Not so cuddly snuggly

Summary: Microsoft is slammed for charging or penalising very severely for an update; its PR people fail to correct the injustice

AS we pointed out quite recently, Xbox is still a lousy business for Microsoft. Using some creative accounting tricks Microsoft has successfully hidden losses for quite some time. We shall say more about that in a separate post.

There are some reports that reveal a pathetic strategy for Microsoft to earn some money in the Xbox business. There is some damage control issued very quickly in response to a "fix-figure Xbox360 'patch fee'". Notice how Microsoft failing to actually address the criticism, using misdirection and secrecy:

Microsoft provided the following statement to Ars Technica after this story was originally published: "Polytron and their investor, Trapdoor, made the decision not to work on an additional title update for Fez. Microsoft Studios chose to support this decision based on the belief that Polytron/Trapdoor were in the best position to determine what the acceptable quality level is for their game. While we do not disclose the cost of Title Updates, we did offer to work with Trapdoor to make sure that wasn’t a blocking issue. We remain huge fans of Fez." We have yet to hear back from Fish for further comment on the story.

They do not disclose the cost. It means they are embarrassed to do so. Notice that they do nothing to contradict damaging reports; they just dance around the hard facts/allegations. Later today we'll show Microsoft's descent to extreme spin, not better service/products. ⬆