NORTH AMERICAN 60GB PLAYSTATION 3 TO BE DISCONTINUED?

So much for a long term price cut… GamesIndustry.Biz (by way of Kotaku) is reporting that in an interview with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves, Reeves answered the question of why Europe was not seeing a price cut by announcing that once Sony expends all it’s existing stock of the 60GB PlayStation 3 in the United States, the company will only supply 80GB models to the region;

"GamesIndustry.Biz: How concerned are you about possible criticisms that you should have given European consumers what SCEA has given US consumers, i.e. the option to pay a lower price?

David Reeves: Well, they’re not really are they, because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game. All they’re doing is taking their stock in trade that they’ve got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.

GamesIndustry.Biz: So once the 60GB is gone, that will be the end of the 60GB then?

David Reeves: In America, yes." – GamesIndustry.Biz interview with David Reeves

Now, either Reeves is just trying to cover for the lack of a European price drop or Sony really does plan on shooting itself in the foot yet again. What a public relations nightmare this one is going to be. Leave it to Sony to take the one positive piece of press they’ve gotten recently and totally screw it in a matter of days.

• E3: David Reeves Talks PS3 – GamesIndustry.Biz
• 60GB PS3 Being Taken Out To Pasture – Kotaku

THE VIEWSONIC SAGA CONTINUES

Allow me to start this off by stating what should become the obvious – I will NEVER buy a Viewsonic product again. The customer service, or more accurately the lack thereof, I’ve experienced from this company over the last month while my monitor was in for repair has been pathetic at best. For the sake of your sanity, I would suggest you avoid them like the plague as well.

As I advised a few days back, my monitor was due to return from from warranty repair today. Well, the monitor was in fact returned, though to be more accurate, it returned in a box that wasn’t sealed on the bottom (I could find no sign of ANY tape holding the bottom of the box, nor could I find torn cardboard indicating it had been removed) and the monitor looked like someone had taken a hammer to the top of it. The case was cracked on one side, the LCD crooked, the top set of navigation buttons were caved in and the top seam of the case was apart. In other words, it was broken.

Time to call Viewsonic again. I call them and go through the whole story and am told that they’ll send me a pre-paid shipping label. What they don’t tell me is that that label will not include pick up service (which most companies offer for about $1 additional) – in other words, I’m going to have to drag this monitor down to my local UPS office. So I call again, explain that I’m not happy with the entire Viewsonic experience so far and ask to speak to a supervisor.

The clown I’m connected to has the nerve to advise me that they’re providing the shipping label as a courtesy and that they don’t even have to do that…

Before we continue, let me give you a little background on myself here… I’m the guy who always tries to see things from the other person’s perspective. I’ll usually tip at a restaurant even if service sucked, because maybe the person was just having an off-day. I’ll accept having to run through a maze of flaming hoops from many companies just to get something over and done with. I don’t get bothered by long waits or technical problems so long as you give me a reason why it’s happening. Hell, despite what everyone else told me I should so, I even would go so far as to ship a defective monitor that I had been told I’d get free shipping on back at my own expense when a company reneges. In other words, I’m the guy you’d probably want to deal with if you were having an off-day and worked customer service.

That said, I utterly lost it on the phone with this jackass.

After all has been said and done, to be told that they’re doing me a favor by picking up the return shipping on a poorly packaged and therefore damaged replacement monitor that I was sent because the previous product was defective was the final straw. I’ve gotten absolutely zero empathy from this company from day one and while I wouldn’t say I’ve been lied to by their customer service department, I also wouldn’t say they’ve been forthcoming about their policies either.

Some other highlights of my conversation with Captain Moron came when he told me that it wasn’t customer supports job to explain the return procedure to customers, that’s what the forms they mail to you are for and the discovery that for much of the conversation, he was looking at the wrong ticket number despite having asked me for the current ticket number at the very beginning of our conversation.

For this just joining our show already in progress, let me give you a breakdown of what’s happened…

1. I made the mistake of buying a Viewsonic N3250W 32" Widescreen LCD HDTV/Monitor back in early-mid February of this year.
2. After 4 – 4 1/2 months of using this thing, it died for no reason one day. (And I babied this thing like you would not believe – some friends of mine actually made fun of me for the care I gave this thing)
3. I call Viewsonic and am told that the monitor will have to go in for service. They tell me it qualifies for their Advanced Replacement Plan and that they’ll fax me a form to fill out, I simply fax it back to them, they send out a replacement monitor and when it arrives I put the defective unit in it’s box and ship it back. All of this at their expense. At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about the whole deal.
4. I get the forms and discover that they require a security hold in the price of the monitor to ensure that you’re not trying to rip them off. Since I don’t have some $1,000 that they can play with until the transaction is completed, I call them back. (I guess hat falls in line with the stated policy of not having to explain the return process to customers)
5. Now I’m told that in this case, I’ll have to ship my monitor back to them first AND I’ll have to pay the costs of shipping the unit to them. How exactly the fact that I have to send the monitor back to them first eliminates their covering the return shipping costs boggles the mind, but I reluctantly agree and pay DHL to pick up the monitor and ship it to them.
6. I’m told once they receive my monitor, I should have it or a replacement back within 14 business days. Again, I’m not particularly happy with the amount of time this is going to take, but what are you going to do.
7. I make all the arrangements with DHL, they pick up the monitor and deliver it to Viewsonic on July 5th.
8. I hear nothing for 14 business days.
9. I call them back following the 14th business day to get an update on the situation and am told "Didn’t you get a tracking number?" – turns out my monitor has already been shipped out and is die to arrive on July 26th. Thanks for the heads up guys – I’ve been getting spam from you since the day you got my e-mail address, you’ve got it on file with my RMA #, but you couldn’t think to tell me it was on it’s way back.
10. The monitor arrives. It arrives on it’s side because the bottom of the box apparently wasn’t sealed, and it’s damaged as I described above.
11. I call customer service and am told that this time they’ll send me a free shipping label and that all I have to do is return the monitor to them and as soon as they get it, they’ll send out a replacement. I get a new RMA # for the second return.
12. I get the shipping label via e-mail. In reading the instructions and I discover that it does not cover (or allow for) UPS picking up the package at your residence. You have to take the thing down to your local UPS office. Greeeeeat.
13. I call back and explain the situation to customer service, who again apparently must be staring blankly forward at their screens like fish looking at their reflections. I ask to speak to a supervisor.
14. I explain the situation to the supervisor (along with the fact that I’m not happy about having to take time out to drag this thing down to my local UPS office) and am asked for my RMA #. I provide the new one and continue the conversation.
15. I get told that I was sent a prepaid return label as a courtesy and that they didn’t even have to do that.
16. I lose it on the phone with this clown for awhile.
17. I get told that since it needs repair, he’ll have to open another RMA #… you know, exactly what they did 15 minutes earlier. Yup, he’s not even looking at the right ticket. He’s looking at the original ticket. He then tried to make it sound as if I gave him the wrong ticket number. (Usually I may even give someone like this the benefit of the doubt, but the fact the only number I had at the time was the new ticket number ensures I gave him the right one)
18. I try to impress on this guy the reason why I just lost it on him and explain the above to him, including the constantly contradictory replies I’ve gotten from customer service and the fact that this is now going to be dragging into it’s second month. This is when I’m told it’s not Viewsonic’s policy to explain the return procedure over the phone – that’s what the one page, barely explains anything e-mail they send you is for. So… it’s policy not to communicate with your customers? That sounds about right weighed against the experience I’ve had with Viewsonic so far.

That’s where it stands right now. I’m sure this situation will only get worse as time goes on as I have absolutely NO faith in Viewsonic as a company anymore. If I could, I’d ask for my money back at this time and call it a day, but since I didn’t buy the monitor directly from the company that’s not an option. The worst part? not only am I now going to not have had this monitor for 2 months, but apparently my 1 year warranty continues to run during this period, so by the time it comes back, I’ll be into the 6th or 7th month of my warranty. Given the longevity of the product the first time around, I get the feeling that the question of how much longer the monitor has left is always going to be on my mind and be a constant worry – and soon it won’t even be under warranty.

My advice at this point if you’re in the market for a HDTV or monitor? AVOID VIEWSONIC LIKE THE PLAGUE. Bad products, horrid customer service, a horrid warranty program and a general poor attitude towards the customer do not equal a fun experience. I’ll be updating this story as news warrants. Please, feel free to post your own comments, suggestions or Viewsonic horror stories in the comments section via the below link. (The add a comment link will be to the right of the article after the link)

SONY PLEASED WITH THEIR E3 PERFORMANCE

In an interview with TheStreet.com, Jack Tretton, co-chief operating officer of Sony Computer Entertainment America showed that Sony’s recent insanity isn’t just restricted to Europe and Japan. When asked about the poor perception of Sony’s E3 presentation, Tretton stated that Sony was very pleased with their performance and that they accomplished everything they set out to do at the show;

“If we were trying to do a PR blitz on our announcements, we would have perceived it a little bit differently. But we really saw this as an opportunity to announce some very important details to the trade. And I think if you ask the trade, meaning the retail constituency and the third parties, they came away pretty pleased with how everything went.” -Jack Tretton

When pressed on the fact that the general public came away with an apparently different opinion than Sony, Tretton stated that Sony is now in the process of trying to explain to consumers why the system is right for them;

“We are in the process of reaching out to the consumers to try to explain what our platform’s all about and why they’re going to want one between that May and November time frame. But I think six months out of any platform launch, it’s a little bit early in terms of being able to roll out all the details.” -Jack Tretton

On the price difference between the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360;

“Well, I guess if price is the only consideration, then we’ve won the war, because we’ve got a $129 PlayStation 2 that outsells the Xbox 360 today.

If you look at the cost of the components and more importantly, the value to consumers, you have everything in the box at $399 on the Xbox 360; and it still falls well short of what the PlayStation 3 offers at $499. “ -Jack Tretton

On Microsoft’s early lead in units sold;

“It ultimately came down to the system and what consumers preferred. At the end of the day, what you do in the first year, and whether you do 6 or 10 million units does not determine whether you’re successful or not. We’re looking to sell 100 million-plus worldwide. We’re looking to sell 50 million plus in North America.” – Jack Tretton

On Microsoft’s ability to compete financially with Sony;

“There’s no question they have a higher pain tolerance. I think most companies, if they’d lost the billions that Microsoft has lost on the Xbox, would question whether or not they belong in the business. Obviously, they have a different standard of success.” -Jack Tretton

And finally, on the impact of Grand Theft Auto IV releasing simultaneously on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3;

“There’s no question that having the Grand Theft Auto franchise helped us a lot and helped us sell some units, but I don’t think the battle would be any different with or without Grand Theft Auto.

If you look at our first-party library and the franchises that we’ve brought to market over the course of PlayStation 2, we have a very formidable first-party library of exclusive software that will help define us. ” – Jack Tretton

Well you certainly wouldn’t expect him to have anything negative to say about his own company, would you? Still, regarding the comments about public perception of the PS3, you have to wonder just what exactly they’re putting in the coffee over at Sony. Check out the full TheStreet.com interview here and judge for yourself.