360 Wireless Clashing With Wal-Mart Tech

vladcole writes "Xbox 360 kiosks are getting shut down by some Wal-Mart employees sick of having their handheld inventory devices and printers malfunction, according to this compilation of Joystiq reader reports." From the article: "There's no reason to get worried about the Xbox 360 launch date (there, we recognized the elephant in the room), but the breadth and frequency of these reports point to a compatibility issue between the Xbox 360 and Wal-Mart, at least." Next Generation confirms that Wal-Mart is having issues with the 360 pods.

Comments

Wireless networks?

[vertinox]

So if I have an xbox 360 will it affect my remote control changing channels... Oh wait... ;)

But seriously, think this would have an effect on wireless networks/devices?

Re:Wireless networks?

[AcheronHades]

Well Microsoft supposedly will be selling seperately an 802.11b adapter designed specifically for the XBox 360, so I doubt the console will interfere with normal wireless networks.

Re:Wireless networks?

[alienw]

I would think the reason stuff like that is happening is because they are preproduction models. They may not have done things like figuring out the shielding and stuff, so there could be quite a bit of RF interference coming from them. Once it gets past the regulatory agencies and such, it should not produce any more interference than any other electronic device. It's actually quite amazing how much RFI a poorly shielded computer can produce, so it's not surprising their wireless scanners are getting knocked out.

Re:Wireless networks?

[Guspaz]

What the Slashdot article neglects to mention is that Microsoft has already fixed the problem .

They had a fix within 24 hours and started rolling it out. It didn't affect wireless networks in general, only some specific point-of-sale systems.

Anyhow, to sum up, problem was fixed before launch and wouldn't have affected consumers anyhow.

Re:Wireless networks?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 360's wireless problem is major enough to sink the 360. It sounds like MS is in full scale damage control and attack mode right now.

There is no way in hell anyone should purchase a 360 for their home until a large numbers of other people already have brought them home and are not experiencing problems. It appears MS is flooding the Net with fake posts with bogus info blamming Walmart, Sun spots, and lies about how their local Walmart has no problems.

Re:Wireless networks?

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears MS is flooding the Net with fake posts with bogus info blamming Walmart, Sun spots, and lies about how their local Walmart has no problems.

Looks like Sony and/or Nintendo are trying similar tactics. Yes, I mean you.

Re:Wireless networks?

[tklive]

nice job.

so MS used this not only for promotion but for some last minute testing too, to get a feel for what real life customers would face. That is kinda neat .

besides atleast in this case you really dont know if the issue could be with the freq used by wallmart scanners, they are known to cut corners wherever possible and *might* be using non std devices. This could be the case with the consumers too and i guess MS have factored that in now...

Re:Wireless networks?

[Breakfast Pants]

It is from the wireless controllers which in fact do use the 2.4ghz spectrum used by 802.11b.

Re:Wireless networks?

[gyrojoe]

Notice that it doesn't say what the fix is. My guess is that they just switched those locations with problems over to a wired controller.

Re:Wireless networks?

[KDR_11k]

It was their secret plan, install a jammer into the console so all Sony and Nintendo wireless equipment within 500m becomes useless while the X360 is on. Your neighbours would never have figured out it was your XBox 360 if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

Re:Wireless networks?

[Freexe]

I would guess that they just changed the fequency of the controller.

Most modern devices will detect interference and change to a 'quieter' channel, i guess wallmats stuff was too cheap or too old to do this and thus the interfernce.

I can see this being a issue unless it is easy to change the band that the controllers are on as lots of folk have phones and networks that could potentialy clash.

Re:Wireless networks?

[AcheronHades]

I dont know enough about RF signals to really argue any sort of point here, but it seems to me like your trying to say the XBox 360 interferes with itself... if you are pulling this from some specific source, by all means link it, but I have read nothing about anything like this. And setting that aside, IMHO, a design flaw this obvious would be highly unlikely. You'd have to be a complete idiot to develop and begin to mass produce a wireless video game controller that interferes with 802.11 signals.

Next Generation? That was a terrible mag

[heinousjay]

I read 'Next Generation confirms...' as 'Netcraft confirms,' and thought, "Damn, they're getting really good."

issues smissues

[enrico_suave]

did you see the Call of Duty 2 pre-release demo runing on the xbox 360 *whistles* I wasn't gonna jump on the xbox360 (right away) but it's clearly taunting me.

e.

Re:issues smissues

[Gogo0]

It reminds me of the same Call of Duty 2 you can play on the Xbox, Gamecube, and PS2 only with less impressive graphics and $400 cheaper.

Re:issues smissues

[TychoCelchuuu]

Heh. Try it on a computer; high resolution with better anti aliasing, anisotropic filtering, normal mapping, and polygon counts.

Re:issues smissues

[yoyhed]

An age-old argument, to be sure. But the allure of consoles around their launch time remains: they typically will play the newest games on high settings flawlessly (I never saw the 360's Call of Duty 2 demo drop below 60 fps), and still for less than a gaming-quality PC costs.

Re:issues smissues

[TychoCelchuuu]

Yep! No arguments there. It's just going to look worse, is all. And 3 years from now, your PC will not only play Call of Duty 2 at ultra high, but whatever other games you want which look even better. 360 will be stuck with whatever it could play when it came out.

Re:issues smissues

[Electrum]

And 3 years from now, your PC will not only play Call of Duty 2 at ultra high, but whatever other games you want which look even better.

Assuming your CPU is still fast enough and you spend another $300 on a new graphics card.

360 will be stuck with whatever it could play when it came out.

And your computer will magically get faster over the next three years? Games on consoles do tend to get better over the life of the console as developers gain experience with the console. It is much easier to optimize for a fixed platform.

Re:issues smissues

[TychoCelchuuu]

I have a Radeon 9600. It is approximately 5 years old and can run Half-Life 2, Quake IV, Battlefield 2, Age of Empires III, and similar games. Can it run them on high? No. Can it run them on a higher resolution, with better graphics, than a console? Yes. The Playstation 2 came out in 2000, the same year as my 9600. It is not going to run Quake IV at the same level of quality no matter how much you prod it. A console is almost always inferior to a similar PC in terms of power; the only advantages it has, technologically, are price and stability. Price is a silly comparison because a personal computer will do all sorts of things a console won't, and has a longer shelf life because people don't stop making games for it when a new round of videocards come out, wherears a console forces you to upgrade eventually. Stability is a whole category unto itself, but suffice to say the games that crash do so because they're pushing things to the limit.

Or ATi makes shoddy graphics drivers. That causes lots of crashes too.

Re:issues smissues

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of how the XBox 360's processor stands up against brand new PC processors it 'should' be able to produce games of a higher graphical (and simulation) standard for a couple of very important reasons:

1) When producing a PC game you have to design your game around some pretty low minimum requirements; most brand new games can probably be played with a pentium 4 2GHz and a low to mid end Geforce 4 (The XBox 360 will certainly be more powerful than that).

2) All multi-purpose / graphical operating systems steal performance; Windows is the worst for this. Microsoft is bright enough to dramatically reduce the complexity of the version of the Windows OS that is embedded in the XBox 360. As John Carmack once said, you can expect a dedicated Console to perform at about 2X a PC with similar components.

What is really holding back the XBox 360 at this point in time is that most Developers are not planing on releasing any exclusive games for any platform; the cost of development is way too high for that. This means that until the PS3 is released very few big budget third party games will make their way to the XBox 360.

Re:issues smissues

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck would anyone listen to what John Carmack has to say about console development???

Both Kameo and PDZ are exclusive first party titles that should have the full financial backing of Microsoft and the earliest and best access to 360 development resources.

And they both look like crap.

The endless stream of 360 excuses got old months ago.

Re:issues smissues

[king-manic]

Yep! No arguments there. It's just going to look worse, is all. And 3 years from now, your PC will not only play Call of Duty 2 at ultra high, but whatever other games you want which look even better. 360 will be stuck with whatever it could play when it came out.

The Pc will cost at least an extra $200+ every year to do that. Whiel the 360/PS3/revolution will be 399 up front and that would be about it. As well for 80% of us, we can't really tell the difference, have just as much fun. Seriously graphics aren't that important. It's nice to have a good looking game but it is as much about the art direction as it is about the technology. Castlevania: SOTN could be for any platform, looks amazing, and doesn't need that much graphics power to do it. While Games of the same era (like Quake 2) look horribly dated and ungly.

Re:issues smissues

[king-manic]

I have a Radeon 9600. It is approximately 5 years old and can run Half-Life 2, Quake IV, Battlefield 2, Age of Empires III, and similar games. Can it run them on high? No. Can it run them on a higher resolution, with better graphics, than a console? Yes. The Playstation 2 came out in 2000, the same year as my 9600. It is not going to run Quake IV at the same level of quality no matter how much you prod it. A console is almost always inferior to a similar PC in terms of power; the only advantages it has, technologically, are price and stability. Price is a silly comparison because a personal computer will do all sorts of things a console won't, and has a longer shelf life because people don't stop making games for it when a new round of videocards come out, wherears a console forces you to upgrade eventually. Stability is a whole category unto itself, but suffice to say the games that crash do so because they're pushing things to the limit.

Or ATi makes shoddy graphics drivers. That causes lots of crashes too.

A good game is pretty independant of the graphics. They help but there are a lot of pretty games that aren't funt o play. A game like starcraft/warcraft III look alright even years after they came out but a game like Quake II or Unreal look pretty bad even a year after. A lot of the time it's not important how much antiscopic filtering and Antialiasing the iamges it, it onyl matters that it's fun.

Re:issues smissues

[Anonymous Coward]

How many 6-8 year game development cycles work out well?
You can't start something on the N64, port it to the XBox and then Port it to the XBox 360 without having serious problems; half of your resources go to re-create or upgrade content that has already been produced. Much like Too Human and Duke Nukem Forever these games should have probably been canceled long ago; I suspect that the only reason they're being released is Microsoft needs to have something to show for its nearly 1/2 Billion investment in Rare.

Personally, I could care less about the XBox 360, but the one thing that really annoys me is people who blindly make stupid arguments because they're unwilling to see the truth; the XBox 360 is about as powerful as any of the systems will be and its difficulties can be attributed to being the first system and poor management. Lets face it Microsoft threw around money like a drunken sailor in the last generation yet failed to buy any new developers (or attract any new second parties) in time for the release of the 360. Anyone who watched the Dreamcast's release would know that the XBox 360 would launch and depend on the first and second party development of Microsoft's game studios; it was stupid of them not to attract some good developers, but this is hardly a sign of poor hardware.

Re:issues smissues

[TychoCelchuuu]

I'm not sure why your PC costs 200+ dollars each year to stay viable. I spend much less than that and I have never encountered a game I could not play. It costs 200-500 a year AT LEAST if you want to stay on or near the cutting edge, but if all you want to do is play your games at a reasonable frame rate and resolution (especially compared to consoles) then a PC is very cost effective, once you factor in the fact that you need one anyways.

Re:issues smissues

[Anonymous Coward]

I played it, and was not suitably impressed. It was not vastly improved over the PC version, and -many- current PC games have better:

Textures (walk in close to something and you can tell they're only using 256x256 textures, at best. Most newer games have graduated textures that get more detailed as you zoom in. Even Unreal Tourny 2004 has a simplified version of this in a simple greyscale mask that it fades in when you get closer.)
Normal Mapping (look at something far away and the normal maps look fine. Move close up and they virtually disappear.)

Also, the demo did not feature anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering.

The heat shimmering in the distance was kinda neat for three seconds, but nothing impossible on last-years PC hardware.

The games that REALLY got my eyes popping were King Kong and .. Kameo? or something like that. The cartoony one.

Notes on King Kong: Normal mapping on the dinosaurs was fantastic! Check out King Kong. Notice the FUR. Issues: the first time I tried playing the first demo level, the T-Rex got stuck in a wall.)

Some of the games look really nice, but ... Call of Duty 2? That's the best looking game you saw there? Have you been in a box since Half Life 2, Far Cry, and Doom 3?

Re:issues smissues

[phxbadash]

erm...just what about kameo in your opinion makes it look like crap, besides the fact that it is on a M$ console?

Please do tell.

Re:issues smissues

[MagerValp]

have a Radeon 9600. It is approximately 5 years old

Er, no. Your Radeon 9600 is just over two years old.

Re:issues smissues

[king-manic]

I'm not sure why your PC costs 200+ dollars each year to stay viable. I spend much less than that and I have never encountered a game I could not play. It costs 200-500 a year AT LEAST if you want to stay on or near the cutting edge, but if all you want to do is play your games at a reasonable frame rate and resolution (especially compared to consoles) then a PC is very cost effective, once you factor in the fact that you need one anyways.

To get a midrange card every year to keep the PC current it will cost $200 at least, often more and more often. Anything less and your getting an economy card which has a dismal performance return for the money. It costs 500-900 to stay cuttign edge (especially with the SLI stuff). Most hardcore PC gamers I know spend ~$300 for a mid range card every 6 months. Casual gamers shell out ~$200 every year or so. Frame rate and resolution don't make the game any more fun, The games I'm addicted to for the PC are WOW and War III. Neither could be for the console but the things that graphics are importan for (DOOM 3, Half life 2, Far Cry) aren't fun for long.

I am also addicted to a dozen Console games(MGS 3, Damacy Katamary, ect..). These games are fine despite the aged graphics. I'm not playing for eye candy, I'm playing for fun.

Re:issues smissues

[Forum Joe]

You can't be serious. Casual gamers shell out ~$200 a year? That's what I call a hardcore gamer. I call myself a casual gamer, and I usually buy a graphics card OR a mobo/CPU upgrade once every 2 years. And it's never top of the line too.

I prefer PC gaming for two reasons. Graphics are always sharper and clearer, and because of the mouse and keyboard interface.
My favourite games are RTSs (AoE) and FPS (Half Life 2). These types of games NEED a truly analog device to play, and there's just no way a controller will suffice. I realise it is slightly more expensive to maintain my computer than buy a PS2 or XBOX up front, but I'm willing to pay that price to be able to accurately control my games.

Re:issues smissues

[default luser]

Yeah, I about laughed out loud when I read that.

This time in the year 2000, ATI was releasing the Radeon.

Yes, THE ORIGINAL Radeon (later named 7500). Two pipes, 3 textures per pipe and a T&L unit.

Come on people, get your ATI release dates straight :D

2000: Radeon SDR/DDR
2001: Radeon 8500 (later reworked as 9000/9100/9200)
2002: Radeon 9500 series, 9700 series
2003: Radeon 9600 series, Radeon 9800 series
2004: Radeon x300/x600/x700/x800 series
2005: Radeon x1300/x1600/x1800 series

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[thesandtiger]

Wal-Mart has some of the best tech in retail, actually. Just because they *sell* cheap crap doesn't mean they *use* cheap crap.

If you want to know what other retailers will be doing in 5 years, take a look at Wal-Mart's tech. There's a reason people are willing to work in their tech group for the low wages - it's because they learn a LOT.

All other valid slams on Wal-Mart aside, their tech is most definitely good stuff.

Cause of malfunction..

[BlackMesaLabs]

the 360's communicate via airborn chair transmission. Some stray chairs are bound to hit the odd bystander.

Re:Cause of malfunction..

[Anonymous Coward]

Look out, he's got a chair!

Got FCC?

[rush3k]

I believe electronic devices have to comply with relevant FCC specifications before they are released into the market.

Re:Got FCC?

[MBCook]

2.4 GHz is unlicensed, like 900 MHz and a few others (27 and 49 MHz are also, I think). As such, they only need to comply with part 15 (can't knowingly cause interference, and this device may cause unwanted interference), and I believe that there are other rules (I'm guessing can't use more than 500 mW of power, etc.).

In the same way that a cordless telephone may interfere with your WiFi, this is allowed to happen. When anyone is free to make anything use that band, stuff like this is bound to happen. It really isn't that bad. This is one reason why it is nice to have licensed frequencies where people can't go messing around (ex: FM and AM don't have that problem because they are protected).

In short, yes they are allowed to do that. Now I find it STUPID that this system wasn't tested before rolling out. I can't believe that if it was tested that they would miss such a problem.

Now if they used wired controllers (they are permanently attached so that shouldn't be a problem) then I would think that would solve it (WiFi is optional on the 360, IIRC). Now if doing that they STILL had problems, then I would start looking into if they really comply with Part 15.

Re:Got FCC?

[HTH NE1]

And it sounds to me like it is possibly older equipment that Wal-Mart is using in some locations that were early users of that part of the spectrum, expected to have full control over that clean band, and thus can't handle the emissions of the XBOX 360, but that they can't upgrade their in-store equipment in those locations as readily as they can get Microsoft to adjust their XBOX 360 pod kiosks.

Re:Got FCC?

[xgamer04]

Now I find it STUPID that this system wasn't tested before rolling out. I can't believe that if it was tested that they would miss such a problem.

(cheapshot)Well, we are talking about a certain famously incompetent tech company, right?(/cheapshot)

Re:Got FCC?

[tomlouie]

The first two thirds of your post correctly noted that when products use unlicensed freqs, interference may occur. The risk of intereference is the chance they take in using an unregulated freq.

But then you went on to decry, "Now I find it STUPID that this system wasn't tested before rolling out. I can't believe that if it was tested that they would miss such a problem."

Do you feel it should have been tested to see if it interfers with retail inventory and point of sale devices? Pray tell, if indeed you had the foresight to demand that ALL your consumer entertainment devices not interfer with equipment not normally found in the living rooms of most people, which other devices should it be tested against specifically?

Re:Got FCC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to request that it be tested with heavy ground moving machinery such as bulldozers, back hoes, dump trucks and the like. I would also like to suggest we test it with Farming equipment including combines, grain trucks, grain elevators, spreaders, and pitch forks.

Thanks for accepting my suggestions.

Re:Got FCC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our WiFi-mesh enabled heavy earth moving overlords. :)

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[MBCook]

And that makes perfect sense. You can't get to be Wal-Mart's size and keep prices so low without some SERIOUS IT infrastructure to keep things going. They have just-in-time inventory, if I remember, among other things. They are one of the big pushers for RFID because it will help them so much.

Wal-Mart is way up front in technology for major retails in the US (and I would expect the world).

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[karnal]

No kidding.

I work for a rather large company, and when Wal-Mart came in and said "YOU WILL USE THIS RFID, TO OUR SPECS" our fearless leaders said "Anything you want."

Now, for our overall industry of the company I work for, Wal-Mart could take a flying nose dive. But, for our division? It would be suicide to not have our product out there.

So we installed their system. To their specifications.

So...

[winphreak]

Not even out in the wild, and still problems? Of course, I wonder what doesn't interfere with a 1998 Point-of-Sale retail system.

For those of you with no Wal Mart..

[LordJezo]

Here are some pictures for those of you interested.. The Wal Mart down the road from my house Phillipsburg, NJ

Eh? Telzon problems?

[Crescens]

These are the Symbol units, right? When I was working at Best Buy years ago we had the same problem with 2.4GHz cordless phones. Our previous phone stopped working and when we replaced it the phone pretty much made the Telxon units useless anywhere around the phone. Ended up just replacing the new one with yet another 900MHz phone.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the exact same thing.

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[Hast]

Wasn't it Walmart that was using WiFi POS systems without encryption before? So that you could park your car in the parking lot, start up your laptop and harvest CC numbers all day long.

Re:Child's Play

[Kent Simon]

if you had RTFA you'd know that MS has already developed a software based solution to the problem.

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[the_ed_dawg]

There's a reason people are willing to work in their tech group for the low wages - it's because they learn a LOT.

...and because living in Bentonville, Arkansas is cheap. Everyone seems to translate those crappy salaries to wherever they're from. For a back of the envelope calculation, compared to some major cities, Bentonville is 81% cheaper than Los Angeles, 137% cheaper than San Francisco, 23% cheaper than Dallas, and 54% cheaper than New York (Brooklyn). I went to college in Northwest Arkansas for 4 years. Trust me, it's really, really cheap and actually a really nice area, particularly if you like outdoor activities.

My sister-in-law works in Wal-Mart's fashion design department and lives quite comfortably on $35,000/year while her husband goes to grad school. She actually likes her job, contrary to what many people may assume. If you're in the home office, it really isn't too bad.

It's always fashionable to slam Wal-Mart, but people really miss some of the decent things they do. For example, since I started there in 1998, the Waltons have donated no less than $563 million to the University of Arkansas. They basically paid for the new honors college. The Waltons may have anti-competitive business practices, frown on unions, and do many other unsettling things, but you can't argue that they aren't trying to make up for it by giving away large amounts of money. I won't forget that their contributions to university scholarships paid for my (and my wife's) education.

That said, I still shop at Target, until they actually open at least a third of those 40-some-odd checkout lanes. :)

Printer Rolls

[Super Nicko]

Apparently the printer rolls, whenever an XBox 360 was around would print out "Linux must Die!" with each order... Wonder how that got there...

Strange packet data..

[bjb]

I went to a WalMart the other day and sniffed out the traffic. Maybe someone knows what the 360's protocol is doing?

<SOH>ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS<EOH>

Very strange...

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's awfully nice of them to steal money people then 'donate' it. They're real saints.

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[Lehk228]

i thought that was circuit city

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[ThetaPi]

This is true. Living in Fayetteville, Arkansas is fairly in expensive as well. If you find the right place, you can live less than a mile from the university for under $500 bucks a month. My appartment two blocks from the university costs $500 after utilities.

I live ok on a $1300/month salary from the University. I could live very well on twice that. Also, if you work at the University full-time, they waive 95% of your tuition and %50 of your spouse's or children's tuition. $160 per semester is much more affordable than $2000 per semester.

Re:Wal-Mart's Tech Skills

[SoCalChris]

They have just-in-time inventory

At my previous job, WalMart was one of our biggest customers. Not only do they not have a warehouse or stockroom at any of the stores (Stuff is taken off of the truck, and almost instantly brought onto the sales floor), everything is ordered automatically. Their computer system tracks what is selling, and what isn't. Items that sell good are continued to be stocked, poor selling items are dropped automatically, without any human intervention. I'm sure that managers are able to override some things, but the vast majority of it is automatic.

And like another poster said, when you do business with WalMart, you tailor your systems to meet their specifications. We had to redo most of our computer system to match with theirs. It ended up costing the company nearly a hundred thousand dollars, but the business that it provided was well worth the cost.

On an offtopic note, has anyone ever seen the "WalMart Cheer"? They do it at all of their corporate meetings, and the store employees do it every morning at opening, and every night at closing. It's hilarious.

The Controller Looks Like...

[TheZorch]

Is it me or does the controller on the 360 Demo rig look a lot like the old Sega Dreamcast controller? Sans the slot for the nifty game save/mini-handheld card. Do the controllers use 802.11 or BlueTooth? I know the console itself uses 802.11g. - Michael "TheZorch" Haney thezorch@gmail.com