So, it's whinge time against BT. For the last 6 months I've had some major issues with my internet connection. Thanks to a combination of living a little way from the exchange and BT sending the wiring the tourist route I don't have a very fast connection at home in fact last year with max turned on I used to connect at roughly 1536 to 1792 and with the BRAS rate applied this gave me a 1 meg connection. Happy days! twice as fast as it previously was though so ok for now.
Pre easter the line started to slow down - the usual 1600 or so became 1400, then 1312, then 1180 and then 1024. line drops started and the speed would go utterly apeshit, dropping, speeding up, slowing down. - Synching at 860 or even lower, usually at roughly 2-4 on a Saturday. Contention issues I wondered.... Going away for easter I decided not to raise anything but to see if things improved. On my return things had got worse, a sub 1000 connection now seemed the norm with speeds of 384 being the lowest recorded.
So I raised a technical case with BT. This went round and around, log the case, explain, go through loads of stupid questions, test line, nothing wrong, your line can only do 512k, ignoring that it used to be fine for up to 17/1800. repeate several times, never getting the same person, having to explain the issue repeatedly, again and again and always starting from it seems level zero. No one at BT seems capable of reading up on an open issues previous events and a customers history.
In May I ended up asking for a call back, 2 hours and 30 minutes later I had been passed from the technical support team to the line team, the line team passed me back as the idiot in technical clearly just dropped me into the queue, didn't want to know and basically couldn't answer my questions prefering to patronise me and tell me the line was only ok for 512k - which it is right now as it's got issues , he just ignored what I said. Way to go BT. I was then passed back to Technical support and had to explain everything again. The suggestion here was for me to call up sales and get them to turn max off. This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. It fails to answer why the line has degenrated, it fails to address the issue and Max was placed on the line at the explicit request of a BT openreach engineer as last year we had an issue with the login for my account timeing out. No one was able to tell me how this would affect my line, what has changed that the resolution for last years issue should be removed and once again why a line degeneration of so much is acceptable. I was then bounced to someone else and went through it all again. and still no answers just people reading from a script.
The upshot of this was that the margin on my connection was raised to 9 from 6., not that I was informed of this it just happened once the call had finished. This meant that I now connect even slower - 384 to 860 now. Stopped the line drops but thats like fixing a car by not going over 40 mph rather than lining up the wheels properly.
I finished the call at 8.30 having been on since 6. I then complained to BT via email again and a call back was arranged. I ended up explaining everything again, the agreement was to mionitor the line and then get a call back. Well guess what, no call back. So I logged a formal complaint via BT and pushed the same case back to BT via their email. I included my wite up of the issue in long and tedious detail, despite them both having case numbers that should include my previous history. I received nothing from the offical complaint except the automated replies, despite chasing them up and I received a baffled email on the technical enquiry from someone who clearly cannot read back through an email nor read the write up of what has previously occured on the case. so, we are back to Zero, again.
My advice, if you can, avoid BT, it's great until you have an issue at which point no one frankly cares.
Monday, 30 July 2007
Wednesday, 3 January 2007
Same old Retail then
Retail was up to it's old tricks over the festive period along with MCV containing masses of letters from retails moaning about the likes of Tescos selling games at a low price.
Whilst attempting to purchase a HD-DVD unit for the 360 (E-play) I was asked to purchase £100 of extra items I didn't want - crappy 360 WWE games and the like. I don't think so boys,
A friend had a Wii on preorder through one of the largest specialist chains. They've not received this yet, imagine their surprise to walk in there and find they'd decided to put out 10 of the 20 they'd received that morning in enforced bundles, machine, 3 games and a few other high margin items.
Whilst I appreciate that retailers have to make a profit they are shooting themselves in the foot doing this.
Supermarkets don't gouge in this way, others maybe but not like this. I also expect that all those retailers who expect the public to pay more for their games and shop at a specialist probably don't do the same when it comes to their food shopping.
Xmas stock shortages are here to stay, they've been around since the days of the 2600 and Intellivision but the enforced bundling is fairly new - bundling games were a way to reproduce the packages with pack-in games that used to exist pre-PlayStation (Combat for the VCS, Altered Beast for the Megadrive) but give retailers leeway to make things up as they go.
Pack-in games died when Sony decided to go pretty much bare bones with the PlayStation at £299 and appear cheaper than the £399 Saturn that included 2 pads, scart lead, built in memory and Virtual fighter for £399. Official pack in games tied up stock and the games became old and tired fairly quickly not to mention a £299 looks better than £399 as the general public was unaware that they'd end up lumping out for a memory card, game, 2ND controller and scart lead if they wanted to actually see what was going on.
Console bundles were supposed to allow some margin for retailers but a better deal for customers by allowing the purchase of everything they needed in one go. But the option to just buy the machine and say to little johnny that he could spend his granny money on games or allow Granny to buy him a game or pad still existed.
So who's to blame, well everyone really. From the eBay scalpers exploiting it (that'll be me in years past) to the console makers who rushed their releases out as a preventative measure to stop sales of other consoles or didn't make enough to the gauging retailers who think purchases have a short memory and want to cash in and stop a console hitting eBay, they have all played a part.
I feel really sorry for those who for Xmas bonus or savings reasons had to leave it to the last minute and then were disappointed, you have my sympathy for whatever that's worth.
Whilst attempting to purchase a HD-DVD unit for the 360 (E-play) I was asked to purchase £100 of extra items I didn't want - crappy 360 WWE games and the like. I don't think so boys,
A friend had a Wii on preorder through one of the largest specialist chains. They've not received this yet, imagine their surprise to walk in there and find they'd decided to put out 10 of the 20 they'd received that morning in enforced bundles, machine, 3 games and a few other high margin items.
Whilst I appreciate that retailers have to make a profit they are shooting themselves in the foot doing this.
Supermarkets don't gouge in this way, others maybe but not like this. I also expect that all those retailers who expect the public to pay more for their games and shop at a specialist probably don't do the same when it comes to their food shopping.
Xmas stock shortages are here to stay, they've been around since the days of the 2600 and Intellivision but the enforced bundling is fairly new - bundling games were a way to reproduce the packages with pack-in games that used to exist pre-PlayStation (Combat for the VCS, Altered Beast for the Megadrive) but give retailers leeway to make things up as they go.
Pack-in games died when Sony decided to go pretty much bare bones with the PlayStation at £299 and appear cheaper than the £399 Saturn that included 2 pads, scart lead, built in memory and Virtual fighter for £399. Official pack in games tied up stock and the games became old and tired fairly quickly not to mention a £299 looks better than £399 as the general public was unaware that they'd end up lumping out for a memory card, game, 2ND controller and scart lead if they wanted to actually see what was going on.
Console bundles were supposed to allow some margin for retailers but a better deal for customers by allowing the purchase of everything they needed in one go. But the option to just buy the machine and say to little johnny that he could spend his granny money on games or allow Granny to buy him a game or pad still existed.
So who's to blame, well everyone really. From the eBay scalpers exploiting it (that'll be me in years past) to the console makers who rushed their releases out as a preventative measure to stop sales of other consoles or didn't make enough to the gauging retailers who think purchases have a short memory and want to cash in and stop a console hitting eBay, they have all played a part.
I feel really sorry for those who for Xmas bonus or savings reasons had to leave it to the last minute and then were disappointed, you have my sympathy for whatever that's worth.
Thursday, 7 December 2006
More on Wii Shortages
Games industry biz http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=21561
have a story regarding DSG and Wii. As you may recall DSG were the first big retailer to drop the Gamecube. Well they predict that on pre-orders their allocation tomorrow and their next 4 deliveries will still sell out.
"We're expecting to fulfil all pre-orders on the day," said Hamish Thompson of DSG. "We're continuing to take pre-orders but informing consumers that they probably won't be able to be fulfilled until after Christmas."
"We're expecting four deliveries between now and Christmas and we expect them all to go to pre-orders. If customers haven't already pre-ordered then they've probably missed the boat."
Both Comet and WHsmiths have placed Wii point of sale in their stores in the last 2 weeks and only Comet have listed any kind of preorder scheme. I saw no schemes in any DSG stores.
Those who want to try their luck early tomorrow would be advised to try WHSmiths, Comet, Currys (superstores) and maybe Asda as they had very small quantities of 360's in last year. Will Asda get them on the shelves at midnight? Will Tescos have any?
Good luck to those trying for one for themselves to keep.
have a story regarding DSG and Wii. As you may recall DSG were the first big retailer to drop the Gamecube. Well they predict that on pre-orders their allocation tomorrow and their next 4 deliveries will still sell out.
"We're expecting to fulfil all pre-orders on the day," said Hamish Thompson of DSG. "We're continuing to take pre-orders but informing consumers that they probably won't be able to be fulfilled until after Christmas."
"We're expecting four deliveries between now and Christmas and we expect them all to go to pre-orders. If customers haven't already pre-ordered then they've probably missed the boat."
Both Comet and WHsmiths have placed Wii point of sale in their stores in the last 2 weeks and only Comet have listed any kind of preorder scheme. I saw no schemes in any DSG stores.
Those who want to try their luck early tomorrow would be advised to try WHSmiths, Comet, Currys (superstores) and maybe Asda as they had very small quantities of 360's in last year. Will Asda get them on the shelves at midnight? Will Tescos have any?
Good luck to those trying for one for themselves to keep.
Wednesday, 6 December 2006
Nearly Wii Day then
As you all know the Wii's release in the European territories Friday. Unlike sony I reckon you'll be able to walk into Comet or maybe a Curry's and pick one up off the shelf until Friday night as usually Nintendo are pretty good with their hardware and getting more on the shelf the following week.
One thing that makes me smile is the notion that Nintendo are doing anything majorly new or are taking a chance with the Wii. Nintendo, whatever you think of their games are an exceptionally well run company and they'll have done the homework on this one. They have a machine that sells at a profit resulting in games that don't need to subsidise that hardware and therefore offer a higher margin and larger return. The usual faces are here - Zelda at launch to clean up and probably on download to allow you to purchase again that which you already own. Much of the emulation on the Wii has been kicking around for a while, theres that N64 machine they produced in korea AFAIRC and it's downloaded games, the emulators that popped up in animal crossing and the GBA player for the Gamecube so most of it was there already, waiting to be used an exploited.
The controller is really nothing new - it's very much like the sort of thing that first came out on the Megadrive/Genesis to play golf games back in the early 90's, it's very much like the Golf and Baseball controllers for the Ps2 and the likes of Eyetoy have established the idea of using hands to play games on the screen. And as for fishing controllers , the Dreamcast one was the daddy there. What is new is that it's packed in with the machine thus allowing anyone to make games for it and to keep the price down. Samba de Amigo's great but was £80 new even if it was stupidly dot bombed down to 54 quid just to get some orders in for the likes of simply games. a £40 Samba would be great if it can be done on the Wii.
The one thing I massively disagree with is that somehow Nintendo are going out there and appealing to women as if thats never been done. Nintendo have always appealed to Women, Mario and Zelda appealed to women, it was these games going 3d that saw the old late 80's and early 90's crowd lose interest, as well as probably finding something important to do, like get on with life. Women like Pokemon, they liked Animal Crossing but they also like Singstar, they like Samba, they like the eyetoy games, they like the Sims and Sims 2. Singstar, Eyetoy, Pokemon and Sims have probably been responsible for more women gamers than anything else but I kind of get the impression they are ignored, seen as somehow lacking gameing credibility especially the Sims, the constant rereleases and upgrade packs are distainfully looked down upon. I get the impression that some think Nintendo's Wii pitch is somehow previously unseen genius when it's clearly not, it's just being spun that way. EA and Sony (as much as dislike much of their previous output) have done loads to encourage a different crowd to play games and deserve masses of credit for this.
That they'll make a profit on each one is the strongest part of the pitch though, they can afford to sell a machine with one game and then move on, they've made as much cash as Sony selling a machine and maybe 4-5 games. They can have a business plan that involves selling 5-6 million to their fanbase, redesign the machine to look better in 2 years time and do it all over again. Why bother trying to sell 100million consoles and all the advertising, marketing, R&D costs this runs up, the subsidies etc when you can just flog 20-30 million consoles to the same people, make £10-£20 on each one and lord alone knows how much margin on your software. Keeping stock in the shops and princing it lower than your competitors is such basic good business practise that you wonder how others simply failed to see it, certainly Sony didn't with the PSP (that and a lack of games, low stock and the smaller ipod coming down to such a price it made the psps size do anything approach look unattractive). Every machine that sells to a non or even returning Nintendo fan is a major and profitable bonus.
Nope the true genius of the Wii is in the business end, Nintendo will make millions this time round , as they always do and thats whats to be admired.
One thing that makes me smile is the notion that Nintendo are doing anything majorly new or are taking a chance with the Wii. Nintendo, whatever you think of their games are an exceptionally well run company and they'll have done the homework on this one. They have a machine that sells at a profit resulting in games that don't need to subsidise that hardware and therefore offer a higher margin and larger return. The usual faces are here - Zelda at launch to clean up and probably on download to allow you to purchase again that which you already own. Much of the emulation on the Wii has been kicking around for a while, theres that N64 machine they produced in korea AFAIRC and it's downloaded games, the emulators that popped up in animal crossing and the GBA player for the Gamecube so most of it was there already, waiting to be used an exploited.
The controller is really nothing new - it's very much like the sort of thing that first came out on the Megadrive/Genesis to play golf games back in the early 90's, it's very much like the Golf and Baseball controllers for the Ps2 and the likes of Eyetoy have established the idea of using hands to play games on the screen. And as for fishing controllers , the Dreamcast one was the daddy there. What is new is that it's packed in with the machine thus allowing anyone to make games for it and to keep the price down. Samba de Amigo's great but was £80 new even if it was stupidly dot bombed down to 54 quid just to get some orders in for the likes of simply games. a £40 Samba would be great if it can be done on the Wii.
The one thing I massively disagree with is that somehow Nintendo are going out there and appealing to women as if thats never been done. Nintendo have always appealed to Women, Mario and Zelda appealed to women, it was these games going 3d that saw the old late 80's and early 90's crowd lose interest, as well as probably finding something important to do, like get on with life. Women like Pokemon, they liked Animal Crossing but they also like Singstar, they like Samba, they like the eyetoy games, they like the Sims and Sims 2. Singstar, Eyetoy, Pokemon and Sims have probably been responsible for more women gamers than anything else but I kind of get the impression they are ignored, seen as somehow lacking gameing credibility especially the Sims, the constant rereleases and upgrade packs are distainfully looked down upon. I get the impression that some think Nintendo's Wii pitch is somehow previously unseen genius when it's clearly not, it's just being spun that way. EA and Sony (as much as dislike much of their previous output) have done loads to encourage a different crowd to play games and deserve masses of credit for this.
That they'll make a profit on each one is the strongest part of the pitch though, they can afford to sell a machine with one game and then move on, they've made as much cash as Sony selling a machine and maybe 4-5 games. They can have a business plan that involves selling 5-6 million to their fanbase, redesign the machine to look better in 2 years time and do it all over again. Why bother trying to sell 100million consoles and all the advertising, marketing, R&D costs this runs up, the subsidies etc when you can just flog 20-30 million consoles to the same people, make £10-£20 on each one and lord alone knows how much margin on your software. Keeping stock in the shops and princing it lower than your competitors is such basic good business practise that you wonder how others simply failed to see it, certainly Sony didn't with the PSP (that and a lack of games, low stock and the smaller ipod coming down to such a price it made the psps size do anything approach look unattractive). Every machine that sells to a non or even returning Nintendo fan is a major and profitable bonus.
Nope the true genius of the Wii is in the business end, Nintendo will make millions this time round , as they always do and thats whats to be admired.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
