired him for it. No witch hunt here. In fact, this was enough of a predictable result that both you and he clearly discussed it beforehand. He got himself fired and you helped him do it.
But again, you (and others) are gladly spinning Microsoft's response and turning it into something it's not. Firing Delaware also doesn't confirm any of your claims or your article. It doesn't even lend credibility to anything he said. It simply means he violated the guidelines of his employment, and its the kind of thing that warrants termination regardless of why he did it.
So...
Let's not pretend like we're bringing down the tobacco industry, and in the future, let's try to actually prove some of the things that are being said. Isn't evidence part of investigative journalism? Isn't that evidence usually included in the reporting? I just don't see any here. And Delaware is the kind of source that is so unreliable that he calls all of your other sources into question.
Frankly, your article would have retained more credibility and intrigue if you'd have been as skeptical and myself and some of the other posters. Not only about Delaware, but many of the other sources and pieces of information in your article.
But instead, you made a classic mistake in journalism and reporting - you picked a side. Unfortunately, the side you picked and the people/information you aligned yourself with are seriously questionable.
Oh well.
I loved your moderation of the round-table with Ed Fries, Bing Gordon, and Peter Moore. In the interests of balance, I'll at least compliment you for that. But not this.
Gotta Tell You been Treated So Crappy this time around that I have stopped buying games because of the way I have been treated AND
I WON"T BUY MS POS CONSOLES EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!
Think About That MS won't make $$ if their S*%T Don't Work and they can't treat their hardcore fans with a little respect. I have spent $thousands$ if not tens of thousands over the years they continue to treat me Like CRAP
Sincerely
Tim Miller
KENT WA
Microsoft having an NDA to keep their employees quiet doesn't mean that they have to abide by it. It's simply a legal recourse Microsoft can use to terminate employment on people who hurt their bottom line without the employee having any legal recourse, even if it was the right thing to do.
I'm sure Microsoft will sue him, it almost goes without saying given the size of their legal budget its almost obligatory but unless they can prove he did it out of malice I doubt he'll see any judgments against him. Its also worth noting that whether authorized to speak for the company or not, as an employee, anything he says publicly IS as a representative of the company, so unless hes not being truthful, everything he discloses should be considered the true position of Microsoft without the filter of a PR agent. Interesting stuff, glad I decided not to buy one.
Since you are "in the know" let me ask you to defend this. How many types of consumer electronics have such a short lifespan? Even with the first XBox the average lifespan of a console was roughly 2 1/2 years. Is my TV that fragile? My DVD player? My PC? No. If it were the case, I'd be at the BBB. Or to use the Darwinistic, I'm sorry, Capitalistic philosophy that seems to pervade your thought process, I'd buy someone else's product that was more reliable. Now I"m actually a fan of the 360, and defend it against the Sony boys. But facts are I have had my own quality issues with the console and they were not of my own negligence. I kept it in a cool room with plenty of ventilation, didn't have "all nighters" and babied it far better than any other electronics item I possess. But still it failed. In a relatively ridiculous amount of time.
You act like we are idiots who don't understand the complexities, you sound like a crybaby. The expectation of every consumer is quality, durablity and value. 360 has failed in every one of those. Now I'd like to convey my latest experience with MS customer service. When I got my third RROD in 24 hours, so I called MS. The guy was really nice. He takes my console S/N and proceeds to tell me that my original 1 year warranty has expired. I'm thinking "it's 3 years!" So I'm conveying this to him and he segues into " It is 3 years now, because MS values your business, no cost to you...." Hold on, now you guys are doing me a favor? My stuff doesn't work after 26 months? Not computing.... So I'm like, "you're going to send me a box, right?" "Oh no, we now send you a lable from UPS and you send it in your own box." Cool, save's time. "How about I send it in my 360 box?" "No we don't want anyone to know that your sending in a defective console." His words, verbatim. Not we don't want it to get stolen.... "If you must send it in the box, paint it or cover it in paper." Why am I sharing all of this? Warranty aside, Microsoft isn't showing any remorse at it's faulty consoles causing consumers frustration, and it's not building any faith in the quality of it's product by continuing its' "cloak and dagger" secrecy. I agree with other posters here. Fix the issues. Give us a good console, give us good games that aren't more bug-filled than last gen. Patching is a good tool, but has become the norm to meet launch windows. Wall Street and shareholders aren't the ultimate arbitrator, consumers are. And I'm saying this, as much as I prefer the 360 and certain companies games, I can make other purchasing decisions. That's one thing that is cool about capitalism, normally the best at what they do get rewarded. It might have to be Sony fairly soon.....
I'm not saying that a broken 360 isn't a problem. It is. And in as much as any corporation will put their tail between their legs, admit they're wrong, and try to extend some compensation, Microsoft has probably given you as much as you'll ever see.
Again, if you don't like that or if you don't feel they've done enough, you certainly have the choice of buying a PS3, a Wii, a PC even, or simply not gaming.
But to sit here and get behind some bozo like Delaware, waving your fists alongside him because you think that consumers need a champion, is just silly. Delaware is ill informed. Just like this article. And your energies are better spent educating yourself and making a more solid case, if indeed you're so hell bent on indictments against Microsoft.
Some people here are having a good old time suggesting that they were outright robbed by Microsoft, and that the company knew they were shipping faulty hardware.
You'll never prove that and it's irrational to claim such when you can't prove it. You're better off saying you suspect, or that it seems possible, but all of this hardcore internet-branded righteous indignation is worth about as much as it costs to print this article, and less time than it takes to read it.
Again, consoles that break (360 or otherwise) are not a good thing. No arguing that.
But conspiracy is a breeding ground for misinformation, unsubstantiated "fact", mob mentality, sensationalism, and virtual religious euphoria. Everybody loves a good scandal. But Dean and many of you are trying too hard to create one, where it simply doesn't exist.
At best, Microsoft tried and failed, and lots of 360s crapped out in the process. It's as boring as that.
If you want a real hardware sales conspiracy, look at the Compaq Christmas debacle of (I believe it was 1997). They sold millions of PCs through Circuit City, Frys, and other major electronic retailers, including their own web site, that were supposed to be ready for Christmas. Well, people got their PCs in plenty of time to wrap them and stick them under the tree. Problem was... the PCs were literally missing mother boards, graphics cards, hard drives, etc. Several thousand of them were actually empty cases. Why did they do it? To cash in on Holiday spending, in hopes that they could deal with proper order fulfillment and customer returns AFTER the fact.
That's right... sell it in, then fix it after the money is in the bank. Seems stupid, crazy, etc. But they did it. And people wonder how Dell got so big... the climate was RIPE for something marginally reliable.
As for all your comments about buggy games, the need for quality, and gaming being big business... I think you need to learn up...
More than any other segment of the entertainment industry, sales and retail performance on games are STRONGLY tied to quality, and in particular, review scores. Shitty movies can make a lot of money. Even Ishtar made money. But games don't enjoy the same marketplace. Meaning... it's the BEST games that make all of those big dollars you're talking about. The rest... maybe do okay. In most cases, they lose money.
Be honest, you don't buy shitty games, do you? You wait for review scores on something you're uncertain about. Maybe you even rent it or borrow it from a friend first so you can try it out. But I'll bet that if you buy 20 games in a year, maybe 1 is a game you feel isn't good enough. And even that you can return (if you're smart), or trade in.
So really... what are you whining about? Name a game that you think sucked, or was severely buggy, that sold at least 5 million copies this year.
You can't. Because it doesn't happen.
Know what's sold big this year? GTA4. Call of Duty 4. Mario Kart Wii. The list goes on and on... and they're all GREAT games.
So quit your crying. You're the most spoiled consumer in the entertainment market.
And there's nothing wrong with patching. If you've been a gamer for any length of time, you'd know that it's always been done. It's only you noob console gamers that think patching is bad or an indication of quality. Patching is simply the way of the business, and now that consoles are connected, they're reaping the BENEFIT. It certainly never hurt PC games.
You are deflecting criticism of Microsofts efforts in regard to this whole 360 fiasco, if I may be so bold as to call it that. You call the various claims unfounded and uninformed. But you offer no counter information to dispel the accusations. Instead you just offer smear and mudslinging. Are you truly as informed as you infer? Or are you also bound by a NDA? But I'm still at a loss as to how you can make excuses for the less than stellar quality of the console. You try prestidigitation to magically turn our eyes from the issue at hand by bringing up Compaq? At least the PC is something that you can't say isn't of the same level of complexity as the console. (thought I didn't notice that, did you?) Now let's get to apples to apples, shall we? The PS3, while having issues as well, is not even in the same time zone in the amount of failures and defects as the 360. Care to comment? Let's have some hard data to rebut that. Oh that's right. Microsoft didn't even acknowledge there was a problem for a year and a half. Omertia....
You may resort to calling us names and vigorously defending Microsoft. But I'm really hoping that you don't work for them as you are doing the company a huge disservice. That company has it's own huge PR problem that it's based in Michael Moore conspiracy theories. It's based on huge negative feedback about the Vista launch and the 360 debacle. You sound like a certain politician who's doing his best to look senile and out of touch saying stupid things like "the economy is fundimentally sound!" For who? If I sound like I've veered off-course, let me bring it back. Here, in gamer land, the 360 is considered next to junk. We aren't really impressed with Microsoft's "kindness" at extending the warranty. And if you are really as informed as you claim, you should probably come down in the trenches and get some real feedback. I'll grant that the machine is improved, but until us "early adopters" who bought these crap machines get replacements that have the new, more reliable, hardware installed, we're gonna be very skeptical as to MS's true commitment to customer satisfaction. So please proceed with the hateful responses. I'm feeling maybe you're a nobody as well, just some fan of Bill Gates who has a poster on the wall and read business texts and cheers for the "holy" corporate way....
The original Watchdog clip can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56-gQq62Hyc
when some criminal executive steals your 401k, you'll be saying "why didn't someone blow the whistle on them"?
thankfully there are people like Delaware - whose heart is in the right place even if his sense of timing and/or cloak of invisibility are not.
I would have probably done the same as Delaware. He knew his job was on the line. It was the moral thing to do. If his job was to hunt down bugs, then they have to give them some time. It takes awhile to fix bugs and to track them down. From games freezing to the RRoD. I wonder if he knew the consumers were taking a chance on buying thx Xbox360? Too bad he didn't come forward sooner. :(
Glad to be one of the lucky ones I guess.
So here's an idea to help the world see how big a problem this really could be, if everyone took a photo of there broken XBOX 360's and the tagged them on google earth you would get a world view of the problem and then company's like MS wouldn't beable to hide behind red tape. I don't think these companies can't be trusted anymore to do the right thing by us so we should really start taking stronger actions against them. As for Robert I think he pretty much knew what he was doing or at least I hope he does NDA's are a pain. Good luck to you mate.
Secondly, for all of you who say Microsoft should pay the piper as well.. they are. they fix broken console for free, extended the warranty of their consoles and even replace EVERY component when they are repaired.
If someone has gone through 11 consoles in a few years, then shouldn't the blame be placed on the user? When does it NOT become the manufactures problem? You think every Ford or GM or even Honda that rolls off the assembly line doesn't have bugs that the company knows about? They EVALUATE the risk.. The xbox manual says to place it in a well ventilated area and for christ sake, its more powerful than ANY consumer class computer you can buy in terms or raw power, just read the wiki on it.
The ps3 is a nice.. uhm.. blu-ray player. its games suck. its online "network" sucks. if sony really cared about competing then perhaps they'd ditch their over used video game ideas and come up with some new ones.. that ATTRACTS new customers and not just diehard playstation followers...
Why is this a "ridiculous" article? What's so ridiculous about the article? VentureBeat is by no means saying "Microsoft shouldn't be doing this!!!" They are simply reporting the story of him being fired without even taking a side. Also "You don't get to do whatever you want and not expect consequences".. um, Delaware blantantly knew what he was risking. Again, he wasn't expecting to get away with murder so - your comment is ridiculous. :)
It can be found at www.gamasutra.com you will fine a developer post-mortem from Infinity Ward on Call of Duty 2 and the article describes their highs and lows of the process. One particular gem is that the Xbox 360 developer units were dying left, right and centre on them. It was a mad dash to get the game finished to the point were they had Microsoft engineers on site to help them.
"Of the 50 Xbox 360 dev kits supplied to Infinity Ward early in the project, only about 20 of them are still useable, and he explained that more than half of the kits just died."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2452/post...
In other words, there isn't much of a line to draw between their experiences making a 360 launch title and problems with the 360 at retail.
I doubt MS will bother sueing him. But if they did, he would fully deserve it. He's not a whistleblower, and to claim he is is a disservice to those who actually take such courageous stands.
Now onto Mr. Delaware. First off, it's perfectly fine he got fired, no one wants an employee who can't honor a contract, however, it's more than likely they plan on destroying this man's life with their army of lawyers. But why are they doing this? If an almost 40% failure rate won't deter people from buying the console, nothing will (and the sales are still soaring after the recent price cuts). As evidenced by the influx of sales, Delaware's statements have had a marginal to zero impact on Microsoft's profits.
I'll admit he should have thought about the consequences before signing the NDA (signing away your rights for any sum of money is a very bad move), but the fact is the Xbox 360 wasn't and still isn't fit for sale in its current state.
Instead of outright denying the claims of these extra bugs he's mentioned, they are probably going to try to shut Delaware up by completely ruining him financially. This to me seems fishy and lends some merit to his claims. I'm just sick of corporations attacking individuals for revealing info that may have some tiny impact on their business, going so far as to bring people to court who voiced their opinion on the Internet, citing "libel" as their reason (when in fact in order to be considered slander or libel, the information has to be false, which in these cases, the information is almost always completely factual).
To say that Microsoft is willfully and knowingly selling defective products is just bullshit.
Have you ever bought a computer? A PS3? Even a PS2? The nature of hardware, especially new and commercially innovative hardware is that it's fragile. I waited two years to buy a 360 because I was EXPECTING there to be bugs in the system. I still haven't bought a PS3. I did buy a PS2 at launch and not surprisingly it came with its share of headaches. But that's the beast, and its nature is well known.
As for Delaware; I wish him well in his future endeavors. I'm sure that if I'm ever in Seattle, he'll either be selling me a burger or pouring my coffee. Some sort of menial work that doesn't require him to sign another NDA. But hey, let's not rule out the possibility of him getting a job at McDonalds, and going public with the sad state of Big Mac construction! Have you seen how sloppy those things are put together?? I demand quality! Help! McDonalds has knowingly sold me a shitty product! Help!
Ha!
I make myself laugh.
Way to go Microsoft! We are enjoying your slow, majestic sinking and look forward to the final capsize.
All he is actually doing is informing consumers of what amounts to a cover up over the stability of the 360 so I whole heartedly support him.
If they do prosecute him i'd like to gather up everyone that purchased a now buggered 360 and launch a lawsuit against microsoft.