Star Tech Journal

Mfg Custonier Service
Gets Thunibs-Up!
Bill Eaton
NOi
Laguna Hills, CA
GAMES DESIGNED TO BREAK?
Recently, I have read some disturbing views
concerning manufacturers designing equip-
ment to break. In my experience, I have some-
times had this thought myself, but found it was
wrong. Most ongoing problems are caused and
perpetuated by sloppy or cheap repair proce-
dures.
I work closely with a few major manufacturers
that seem to receive bum raps, but every time I
have taken the time to contact the factory when
testing a game, they have always responded
with everything they know.
JAPAN VS USA
When a machine is designed and developed in
Japan, it ALWAYS has problems here! Sega has
probably received the biggest bum rap with
EnduroRacerS/U. The console started to break,
and instead of calling Sega, everybody just
screamed.
Our Enduro Racers are going strong because we
worked with Sega and identified our problem
areas. We then spent a little money to minimize
our down time. Sure, it took time and ingenuity,
but our field guys wanted to avoid future prob-
lems. Don't get me wrong, we do have our prob-
lems, but we have managed to get them down to
size.
We have many problems on location, but Sega
has always been there when we needed them,
and we're here when they need us. Sega needs
you not just to buy their great games, but to
communicate any improvement ideas you may
have.
CUSTOMER SERVICE KUDOS
Their customer service, in my opinion, has been
superb. We have also requested minor improve-
ments to a few games. Sure enough, two to four
weeks later, the game comes along with our
improvement modifications.
Atari has a great American design team. They
seem to jump on every problem before you have
it, and they also respond to feedback. I can't
think of any manufacturer who hasn't re-
sponded to a reasonable request.
QUICK FIXES DON'TI
If you continue having a problem with some-
thing, take a close look at how you adjust and
repair it. Sega gears have been called "junk" by~
some people, but all I can say is that with the
thousands of gears in our organization, we don't •
use many; we train our people in the correct way
to adjust and maintain them.
Most of our failures can be traced back to the
maintenance. "Quick" fixes will always cost you
more time in the long run than the correct repair
will.
BOTTOM LINE
The whole point here is that we're all in this
together, and there is a fine line between getting
something different like Enduro Racer to hold up
and keeping the cost affordable. I personally feel
that game manufacturers should use all MIL
Spec hardware and components.
Just remember that although there are a few
real humdingers that make it through testing, I
have yet to deal with a manufacturer who didn't
help straighten things out.
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