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MS Responds To 360 Glitches
Chris_Yates writes "Microsoft has responded to the complaints of angry gamers popping up on the internet. As expected, they claim it is a very small percentage of Xbox 360 owners that are experiencing a problem. The main question remains, though, what kind of support will those unfortunate few receive? Molly O'Donnell says, 'It's unfortunate and it's important that we get working consoles for those few people who are having problems. We want to get them playing and happy and buying games!' An ABC article states: 'They'll be playing again in three to five days...'"
Clearly, Microsoft expected a lot of problems - this is why they so severely restricted supply. The beta test will last a few weeks, then the supply will be cranked up when the 360 goes RTM.
There seems to be varying power supplies, and you can even tell the difference from slight alterations of shape and color. It is shaping up that the 'bad' Xbox units seem to (at least partially) be because of bad PSUs. I know I've had flakey PCs because of rickety PSUs.
There was a posting on xbox-scene from a group who managed to get two of the pre-ordered Xbox units. Getting back home, they hooked up all the cables and power and viola -- bad Xbox 360. So they opened the other box, leaving all the existing plugs and wires into the TV and all in place, put the new XBox unit on the existing wires and viola -- bad Xbox 360. (They admit they were freaked that they may have had *two* broken Xbox 360s out of the gate.) The 'other' PSU made the Xbox work fine, even when tested on both console units. They mention there are slight variations in the two PSU designed.
So, it really appears that one of Microsofts PSU suppliers screwed up. With multiple PSU suppliers, It would also help explain why some people complain their XBox 360 is "loud" or has a lot of "fan noise" and others claim it is pretty quiet. This may not explain away every Xbox360 problem, but it sure seems reasonable.
{ - Generic Guy - }
I've been reading a lot at the Xbox.com Forums, and people are doing some pretty stupid things. They're placing the console on the carpet, with the power brick right behind it. They're enclosing it in a tiny hutch, again with the power brick. One person had stacked it on top of their reciever, which we all know gets pretty warm.
Do you consider ANY of your listed "stupid" things as being out of the ordinary?
Placing a game console, inside an entertainment unit, wow, totally unexpected. I mean who on earth could have expected a consumer to place an entertainment appliance inside an entertainment unit. Next thing you know, people will put bread in toasters. Stupid people.
Psft, placing your entertainment appliance on a carpet. WTF. I mean WHO has carpet in a living room. We can't plan for everything, were only human. And keeping the power supply, close to the unit it is attached to, again, completely unheard of behaviour. What engineer in his right mind could have ever thought of this ludicrous behaviour.
Who the hell would stack components on top of one another. I have never seen this type of activity outside of any home theater ever..errr wait, aren't most home theatre/stereo/DVD/VCR/TV components stacked? Mine sure are, and I have never had a problem.
Nothing that you mentioned is in any way unusual, or unexpected behaviour. What is going to happen in the summer, where many houses will have an ambient temperature similar to the environment in an entertainment unit? Are you going to suggest that these "stupid" users just hack their freezer to allow cable pass throughs?
I have no problems with faulty components. Bad screens, bad drives, buggy code, these things happen. Cooling problems result from poor design, and even worse testing. There is no excuse for these kinds of problems.
Hey, did anyone go to the launch parties? Did you notice if the venues seemed unusually cold? Maybe the rush to get these out had nothing to do with Xmas, but had everything to do with the average home temps being much lower between November and March (for NA).