A Q&A with Todd Holmdahl, the hardwa ...

A Q%26A with Todd Holmdahl, the hardware guy at Microsoft, about Xbox 360 failures By Dean Takahashi
Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 9:01 pm in General. I can't imagine that gamers who have defective Xbox 360s would have a great time talking with Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft's corporate vice president ofGaming and Xbox Products Group. He's ultimately responsible for the quality of the game console, having spearheaded the hardware side of both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360. Holmdahl has appeared in both my books as a critical figure involved in getting the consoles off the ground. He came from the Microsoft Hardware division that makes mice and keyboards. Holmdahl doesn't really acknowledge many mistakes in the Xbox 360 launch, as you'll see in the interview that follows. He ran the teams that are responsible for designing and manufacturing theconsole. I think there are a lot more answers to discover to the questions that I posed to Holmdahl. We'll see if the real answers shake loose from other sources. Q: What is the post-mortem on Xbox 360 manufacturing? How has it turned out for you? A: Like any other post mortem, there are some things you would have done differently that you learned and that you incorporate back into your processes. Overall, it was really smoothe compared to the complexity of the product we were building. Q: The ramp of the Xbox 360 compared to the original Xbox. Was it similar or different? A: Having lived through both of those, I remember both very well. Both were very complex products. State of the art technology. They were relatively similar in the ramp complexity and ramp speed. Exciting stuff. You and I had a conversation about this around November, 2005. Q: I'm sure you've seen some of these complaints that we've written about from the guy who went through seven machines. There are a lot of people posting on the blog saying they still have problems. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the quality of the Xbox 360 isn't there. How can you paint the bigger picture for me there? A: We're very proud of the box. We think the vast majority of people are having just a great experience. You look at the number of games they are buying, the number of accessories they are buying, the Live attach. They love the box. They continue to buy the box. That said, we take any customer issue very seriously. We continue to look into these things very deeply. You have seen we have made some changes to our customer service policy. Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?
A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it. Q: I've heard varying accounts of what is considered a normal return rate. Some people say that 2 percent is normal. Sometimes 3 percent to 5 percent is considered normal. Back to that question, can you address whether you are within those rates or within a normal rate. A: We don't disclose the actual number. Q: Normal compared to the Xbox? A: We don't comment on that. Q: What explains this anecodotal evidence that it's out of whack, compared to the Wii or the PlayStation 3 or other consoles. A: I would go back and say the vast majority of people love their experience. We continue to go back and address all of these issues on a case by case basis. There is a vocal minority out there. We go off and try to address their issues as quickly and as pain free as possible. Q: There were some folks, who are not totally guessing, who said that when you had three million consoles in the market, you have a bone pile of bad ones. That seems to suggest a pretty high defect rate as far as the yield goes. Can you address that? A: We don't talk about our production. Q: Can you say anything about the yield? Do you have a good yield? Can you say anything about the yield? A: The important thing here is that each product that comes out of the factory is rigorously tested. To ensure highest quality for our customer. Q: The one thing I notice is that if you don't have a good yield, it come back and totally mess up the business model. If you are counting on a billion dollars in profits and you don't have a good yield, where it's like 80 percent, there goes that extra billion dollars in profit. I take it that yield is very key. It's really important. A: You focus on a whole bunch of different metrics. Yield is one we focus on very closely. I think if you take at what Robbie Bach has been saying for his business, it's that the Entertainment %26 Devices Group will be profitable in fiscal year 2008. That is what we are targeting right now. Q: If you have a high defect rate, won't that ruin the business model? Won't that ruin the profit? A: I would say we don't have a high defect rate. The vast majority of people are really excited about their product, and that we are targeting profitability for next year. Q: Can you say whether the yield ramp was any better this time around? A: We don't comment on that. Q: You guys did get rid of Wistron. Was that related to product quality? A: We didn't get rid of Wistron. It was a voluntary decision between the two of us. We try to run as efficient as possible. With our supply base the way it is now, two high quality contract manufacturers satisfy our needs. Q: There is talk you are going to 65 nanometer chips. Can you talk about the significance of that? A: We continue to redesign the box, continue to drive costs out. We don't talk about the specifics of it. Q: If you make a jump in a chip generation like that, from 90nm to 65nm, does that give you the opportunity to do a lot of things like totally resetting the quality level, totally resetting the costs? A: Whether it is 90nm or 65nm, we have a high quality bar we target. Q: Does the quality automatically get better if you go from 90nm to 65nm? A: The quality is good at both of those. Q: If it's early or late, what's the significance of having 65nm six months early or six months late? A: We don't comment on what we're doing internally. Q: It seems like the obvious chance to do something new. For example, does it give you a chance to do the Xbox 360 Elite? A: You know the business as well as I do. The design is essentially the same clock for clock as the previous version. It has to perform similarly to what was done in the past, as we go through this thing. We continue to drive the same levels of quality, to increase the quality if possible, and to ensure the customer has the best experience possible. Q: If you take the main chips from 90nm to 65nm, do you get accompanying benefits in the rest of the system? Does the board itself get smaller? A: That's a really good point, Dean. When you do these designs, you're looking at the CPU or the GPU, or just one specific internal component, as we continue to look through it, we look at it as a complete system. We make sure the components work with the system, delivers the right levels of performance, and operates at the right voltage to perform at the levels we want it to perform at. Q: There was a surge of supplies in the spring of 2006. Did that mark any particular advance in manufacturing? Was that Celestica coming online? A: We hold as confidential our production ramp. It's not something we talk about. Q: I remember one of the warranty coverage changes was to offer a different kind of warranty for any of the machines made in 2005. Or any of the machines bought in 2005. It sounds like you learned something between 2005 and 2006. A: Out of warranty repairs were for early production batches coming out of the lots in 2005. We addressed that as part of that policy or that issue. Q: That wasn't due to a specific thing. Was it due to the graphics memory? A: There were no systematic issues that we responded to when we first offered that warranty. Q: Your returns as a category. Is there any No. 1 reason for a return? A: There are no systematic issues. The vast majority of the people just love the product, have a great experience with it. When there is an issue, we get on it and address it as quickly as possible. Q: Was there any issue here where I didn't ask it the right way but you could say something. A: The overriding thing, Dean, is that people have the product, they love the product, it continues to sell well. The stuff we talked about with Live has been very successful. The game attach has been very successful. The accessory attach. We are absolutely committed to delivering a high quality experience. When people do have issues, the leadership team works to make sure that those issues are dealt with as pain free as possible. We go out of our way to try to ensure that happens. Q: At this moment, I consider this to be your critical issue for this whole generation. What can you say about that. A: My job is to make sure the customer is happy. This is certainly part of making sure the customer is happy. We have other things. You saw the release of the spring update. I certainly view customer happiness as one of my No. 1 responsibilities.http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/06/a_qa_with_todd_holmdahl_the_hardware_guy_at_microsoft_about_xbox_360_failures.html A Q%26amp;A with Todd Holmdahl, the hardwa ...
Those were all pretty good questions with really good answersA Q%26amp;A with Todd Holmdahl, the hardwa ...
[QUOTE=''MIB911'']Those were all pretty good questions with really good answers[/QUOTE]I know, don't you get the feeling that the 3ROD is nothing more than a fairy tale. All the reports over the internet are nothing more than viral marketing, right. There isn't anything wrong with the quality build of the X360 when these 3ROD stories are all fabrication, right.It must be bliss to be a shill to a company.
no comment, no comment.
[QUOTE=''pokeracc'']no comment, no comment. [/QUOTE]''We don't comment on that.'' - Todd HolmdahlLOL
[QUOTE=''MIB911'']Those were all pretty good questions with really good answers[/QUOTE]Please tell me that was sarcasm. MY ELITE IS 4 WEEKS OLD!!! How do you explain a 4 week old console already breaking on me? It's not like I don't take care of it, my core that I had since launch died so I just went and bought the elite instead... He was dodging the questions and made it unbelieveably obvious....
[QUOTE=''MIB911'']Those were all really good answers[/QUOTE]oh god you have to be kidding me. ''We don't comment on that.'' No comment after no comment.
this guy sure has been practicing his barrel rolls!:P
[QUOTE=''S-lic-K''][QUOTE=''MIB911'']Those were all pretty good questions with really good answers[/QUOTE]Please tell me that was sarcasm. MY ELITE IS 4 WEEKS OLD!!! How do you explain a 4 week old console already breaking on me? It's not like I don't take care of it, my core that I had since launch died so I just went and bought the elite instead... He was dodging the questions and made it unbelieveably obvious....[/QUOTE]To M$ fans, M$ speaks nothing but the truth and can do no wrong. LOL
Listening to this guy makes me sick. Listening to him makes me hate Microsoft more than I already do. Xbox, the brand, in general has terrible hardware. I have owned almost ALL of the consoles to date, and the only two to ever break down on me are the Xbox and the Xbox 360.''We don't comment on that...''My response? ''I don't pay for that crap...''Let's hope my second Xbox 360 lasts long enough for me to enjoy Mass Effect.
[QUOTE=''MIB911'']Those were all pretty good questions with really good answers[/QUOTE]



Where you reading the same article as me or is your sarcasam of the highest level. This guy is the Hudhini of getting out of questions .... more slippery than a wet fish ... There is a problem clearly ... do they think we would respect them more by being this awkward or if they just held up thier hands and said ... yep there may be an issue?? TBH the second option could lead to allsorts ... so no wonder they keep it quiet LOL There are no nice guys in big business...
...is it an official interview or a made up one?
I'm amazed that a publicly traded company can get away with saying so little about the issue of product reliability. The interview appears legitimate. I'll also say that it does amaze me that there are people on their fourth or even seventh 360, when the first one I bought is doing just fine. I must be extremely lucky, people are lying, or people abuse the crap out of their consoles.
[QUOTE=''zaphod_b'']I'm amazed that a publicly traded company can get away with saying so little about the issue of product reliability. The interview appears legitimate. I'll also say that it does amaze me that there are people on their fourth or even seventh 360, when the first one I bought is doing just fine. I must be extremely lucky, people are lying, or people abuse the crap out of their consoles.[/QUOTE]You're extremely lucky. Everybody I know who has a 360 are on their 2nd 360 at least, I have a few friends that are on their 3rd and one that's moving onto his fourth.
[QUOTE=''LoserMike''][QUOTE=''zaphod_b''] I'm amazed that a publicly traded company can get away with saying so little about the issue of product reliability. The interview appears legitimate. I'll also say that it does amaze me that there are people on their fourth or even seventh 360, when the first one I bought is doing just fine. I must be extremely lucky, people are lying, or people abuse the crap out of their consoles.[/QUOTE]You're extremely lucky. Everybody I know who has a 360 are on their 2nd 360 at least, I have a few friends that are on their 3rd and one that's moving onto his fourth.[/QUOTE] you'd be amazed at how much some people do actually play their consoles....over use leads to most cases of failure which stillisnt the gamer's fault. they can play what they paid for all they want and expect durability. then of course there are prob quite a few people who play maybe a few hours a week and theirs still break. that's just shoddy manufacturing. There are too many cases of people on their 3rd or 5th or 7th console to call it abuse
I would say that the people going on about how their launch consoles work fine, are either truly lucky or barely playing the thing. I can't say that I didn't take care of mine, and like many others it also broke. It's clear that they made mistakes somewhere in the hardware design, and I'm guessing that it can't withstand too much game time. My point is that when you're making a game console, you know people play games A LOT, some even take it to the extreme. It's their job to ensure that you can do just that with their console.
Thanks man - I really enjoyed reading that. Some of the answers were definitely avoindance - but that's nothing new.
LOLLL horrible. When asked about defects all he says is no comment, we dont comment on that, the users are enjoying their console, SHUTUP!! The box has serious issues, address the topic and say ou are working on solutions rather than dodging the questions with the same stupid answers
Microsoft doesnt comment when ownage is in order. I happen to be one of those people who are on there 7th console. I can say that mine has always had adequate breathing room, always plugged into the wall never a surge protector, always clean, never dusty, I have done everything except suspend it in mid air.This interview just shows how bad MS really is. Question dodging FTW! Only reason MS is still in the lead is the fact the other 2 consoles have no games, hardware wise they run circles around the 360, I know I have had all of them. I kept my ''other'' console on for over a week straight folding@home, then played Obliivon, and didnt have one flashing poly, glitch, freeze or anything.As much as I love my 360 this is getting redicules. My 7th console as of this week has started to give many MANY disc read errors. Games are in perfect condition, as is the console, yet now #7 is getting disc read errors? WTF? Iam so sick of this crap. Its a shame that MS has so many good games coming on such a crap console......thats the only reason I dont can it....its a catch 22. If you wanna play games, you gotta have a 360.

[QUOTE=''RabbidDawg''] Microsoft doesnt comment when ownage is in order. I happen to be one of those people who are on there 7th console. I can say that mine has always had adequate breathing room, always plugged into the wall never a surge protector, always clean, never dusty, I have done everything except suspend it in mid air.This interview just shows how bad MS really is. Question dodging FTW! Only reason MS is still in the lead is the fact the other 2 consoles have no games, hardware wise they run circles around the 360, I know I have had all of them. I kept my ''other'' console on for over a week straight folding@home, then played Obliivon, and didnt have one flashing poly, glitch, freeze or anything.As much as I love my 360 this is getting redicules. My 7th console as of this week has started to give many MANY disc read errors. Games are in perfect condition, as is the console, yet now #7 is getting disc read errors? WTF? Iam so sick of this crap. Its a shame that MS has so many good games coming on such a crap console......thats the only reason I dont can it....its a catch 22. If you wanna play games, you gotta have a 360.[/QUOTE] Id have to agree with what you said. Wii and PS3 are just perfect pieces of hardware, and its a shame that a system with a plethora of games has such crappy hardware.