Companies might be cavalier about these things because the consumers are so often brutal and unforgiving (irrationally so, in so many cases).

There's no winning the PR game on Reddit or other social media sites when you have some motivated psychopathic shit-posters drumming up the negative sentiment - especially when the conversation gets titled that way early. There are a few sacred cows, but almost every other noteworthy game or console at some point goes through a similar phase. If the company keeps things afloat long enough while iterating on their product, the shit-posters generally get bored or move on to something else.

Many good products succeed despite it all.