At the same time, Google has a much more transparent culture and it still ended up with the Nexus Q, which was swiftly put on hold just a few weeks after it was announced.
The difference being that the nexus Q was a whole new product with absolutely no expectations set for it, not an existing products with millions of users. The Q was obviously a failed experiment, but experimentation in that way is healthy. obviously not every product is going to be a success, but when you're trying crazy new things with a high probility of failure, it's best not to do it on your flagship product and with no escape strategy.
The Nexus Q wikipedia page [1] says that its launch was postponed due to "feedback from users that the device had too few features for its price", not due to quality defects. It seems to me that Google made an honest effort to develop a product, and decided not to ship it for equally good reasons.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/31/3207482/nexus-q-consumer-l...