Major Nelson (of XBox Live!) noticed XBox 360 made The Top Ten WTF Moments of 2005 list at 1UP.com. Now, most corporate PR people would:
- Ignore it and hope it goes away
The problem with this method is that yes, it will eventually go away, but it won’t be forgotten. People will remember the negative comment, the lack of notice by the company and will be emboldened to make stronger statements.
This also lends credibility to the claim. If it were false, the company would have said something, right? I mean, it’s not on a rarely-read site, 1UP is pretty well traveled.
- Respond Negatively
PR people are less likely to do this than employees. When *we* are the one being called out we tend to get angry and defensive. “Well, maybe if we’d had more time to prepare, or more money, or whatever, then it would have been right.”
Anger is ALWAYS a bad move. Righteous indignation works sometimes, but for the most part, it’s even too harsh.
Major handled it just the way I would have, by humorously pointing out that while they made a ‘bad’ list, they also made a ‘good’ list. He even refers to a geeky IRC direction in the Edit and thanks the tipster in the post.
OopsHey look …we made number 1 in the 1up “Top Ten WTF Moments of 2005.” I guess that’s not quite the list we’d hope we’d be on. We fared a little better on CNET’S ‘Top 10 Must Have’ list (beaten by the PSP.)I guess it’s better then not being on any lists at all, huh? We all know that the Core System, or as 1up calls it the “Tard Pack”, is not for everyone…but people must want them since they are also sold out everywhere. By the way, I forgot to mention that we have a third manufacturer (Celestica) coming online in February to help ease the availability pain. Hopefully they’ll won’t be making just Xbox 360 Core Systems.
Thanks to reader Mike-E who pointed the list out
Edit: Hey guys, my comment about the core system was meant with a bit of humor, so please re-read my comment with /humor on.
He couldn’t have handled it better.