[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Because they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. When they announced it in the first place, at E3, they were still in a place where they thought the masses would be receptive to everything they had to say.

If they had realized how much backwalk was coming, I think they would have been much more vague on which territories were going to get the product and released actual details closer to launch.

Instead, they've got this product they think is kickass, that people are going to want, and they're getting out in front and saying "this is when it's going to happen."

Then rocks fall. Everybody dies. The rescue crew goes through the rubble to see if there are any survivors.

Microsoft realizes, for *whatever* reason, that they can't meet their original goal for launch regions. They've got two choices at that point - they can wait until launch is nearly there, announce the change, and leave their retail partners to deal with the pissed off hordes going "you've had my preorder money for three months and now this? what the hell?"

Or they can acknowledge that plans had to change. They are far from the first company, even in the console wars, to have that happen. Sometimes it's intentional, as when supplies were stupidly scarce in Japan for the Super Nintendo launch. Sometimes it's not as intentional, such as when Sony announced a million units for the PS2 launch in North America and delivered more like 500,000 because of component shortages.

Shit happens. Companies gotta roll with the punches. The difference between this case and the above is, Microsoft is able to step up and say "Hey, we goofed." If they waited until the last week of October to say anything, you'd be all over them for THAT, too.

Exactly right. You were a bit verbose, but detailed basically what I've been saying. I guess it's OK to be a lousy leader if you apologize. In that case, I wish they would have let the head actually roll to prove their point rather than let him slide off to Zynga as though he actually thought that was a better position than his current one.