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360
fail
rate
and
here
and
here.

This anecdote
An Over view.
another article

As well Microsoft has announced about 100$ for each xbox 360 sold thus far($1 billion dollars). Which would be warranty repair costs and replacements costs for 1/3 of it's units if each replacement costs the same price as a new one in product costs and handling costs. Some say they may just be overly cautious but no manufacturer would announce such a huge warranty budget and risk extremely bad PR if there wasn't a problem. Given the next revision (falcon) will utilize the 65nm chip fab for the CPU it's less likely those will fail thus that billion is likely for machines already sold. Those new boxes aren't in the retail channels yet either.

Smarthouse news in Australia is reporting that more than 30% of Australian XBox360 owners are returning the consoles with the "Red Ring of Death", which occurs when the console suffers a hardware failure http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13201/Retaile rs_Claim_360_Failure_Rate_Is_Over_30.html.

It appears that the failures are caused by a fundamental design flaw in the cooling of the GPU.

When the GPU heats up enough, not only does it reflow the solder in the ball grid array slightly, it can cause the entire mainboard to flex - a phenomenon largely caused by the X-shaped brackets that hold the heatsinks on under the mainboard. http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13140/Xbox_36 0_Failures_Explained.html

Some European Xbox 360's are being repaired by Microsoft with extra cooling http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=17870. Hopefully they will now admit the design flaw and retrofit the same repair for the rest of their customers.

Smarthouse news in Australia is reporting that more than 30% of Australian XBox360 owners are returning the consoles with the "Red Ring of Death", which occurs when the console suffers a hardware failure http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13201/Retaile rs_Claim_360_Failure_Rate_Is_Over_30.html.

It appears that the failures are caused by a fundamental design flaw in the cooling of the GPU.

When the GPU heats up enough, not only does it reflow the solder in the ball grid array slightly, it can cause the entire mainboard to flex - a phenomenon largely caused by the X-shaped brackets that hold the heatsinks on under the mainboard. http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13140/Xbox_36 0_Failures_Explained.html

Some European Xbox 360's are being repaired by Microsoft with extra cooling http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=17870. Hopefully they will now admit the design flaw and retrofit the same repair for the rest of their customers.

Both fists are mapped to the Wii remote and nunchuck so if you hold down the Z Button and thrust forward with your right hand, your character will perform a quick right jab. You can also swing your arm around and your character will perform a slower but more powerful hook. The real fun however, starts when you grab your opponent by holding Z and B at the same time.

Once you have someone in your grasp, you can beat their face in by thrusting the Wii remote forward, headbutt them by quickly motioning both the Wii remote and the nunchuck towards your face, slam them against the wall by thrusting both controllers forward when holding them with their backs against a wall, throw them by motioning the controllers in any direction and then letting go of Z and B, and even strangle them by quickly bringing the controllers together and then shaking them like you're actually doing the strangling yourself.

Wow your imagination is amazing ...

Playstation 3 Supply Surpasses Demand
PS3 in Stock, Wii Sold Out says Analyst
PS3 to miss sales targets by 25% - analyst

Wiis are selling out, and are often sold out. PS3s are sitting on shelves, not Wiis. It's not just a case of them never being there - they do arrive, then they get sold very quickly indeed. But nice troll anyways.

But all the information in the current world does not support these predictions:

1. Sony loses a few more high profile exclusives ... http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/10792/

2. POSSIBLE Microsoft XBox 360 Price Cuts http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1335 1

3. eBay shows slow demand for ebay crash in PS3 Prices http://www.gamespot.com/news/6162338.html

Meanwhile, pro-Microsoft zealots on Slashdot continue to ignore the huge problems Microsoft is having with their poor quality and expensive online services.

Major problems still unresolved, customers demanding refunds and many are returning their machines outright.

No, it is not. Closed source is like painting the Sistine Chapel but locking the building and selling tiny postcards with photographs of it. No one ever gets to see it as you really intended it to be appreciated.

Okay, we're really stretching this analogy quite thin. However, you're wrong on this point. How many places now sell you software but don't let you try it out? Microsoft will give you a 180 day trial on Windows Server 2003 as well as trials of just about any of their products -- Office or Visual Studio and SQL Server or many others. Microsoft effectively gives you the full, real postcard for six months. If you like it, buy the postcard. If you don't, return (uninstall) it. Any decent company lets you have a thorough evaluation before you purchase. If they don't, take your business elsewhere.

Some companies offer fully functional demos, some offer demos with functionality disabled (try out the postcard, write on it, only you just can't send it through the mail) -- there's really no end to options as far as trial and demo versions. Like I said, if you're looking at some software which doesn't have a demo/trial available, you can probably ask for one from the company and, if they refuse, you won't have to look too far for another company which does. Every major PC videogame out there has a demo for download. If there isn't one, odds are the game sucks I wouldn't buy it without a demo either. Hell, you can even get a demo of AutoCAD... something that would have been unheard of years ago.

Your assertion that closed source is like looking at a tiny postcard of what you'd eventually get is like arguing that you only get to look at brochures before buying a new car. Haven't you heard? The auto manufacturers now allow you to take them out for a test drive even though they don't hand out the car's "source code". Granted, it's a fairly limited test drive (imperfect car analogy again) but if vehicles weren't subject to wear and tear, I'm sure they'd love to have you drive it for a month or more and get you hooked on the features of their vehicle so that you're more likely to end up buying it.

By the way, I personally see it as just a bit unethical that you can make a fortune off of copies.

Tell that to any commercial Linux vendor. Also, Slashdot makes money by serving up copies of other peoples content and throwing ads on top of it all. Yet here you are, participating in dubious ethics. :)

The Article has been pulled. Whether that adds to the credibility of the info or not should all be clear later today when the Japan press conference is over or after the press conference in the US tomorrow.

The system with the highest number of fun games always wins, and there's currently no reason to think that the PS3 will have less fun games than the PS2 did

There is ... You just refuse to see it

GOT GAMES? One troubling sign already indicates that the PS3 might not be quite the hit Sony expects. Game makers are steering development resources away from Sony and toward games for machines from Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo, says Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain, a game-industry researcher in Tokyo. At its autumn games preview on July 13, for instance, traditional Sony ally Electronic Arts (ERTS) spent far more time showing off innovative Nintendo games than it did titles for the PS3. EA announced six Nintendo Wii launch titles and showed long working demos for two of those. But it offered only a short clip of a car-racing game for PS3. EA says it's still testing the potential of the PS3. "Many developers think the console's initial high price will lead to slow sales and are holding off on creating games for Sony," Hamamura says.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2 006/gb20060720_962759.htm?chan=innovation_game+roo m_top+stories

An SNK Playmore executive has spoken out about PlayStation 3 pricing, indicating that the developer may wait as long as four years to begin work on it - despite having already pledged titles to Nintendo Wii.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 18699

EA Support: 80% for Wii60, 20% for PS3
http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/10038/

Sony demostrated no loyality to it's Playstation 2 consumers resulting in a class action lawsuit.

This is different from nintendo denying there being a problem with the DS lite cracking and it affects .02%? Which they actually DO not officially offer to repair for free; the "press release" was faked by DS fans http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/10036/ [to their credit they have offered to fix many, but not all cracked DS's] Or how about MS initially saying that there were no problems with the xbox360 overheating? and that it only affected 4%? [even though people still complain about crashes, overheating and other glitchiness in games: chromehounds for example] Sony is definitely guilty, but no more guilty than any other big corporations in any industry.

Sony demostrated no loyality to being able to install a hard drive in future iterations of the Playstation 2. If a consumer's PS2 breaks down and they get the latest version of the PS2 then Final Fantasy XI unusable and ensuring that companies would not port other classically computer style games to the PS2.

How about blaming Square Enix for not rereleasing a FFXI client that supports external harddrives?

Sony demostrated no loyality to it's audio CD consumers resulting in a class action lawsuit.

I thought we were talking about video games here? How many class action lawsuits have Microsoft and Nintendo been involved in? No one is innocent, don't forget that.

Current reviews of HD-DVD's than Blu-Ray disks indicate that HD-DVD is preferable.

the review is comparing a bad transfer to a good transfer. They both use the same codecs. Both formats can hold a HD quality movie using the exact same transfer, I am more concerned about using the media for storage

There is currently more HD-DVD titles available than Blu-Ray.

I would hope so considering that Blu-Ray only recently came out. More studios support blu-ray, so in the long term your point is moot.

Sony's first priority for the design of Blu-Ray seems to be the triple copy-protection instead of any consumer friendly priorities.

Both next generation movie formats employ the same form of content protection. The DVDs you own currently have copy protection, do you cry about those too? If/ when AACS is cracked, this will become a moot point. [note: AACS has already been "cracked" at least two different ways]

If you don't learn from history then you are doomed to suffer when Sony again pulls an anti-consumer move.

So I assume you complain as loudly when Microsoft and Nintendo pull similar anti-consumer moves too?

Nintendo and Microsoft seem more interested in this latest round of consoles of delivering features to the consumer than pulling a fast one over on them and then excusing themselves from responsiblity.

Again, I say all of the consoles are still on even footing until this fall's launches.