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Crashing Xbox Kiosks
quannump writes "Gaming Age has an article up about some stores, including Toys R Us and Babbages, Xbox kiosk crashing at various places across the country. "Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says one Babbage's employee." It's funny because it's Microsoft. Get it? It's... oh never mind. Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
A good friend of mine once said that if MS's development track record held up, that the X-Box would be a flop. To paraphrase, he said: "People don't expect their console to crash. If it does, they'll return it."
Now I know the PS2 had some backward-compatibility problems, but other than that, has it been rock-solid? I know I've never had so much as a hiccup from my Dreamcast.
My sigs always suck.
Problem is, Microsoft (and for that matter, anyone making a console system or piece of a home entertainment center) needs to keep in mind that it is all too possible that this piece of equipment WILL be put into a space with about a finger's worth of clearance on each side and top, and will possibly also have a couple things stacked on top of it. They need to design them either for quick heat dissipation, or low heat generation.
The kiosk is spacious compared to what some will go through....
Newer game consoles are shipping with heatsinks and fans, items which weren't needed in previous generations of game systems. What's scary is that this is even though Sega and Sony have intentionally done things to keep power consumption down, like using lower power CPUs like the SH4 and MIPS and keeping the amount of memory reasonable.
Microsoft is putting in a hot running CPU that was never designed for embedded systems use and twice the memory of the PS2. Sure, that makes it more powerful in a way, but it also may be over the line in terms of what you can do inside of a sealed consumer box. Remember, "more powerful" has never been the mantra of embedded systems engineers, but "cool running" and "rock solid reliable" are.
If that doesn't work try;
http://www.evilavatar.com/EA/News/M34018/6983.jpg
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
"Microsoft technical support... can I help you?"
"Um, yeah. I was, like um, playing this game... and, uh, it like totally froze one me in the middle of a level? And then, like the screen turned all blue and junk, and all these really freaky little numbers and letters came up? And dude, it like totally SUCKS because I was RIGHT in the middle of a totally awesome part of this game, right?"
"Ok sir, can I please please have your CC # which will be billed $30 for this incident?"
"wha?"
"I need you credit card before I can issue a trouble ticket for this incident."
"...but it like totally crapped out on me, dude! I'm not gonna pay $30 bucks just to TALK to you?!"
"Sir, if Microsoft can determine that the fault does not lie on you end, you will be refunded your technical support incident fee."
"&*(%$# you #@&*$% " (click)
Either they fix 'em as they go bad (and with piss poor ventalation and kiddies manhandling 'em they're going to go bad quicker than normal) and eat a lot of $$$, or they don't fix 'em and piss off a lot of customers.
Hmm, will MS take the cash hit, or piss off consumers with low quality service. If only they had set an earlier precedent so we could infer how they'd behave now...
This is the first time a console has been launched in America first for quite some time. Usually the majority of the kinks are worked out when systems ship in Japan first and later in the US. We're experiencing virtual "beta hardware" testing firsthand with Xbox.
Second, there have been tons of reports of Xbox kiosks failing. Not just on GA. I've been reading a lot in the news and on many forums that Xbox kiosk failures are happening very frequently, far more than any PS2 failures. I have yet to hear about a single GameCube failure since it launched in Japan, too.
DOA3 has been reported to be heading to PS2 in the Official Playstation Magazine, along with a lot of Sega games that will merely premier on the Xbox.
Also, to clear something up, DOA3 does not look as good as Tecmo would want everyone to believe. Tecmo has a bad habit of releasing ultra high-res screens captured from developer kits (we're talking near 2000x pixel resolutions). They released beautiful but fake screenshots of DOA2: Hardcore on PS2 with tons of antialiasing. Then when you actually play DOA2 you'll find it's a jagged, shimmering mess. Sad to see that people are falling for the same trick again with DOA3.
Example:
Tecmo provided screenshot of DOA2:HC:
Touched up screen of DOA2
What DOA2 really looks like:
Real screenshot of DOA2
As you can see from these screenshots and movies not supplied by the overseers at Tecmo, the game doesn't really look that much different from DOA2.
Movie of DOA3
Screenshots of DOA3
Not to mention the DOA series' gameplay is very shallow and caters to button mashing, not nearly as deep as Tekken and Virtua Fighter. From the reports it sounds like DOA3 is a carbon copy of DOA2 with prettier graphics. Odd that the DOA series has suddenly become big-game despite lackluster sales on PS2/DC... Maybe because it's on Xbox, because if DOA3 were on PS2 it would be overshadowed by Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 2?
I'd say hold off on an Xbox until they work the kinks out and better games come out for it. The Dreamcast is dead but you can grab one for a very low price. The PS2 is the best platform for gaming now, there are so many good games out and coming out next month that my wallet is going to be screaming for mercy. GameCube looks solid but not quite as solid as the PS2. Wait and see if you are still uncertain.
Men believe what they want. - Caesar