Extended Xbox 360 warranty = loss for retailers?
Could it be true that in Microsoft‘s effort to stay in pace with Sony, which offers a one year warranty for its latest product, retailers will ultimately be taking the brunt of it all?
According to Seeking Alpha’s Carl Howe, this may just be the case. In his opinion, retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City may be the ones who will end up losing profits because of Microsoft’s recent decision to grant one year’s worth of extended warranty to Xbox 360 owners. With this warranty in place, the number of people who would purchase warranties from the retailers would be greatly reduced.
According to him, the result would most likely be just even more strain to an already-frayed relationship:
…given what I consider to be a likely effort by the company to stuff its retail channel with unsold XBox 360 boxes to make its sales goals this holiday season, this move is likely to just add another annoyance to an already testy relationship with retailers.
Will this really be the case? I guess we’ll see once 2007 comes around.
Could it be true that in Microsoft‘s effort to stay in pace with Sony, which offers a one year warranty for its latest product, retailers will ultimately be taking the brunt of it all?
According to Seeking Alpha’s Carl Howe, this may just be the case. In his opinion, retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City may be the ones who will end up losing profits because of Microsoft’s recent decision to grant one year’s worth of extended warranty to Xbox 360 owners. With this warranty in place, the number of people who would purchase warranties from the retailers would be greatly reduced.
According to him, the result would most likely be just even more strain to an already-frayed relationship:
…given what I consider to be a likely effort by the company to stuff its retail channel with unsold XBox 360 boxes to make its sales goals this holiday season, this move is likely to just add another annoyance to an already testy relationship with retailers.
Will this really be the case? I guess we’ll see once 2007 comes around.