Update: EB Games Australia has commented on the rumour.
Microsoft has gotten back to us regarding the rumour we posted earlier today that suggests EB Games Australia may have $10 million worth of busted 360s that it can’t sell, and the manufacturer is unwilling to compensate it for.
You might be a bit disappointed by the reply:
We’re not going to comment on this.
Luke Plunkett for Kotaku US was kind enough to buzz all the EBs in Canberra, and like me, he got the same “out of stock” line for the Xbox 360 Premium.
Should Microsoft pick up the bill for the damage its apparently poor QA has wrought, or has EB Games dug itself a massive hole for issuing the recall itself mid-last year? Let us know.
NegativeZero
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 5:06 PMThere’s no chance that the lack of stock is due to selling out the current allocation over christmas deliberately in order to ensure that everything sold after the 2-year Australian anniversary has the updated motherboard and cooling?
RaYdeX
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 5:57 PMEB have dug their own grave, and now need to lye in it as far as I’m concerned.
Offering extended warranties for things that wouldn’t be repaired or refunded form the manufacturer is fine,but don’t turn around and cry poor when it backfires.
Microsoft are far from blameless for the quality of the 360… But they also didn’t provide EB with any special guarentees to back-up EB’s warranties.
Ken
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 7:28 PMAs somebody who just sent in their red-ringing Xbox in for repairs this worrying. I hope the $10 million worth of broken consoles are waiting ahead of me in the queue..
GEV1L
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 8:57 PMEB screwed me on my extended warranty and wouldnt honour it even though the error was on their part(the dumbass employee scanned the serial number of the unit i wasw returning as the new one) so im glad to see karma working overtime on the bastards.
nider
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 12:10 AMA friend of mine has gone through at least nine XBox 360s, every time one breaks he just takes it back to EB and they give him a new one. If it’s happened that much to him, I can easily see how the value of broken XBox 360s they have in stock can reach ten million.
Sveno
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 7:39 PMAre they ever going to get any new stock?
Suck to be you Alex Z heheh
Ron
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 8:14 PMThey are out of stock because they sold so many over xmas, now grow up and find some real news instead of listening to insider BS stories.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/faulty-xbox-yarn-is-nixed/2008/01/30/1201369215112.html
Ron
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 8:17 PM@nider
A friend of mine says that your friend is a product of your deluded fanboy mind
SVENO
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 10:53 PMLooks like M$ has EB in their pocket…
Watch them play with EB’s chief executive like a puppet :P
Hey Alex Z, I hope they replace yours with an elite, cause you have been waiting so long (plenty of them in stock, cause no one buys them)