No idea why they let this man in front of a journalist, but Microsoft have allowed Todd Holmdahl, their corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group, to sit down with Dean Takahashi and talk the reliability of 360 consoles.

Now, seeing as that area is Holmdahl's responsibility, I'd have expected a certain reluctance on his part to give hard numbers. But the way he dances around Takahashi's questions I'd have stuffed dollar bills down his panties had I been close enough.

Q: The ramp of the Xbox 360 compared to the original Xbox. Was it similar or different?

A: Having lived through both of those, I remember both very well. Both were very complex products. State of the art technology. They were relatively similar in the ramp complexity and ramp speed. Exciting stuff. You and I had a conversation about this around November, 2005.

Oh Todd. You really should have just stuck with "no comment". It doesn't make you look as silly. Luke Plunkett

A Q&A with Todd Holmdahl, the hardware guy at Microsoft, about Xbox 360 failures [San Jose Mercury]