Increase In Xbox 360 E74 Problems

Xbm360 writes "According to data collected by Joystiq as well as Google Trends, there's been a steady rise in reports and discussion of the so-called E74 error on Xbox 360 consoles since August of last year. The E74 error is related to video problems caused by either a faulty AV connector or, more often, a loosened ANA/HANA scaling chip. This is not the first time the Xbox 360 has experienced technical issues; in recent years many people have complained about scratched discs and over-heating consoles — the 'red ring of death.'"

Comments

Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon Rpt

[Anonymous Coward]

Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon Rpt

Barack Hussein Barry-Soetoro-Afro-Leninist Obama II. , hell bent on bankrupting the USA once and for all.

- Chairman Barack Hussein "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption, Rahm Emanuel (Radical authoritarian Statist-Zionist whose father was part of the Murderous Civilian Killing Israeli Terrorist Organization known as IRGUN), Connected to Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat), Connected to Ayers, a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom, Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a black-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer, 31 million on food stamps, more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist."
- Obama: Racist, AIPAC-Zionist, Corrupted and a Traitor and a Liar who can't even produce a valid birth certificate (which is not a certificate of live birth)
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon
- Goldman Sachs insider second in command at Treasury.
- Cabinet has had several nominees and appointees with multiple tax fraud issues.
- The head of the IRS and the head of the Treasury, Geithner, is a Tax Cheat
- Lied about no lobbyists
- Lied about having a new degree of accountability and a SUNSHINE period of new laws, he has signed bills with little or no review at whitehouse.gov as promised.
- Appointed a second amendment violating Rich-pardoning treasonist Eric Holder as AG, the top cop of the USA, a man who helped a fugitive evade justice.
- Has not put a dime in for a single new nuclear power plant but wants to help bridges and roads to promote more driving.
- Obama, Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel have a LOT to hide. They literally lived next to each other, Rahm had (until being Chairman Obama's Chief of staff) Blagojevich's old federal congressional seat. Blagojevich helped Chairman "The Teleprompter" Obama cheat his way to the Illinois senate by getting other candidates thrown off the ballot in Illinois. Why do you think Blagojevich was so mad? Obama DID owe him, big time. Rahm and Obama are using Blagojevich and trying to cut his head off to keep him away.
- Tony Rezko, Iraqi Arms Dealer Nahdmi Auchi, and of course Aiham Alsammarae. Chairman "The Teleprompter" Hussein Obama is so corrupted its a joke.
- Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA
- Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation without representation? Obama is spending money for the next two-three generations and they can't even vote yet, or even have been born.
- An alternative to the dollar and a forex and a reserve currency came up at the last G20 meeting. The world will not take faith in Obama's liar-socialist spending and welfare state, why should the taxpayers (plebian citizen-slaves of a police state).
- The spending going on now vastly eclipses all previous spending. In fact, the massive trillion plus debts is a thing of the 80's onwards. Congress signs the checks, remember that Year after year, as egregious as the pentagon spending is, that the social spending is completely a waste of money and it is unfunded over the long term. Eisenhower built the interstates, the US could build a new power infrastructure with this money but instead is being piss

Meanwhile, thw wii remain's in the lead

[Anonymous Coward]

of system's severely lacking in content.

Re:Meanwhile, thw wii remain's in the lead

[Feminist-Mom]

Maybe, but I can use my playstation to keep my coffee warm.

I don't quite see what this is about

[Kokuyo]

After years of streamlined production and cheapened components while the sophistication has steadily risen, people still wonder about fundamental design issues?

Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Gordonjcp]

Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

Of the two, I'd say the 1960 one was the more versatile. It's less likely to break if you do weird stuff with it, while doing the same basic job as the 2009 model.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Ptolomeu]

If that was true than the same would be happening to the PS3 and Wii. But these haven't caused not even a third of the problems the XBox had. It was just poor design, Microsoft knew about it but launched it anyway so it would be the first in its generation. There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[syousef]

Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

This is the attitude that's killing tech industries the world over.

There's a set of minimums to meet for a product to be fit for purpose. Okay you don't need the sturdy steel chassis of a 1960 Chevy truck to drive around town with occassional longer trips so as the technology has improved and parts could be made lighter and cheaper it made sense to do so. However if as a result the damn thing dies for no reason after a couple of months use, or touching it dents it, you bet people will be complaining.

So if someone's throwing around or stomping on their Xbox 360 and it dies, good and well, they're an idiot. If they're careful with it and it still lasts as long as a $2 item from the junk shop there's a problem.

Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[miffo.swe]

The issue is that an Xbox360 is less sturdy than anything else on the market right now. Compared to Wii and PS3 its a pile of manure disguised as a gaming console.

Its just shitty hardware Q&A from the same company that excels in bad quality software.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[/ASCII]

My guess would be that it's mostly caused by Microsofts relative hardware inexperience. Sony and Nintendo have spent decades building consoles and similar home electronics, but Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards and using common off the shelf components to build a small computer that they called the X-box, and sold as a console. They grossly underestimated the difficulty and cost of building cutting edge, high quality hardware from scratch, and they keep paying the price for it.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[dhavleak]

It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

Actually, it's in the nature of /. to consider a random poll on joystiq (which could easily be hijacked by say, ps3 fanboys or MS haters) and unverifiable data from google trends as irrefutable proof of increased E74 errors.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[rumith]

Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards

Not really. To the best of my knowledge, all Microsoft keyboards are essentially rebranded products of Philips and Razer.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

You should replace versatile with complex and electronics-ridden. I'm not a luddist, but does *everything* we create need a PCB to control it?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ledow]

It's a common fallacy that versatile means "more fragile", propogated by exactly this sort of poor design and manufacture. Just because you've witnessed it, doesn't mean the opposite (i.e. stable, versatile and modern) isn't possible or available. The problem is that almost EVERYTHING modern is rushed out the door to sell it, especially games consoles - build it cheap, stack it high. "Fix it in firmware" are words that you DO NOT want to hear - it means someone isn't doing their job. Even the ability of upgrading firmware should be rarely used, hard to do and positively discouraged.

It's like the people who say "Well, Vista should crash more, it's newer!". No, it shouldn't - it should be learning by the mistakes of the past few decades and be virtually uncrashable (this is NOT impossible - and yet in two trials of Vista I've crashed machines within literally hours of building them for my workplace without even doing anything "fancy" like installing drivers or applications, or installing new hardware, or using unsupported or broken hardware, etc.). In fact, the exact opposite should be true and it should be more reliable, faster on the same machine, and do more, because it's based on decades-old technology with a new sheen. System requirements should not be going up as quickly as they are (almost damn exponential!) - and now that we're hitting limits (CPU speed, etc.), some OS and programs are showing their limitations and actually getting SLOWER on the top-end hardware because they rely on things just getting faster every year. There was a time when a PC upgrade meant that everything ran faster. Now it merely means that things run.

In terms of software, reliability should be going *up* all the time - the software should be getting fixed more and more as time goes on, not thrown out with each new iteration. You win by making things SIMPLE and reuseable, not complex. The simpler they are, the easier they are to find problems, the less they have to go wrong, the easier they are to fix. That's *software*. Easily updateable, changeable *software*. Hardware should be a million times more solid.

Games consoles are enclosed systems. Their hardware has been fixed to a finite set of components that will not change. Their OS software has a long time in which to be designed and is very basic - load game, run it, everything else should be handled by the application, so it's not like you have to update the DirectX drivers to fix a bug in a shader model or some such crap - the game works or doesn't and it's the game manufactures fault if it doesn't (this is the way it SHOULD work, anyway... I'm not surprised that MS basically try to make the XBox a mini-PC because it's all they know). Console hardware is *static*. Thus it can be tested *much* more extensively for problems than, say, my bodge-job, home-built, cheap-component PC which has been up now for over a year and never crashed or experienced a hardware problem (or, for that matter, needed any significant hardware maintenance in that time - I think I blew the dust off the fans once while it was still running). Or the dozens of servers, dozens of "blackboxes" and hundreds of client machines that I've built along the same lines in recent years. These things can EASILY run for decades, even being knocked about and moved in school environments. The BBC-Micro's that I pulled out of a skip last year from one school I work at were still perfectly operational despite years of heavy use and having been stored with no maintenance and then thrown (literally) into a skip and having building rubble thrown on them - THAT is solid-state hardware of thirty years ago! They were originally bought as a set of 15. There were still 15 there, all working - one of them we still used for flashing EEPROM's! We should have moved FORWARD from that, not BACKWARD.

A computer should be switched on, work should be done, and then it should be switched off. Anything that causes that cycle not to work under reasonable conditions (i.e. not dropped, not placed in a

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.

Oh. Then it must be true.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[azior]

It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

Actually, it's in the nature of /. to consider a random poll on joystiq (which could easily be hijacked by say, ps3 fanboys or MS haters) and unverifiable data from google trends as irrefutable proof of increased E74 errors.

don't forget the ring of death and all those broken discs we made up... because microsoft always makes quality products!

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ThePhilips]

Not really. They have their own H/W design department. They do not manufacture themselves - that's fact. But they design themselves.

Another fact: keyboard/mice/etc H/W design team has ZILCH/ZERO/NADA in common with Xbox* design team. They belong to different business units.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

The original XBox is nearly indestructable and I say this as an XBox owner. Shame it lacked good games (JRPGs), though.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

the fun part is that the competitor had an inverse problem with wiimots being more sturdy than everything else and basically destroying people's tvset, eyes, faces, walls...

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a luddist, but does *everything* we create need a PCB to control it?

No. But games consoles do.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ThePhilips]

Its just shitty hardware Q&A from the same company that excels in bad quality software.

You are - as most people on /. - are totally wrong about it.

Quality is a metric. Product has to balance quality vs. features vs. price.

N.B. Network people I'm sure can already recognize the famous "fast, cheap, secure: pick any two" pattern.

M$ as business has to balance all the three to make the product not too expensive (== cut features and quality); stable enough (== fewer better tested featured) and feature-full.

While feature set and price often are predefined (e.g. in case of Xbox360) quality remains only metric business can use to regulate development/etc costs.

In the end: Yes, M$ has shitty hardware Q&A. But it's "as designed". Otherwise, Xbox360 might have cost only few chips less than PS3. It's cheaper (RRoD fiasco was really exceptional) to deal with quality issues later, than introducing delays into initial phases of development/promotion of new product.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

My guess would be that it's mostly caused by Microsofts relative hardware inexperience.

Demonstrably false. Microsoft have a quality console under their belts. Despite it's ponderous bulk, the original Xbox was a reliable console. I've rarely heard of system failures or disc scratches, and the device stands up well to custom modding. In addition to this, it was the first mainstream console to have hard drive and an ethernet link. And that was all from a company which, to my knowledge, had never produced a single hardware product.

Now that same company comes out and produces the 360 with its notoriously high failure rate. And it's wasn't down to the complexity of the design. The red ring of death was due to parts and material failures. Scratched discs were again down to a substandard component. Now we have a loose video chip problem.

This is NOT down to design. These issues are trivial to fix if only Microsoft was willing to pay the money. The fact is, they're not. These errors all exist because Microsoft is cutting costs across the board on 360 manufacturing. For every error that is found, you can be sure that three more lurk beneath the surface as a result of substandard parts, components and assembly line procedures.

The reason is clear. Despite their deep pockets, Microsoft are not willing to make the kind of losses everyone assumes they can make with the 360. But they still want a lower price point. It's not just manufacturing. Look at Live. Microsoft are the only game service provider in the world who are charging people to play titles online. When everyone else; Nintendo, Sony and Valve, make playing online completely free, the Live gold membership fee required to play every single Xbox 360 title online stands out like a sore thumb. It's particularly egregious standing next to Microsoft's own Games for Windows: Live, which is also free.

Bad hardware and unnecessary online fees. Why would a company in Microsoft's position continue to hinder itself in these ways? The answer is that they want the 360 to succeed, but are not willing to shell out funds indefinitely to achieve this. The console needs to sell massively, but they are not willing to charge people for this, so production costs are cut instead. The console needs to make money off people during its lifetime, but they are not willing to do this through selling games, so they charge for services that should be free.

Everyone has assumed that Microsoft's funds are essentially unlimited when it comes to their goal of getting a Microsoft console into the living room. I don't think this is true anymore. Over time, it has become clear that a console in the living room is not going to serve as the hub of a digital household. I think Microsoft has realized this and is now simply treating the Xbox as another part of its home computer strategy, but not as an essentially one that must be maintained at any cost.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
>>>

Yeah, and yet the PS3 has next-to-no problems, and the Wii console has zero problems. So I'm blaming the designer not the complexity. (I also question your claim the SNES was simple. For its time it was leading edge technology and just as prone to engineering mistakes as an X360.)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Megane]

...except that at least one of the (three?) models of DVD drive they used is total crap. The main value in a used XBox is whether its DVD drive works or not. And their DVD reader design is such that it is not possible to read a genuine XBox disc without a genuine XBox DVD drive. (or installing the official firmware on one of a very few compatible consumer models of drive that haven't been manufactured in years, but they used that funny plug so such a hacked drive will only work on a PC)

Out of the three units I have, the two I got used have one bad and one partially good DVD drive. The only good DVD drive is from the XBox that my brother's then-wife's kids tried to take apart, and ruined the mainboard. I took that in trade for giving them a new one for xmas back in the day. (I was PS2/GC back then.)

Of course the best thing about the original XBox is how they not only completely failed to secure the system (more loopholes than were actually used to crack the system), but actually included holes for a pin header with all but one of the required signals for a mod chip. I'm glad I bought two chips back in the day. Now I can rip discs on my one good drive, then use the crappy FTP server to copy the game to the other one.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>Microsoft knew about it but launched it anyway so it would be the first in its generation. There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.

Therefore it *must* be true because slashdot never posts inaccurate or biased stories! /end sarcasm. At least Microsoft was willing to admit the problems and exchange or repair failing consoles. Microsoft was willing to lose money to keep people happy; that's better than what Toyota did when their 2004 truck engines started sludging oil & seizing-up (they blamed the customer). It's good to see a company stand behind their product for a change.

But I'm still concerned. As programmers learn the system and push the hardware to its limits, will we see even more overheating Xbox 360s? Probably.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

Not at all. The 2009 Chevy Truck is engineered to be less sturdy. Why? Because a less sturdy truck requires less material to build and will therefore be cheaper. Y'know, most people tend to buy the cheaper of two equivalent products while flagrantly disregarding lifetime cost of the product.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[mrops]

Chee. if they were inexperianced about hardware, what do u have to sway for thier software, what excuse do they have their.

Further, IMO, they would do it all over again considering the success of xbox 360.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward, that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?
>>>

That's an *excellent* question. I popped-in a 5-year-old DVD-R that was *supposed* to be my friend's wedding video, but instead all I got was a bunch of pixelated garbage. Meanwhile my VHS tapes are nearing a quarter-century age, and they still playback just fine. Even the one tape that developed a wrinkle is still watchable and enjoyable. Meanwhile my wedding DVD-R is now a drink coaster. Sad.

I'm an engineer but I'm not like my colleagues. They embrace every new tech that comes along. I ask the question, "Is this new thing better than the old technology?" Sadly the answer is often 'no' which is why I still use pen-and-paper, not an electronic PADD/PDA, and also why I still use a VHS camcorder not one of those DVD-Rs that self-erases itself after five years. ("Obsolescence and stupidity wrapped in the same package. How efficient of you.") I tried to explain that to my brother: Don't buy Vista; buy an XP PC. "But Vista is the newest and bestest!" Now he's unhappy because his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video, and it's pathetically slow, and he wishes he had listened to me.

Technology is only better if it *improves* on old technology, not simply because it's the newest thing.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[AHuxley]

Re:Microsoft have a quality console under their belts.

Watch the vid of the real men and woman who took the original xbox apart.
Its was junk from day one with MS pulling 3rd rate team members from other projects and trying to get it working on time.
Nothing will ever change with MS.
The Google Tech Talks December 1, 2006 "Deconstructing The Xbox Security System" should be fun
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4356347903120410001&ei=z3THSeHCOpHMwgOYxfCYDw

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Antique Geekmeister]

Well, the Wiimote has some problems. That strap is flimsy and folks have broken big-screen LCD displays because of it. But your point is still good.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[geminidomino]

"Versatile" stopped meaning "an array of useful features" a long time ago. As long as you can sync your car to your bluetooth phone (firmware upgrades anyone?), have it tell you the quickest route to the nearest gyro stand, and pet your hand and tell you "everything's ok" when your favorite idol-wannabe gets booted, it's "versatile"

Thank you, marketroids.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[rumith]

I stand corrected.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[digitalchinky]

Less likely to break in the sense of being 'sturdy' also means you are more likely to die in an accident. So, would you prefer your el-cheapo modern X-Box to shatter harmlessly on impact with your significant other in the heat of game battle anger, or remain in one piece?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[DirtyUncleRon69]

shatter harmlessly on impact with your significant other in the heat of game battle anger, or remain in one piece?

Depends if the bitch is screen-peeking or not

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Now he's unhappy because his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video

Sounds like a nice feature to me. Where can I procure this Vista you speak of?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[portalcake625]

Windows is actually very stable, the only thing that crashes it are the Nvidia Alpha drivers (duh!). Windows just is not secure. Period.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Ptolomeu]

>>>Microsoft knew about it but launched it anyway so it would be the first in its generation. There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.

Therefore it *must* be true because slashdot never posts inaccurate or biased stories! /end sarcasm.

No, it's true because it linked to documents and internal sources proving this...

At least Microsoft was willing to admit the problems and exchange or repair failing consoles. Microsoft was willing to lose money to keep people happy; that's better than what Toyota did when their 2004 truck engines started sludging oil & seizing-up (they blamed the customer). It's good to see a company stand behind their product for a change.

.

Hey fanboy, that's the least they could do after launching consoles they knew they were faulty! And you think they supported the product just because they were nice? Have you thought that it would be much worse for them if they didn't? There's no excuse to launch a product they knew it was going to give a lot of problems, when they could just have solved them by delaying the launch. Sure it was nice that they at least provided replacements, but it was just a compensation for a problem they shouldn't have caused.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Lumpy]

Also the abilities the truck were designed for are becoming reduced. the towing capacity of the 1984 chevy pickup are greater than the 2009 chevy pickup truck. GM realized that most trucks never do anything but get driven like a car so they cut costs in building them that almost nobody would notice.

Honestly, all corporations are making crap products, this really should not surprise anyone.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

The problem is, they never have admitted it was a design flaw. Adding to the warranty for the RRoD doesn't amount to an admission, and to this day no one will say "yes, we screwed up the design". They'd probably face a class-action suit if they did, I suppose. They still refuse to admit any issues with disc scratching, though youtube's full of videos on what causes it. And this issue now appears after a hefty graphics update to the console (NXE), we're seeing yet again the rushed design decisions possibly come back to bite MS in the butt. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but since it's hitting the HDMI consoles pretty hard, I have to wonder...

While I agree it was nice of MS to add to the warranty for the RRoD, I don't have any faith they're standing behind their product. True, they didn't blame the user very loudly (though early on, they were blaming poor ventilation), but they never admitted there was/is a flaw. Now we've another flaw possibly in the making and MS is charactaristically silent. :) The 360 has shown me that MS can't make a console. So until they make a tank like the PS3, I'm skipping their next offering or two. Games or not, you can't play the games on dead hardware. After 3 Elites, I got a new Arcade system when it hit $200 (with the lighter PSU), and if my Elite dies again (it's showing the initial stages of it now), I'll just put my Arcade unit as the primary system and just throw in the towel.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Now that same company comes out and produces the 360 with its notoriously high failure rate. And it's wasn't down to the complexity of the design. The red ring of death was due to parts and material failures. Scratched discs were again down to a substandard component. Now we have a loose video chip problem.

This is NOT down to design. These issues are trivial to fix if only Microsoft was willing to pay the money. The fact is, they're not. These errors all exist because Microsoft is cutting costs across the board on 360 manufacturing. For every error that is found, you can be sure that three more lurk beneath the surface as a result of substandard parts, components and assembly line procedures.

So, you're saying it didn't fail because of poor design but because they designed it to be inexpensive to manufacture? That sounds to me like bad design. They didn't design it to stand up to normal use and instead designed it to save a few pennies here and there during the manufacturing and assembly process. Sounds like a classic example of a poorly chosen design trade-off where quality is sacrificed to save costs. Now it is coming back to bite them.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ProppaT]

My question, though, is where were all these complains when the PSX was the dominant system? After my 3rd PSX, I kindly resigned and quit playing PSX games until I finally got a PS2. I'm now on my 3rd PS2 and I've said the same thing. Unfortuantely PS3's aren't backwards compatible now, so I'm kinda stuck.

On the other hand (and I may be one of the lucky ones) I still have my launch 360. I'm a lighter gamer...I don't play FPS's for entire afternoon...which might explain why I don't have problems with my 360. But this surely doesn't explain the list of problems I've had with Sony.

Honestly, I agree that there's a major issue with Xbox hardware, but I think it's been blown up to this degree through MS hatred. From everything I can tell, the original PSX was more unstable than this thing ever thought about being.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Lumpy]

Over time, it has become clear that a console in the living room is not going to serve as the hub of a digital household.

Because the one offered by any company is a festering pile of crap. I have exposed MANY people to real media centers (Mediaportal, MythTV, XBMC on a linux box) and all of them freak out how great they are compared to the half-assed attempts that every other company throws at them. windows MCE = a windows box with a nice UI and a lot of DRM slapped in your face. klunky and not easy to extend.

Apple TV, very limited unless you are a hacker.

All the other boxes, their UI sicks, they have quirks that people hate.. Upnp media players are unacceptable in every way. If I cant rewind and fast foreward instantly then it does in fact suck. and upnp is useless. Why not a simply SMB share and have the box read and play the file?

I have shown several customers Mythtv, they love it for recording TV and has replaced many Tivo's and other PVR's. the show winner though is the XBMC on a linux pc. set one up with a 640gig Hard drive and show the users how to use anydvd and handbrake on their home PC to transfer their DVD"s to the device and they are giddy. Heck anydvd and ripbot are doing the same for my bluray and HDDVD discs (yes I buy a lot of HDDVD discs, they are dirt cheap right now) plus the rss reader that pulls the latest video podcasts for them to watch when they are ready, RSS new readers, heck I even have a movie listing and trailer viewer for XBMC and Mediaportal!

Useless things that manufacturers think people want, like a youtube viewer are also available. But I have yet to find anyone that says "Oh it's gotta view youtube videos!!!"

The convergence media box in the living room exists. It pisses off all content makers and delivery companies. and No company has the balls to make the device that people actually want.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

Yes, i still have an xbox with a broken DVD reader... I put a larger hard drive in and use it exclusively to run xbmc... MS seems to have completely dropped support for it now.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[MadKeithV]

It's a trick question. There is no significant other.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[hairyfeet]

The words you are looking for is Planned obsolescence and it is the reason why the world is drowning in e-waste ATM. I believe that this stems from companies that can only see in the short term and would prefer to screw their customers for every dime,...excuse me, "maximize monetization" instead of actually giving the customer a good value for their money and building customer loyalty by making a quality product. It also stems from the "save every last penny" attitude that has our landfills full of cheap Chinese junk. Because spending more no longer gets you quality, as the PHBs in charge of the company will save "if we cut production costs to the absolute bare minimum and use substandard parts, we can make even MORE money!"

The reason the old folks say "they don't make them like they used to" is because they really don't. Companies have gotten so damned greedy that they don't give a damn how shitty their products are on reliability as long as they work long enough to separate you from your cash. If this trend doesn't change I fear we will all be buried under giant mounds of broken junk.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

There can be a trend where people use HDMI more than in the past, thus making the XBOX 360 boxes die quickly. I had the same problem with my, used only HDMI out and the box died in 8 months. Before the E74 the same "snow" / distorted graphs was shown. However I could play the 3D game with this distortion until the next boot where it said "E74". The box was *not* totally dead, the distortion was 2D. Only the next boot said the box is totally dead (it probably checks the HW in the boot-up).

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[wift]

You start off fine but fall off the reason wagon early and then go onto a different path before getting back to the point. Why did you bring online fees into it? Sony is now charging companies bandwidth fees. Do you think that will effect what get's on their network?

As far as hardware. The reason is not clear. Every hardware manufacture tries to balance on the line between profitability and failure. MS tried a short cut with heat dissipation and failed. They tried to get away from QA testing and that bit them and us in the ass.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

Microsoft products have always been produced as cheaply as possible, with all kinds of corners being cut...
In software they could provide patches effectively for free, but with hardware it's proving more costly. Microsoft software has always been notorious for being unstable and crashing, is it really any surprise they would use the same strategy when producing hardware?

I too find the charging for live a bit rich, especially when many games no longer support LAN play anymore... Some people have connections too slow for live, but want to play lan games with friends... Or play lan games in places with no internet connection (we used to get together for lan games at a local village hall).

The first xbox was a lot better, most games supported lan play for free and you could use programs like xlink to fool the system into thinking it was playing against lan users when it was tunneled over the internet.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[sherriw]

It has nothing to do with complexity, but all to do with cheap components (as you mention) and planned obsolescence. Now I wonder why companies would do this? Hmmm... it's not hard to figure out.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[hansamurai]

Total anecdote, but my original Xbox was broken out of the box. Plugged it in and the first screen I see is a message in about 10 languages telling me something is broken and I should call this number.

I was able to return it to Gamestop with no problem, but this was in 2005 I believe, the Halo green Xbox.

My second one is still working today, both my wife and I use it nearly everyday with XBMC installed on it. Great little machine.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I gather DVD-Rs (or any writeable disc media for that matter) are susceptible to heat damage, if you keep them in a to-warm a place or in direct sunlight they degrade to tea coasters quite quicky.

http://www.library.unh.edu/loan/multimedia/care.shtml

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[sherriw]

You're right about VHS tapes. My little sister's prized copy of some Disney movie was eaten by the VCR. I cut out the crushed part of the tape, scotch-taped it back together and it plays perfectly, minus one sentence of dialogue. Now that's reliability.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[blind biker]

The original Xbox was, indeed reliable, but it did also scratch DVDs, although less often than the Xbox360.

Still, I'd say it was an overall better quality machine.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[obarthelemy]

Back when I was learning marketing 20 years ago, we were told the trade off was between performance and reliability. I guess features vs reliability makes sense too, but a few MHz and thus ÂF or C less would have made wonders.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

You are - as most people on /. - are totally wrong about it.

Quality is a metric. Product has to balance quality vs. features vs. price.

N.B. Network people I'm sure can already recognize the famous "fast, cheap, secure: pick any two" pattern.

M$ as business has to balance all the three to make the product not too expensive (== cut features and quality); stable enough (== fewer better tested featured) and feature-full.

While feature set and price often are predefined (e.g. in case of Xbox360) quality remains only metric business can use to regulate development/etc costs.

In the end: Yes, M$ has shitty hardware Q&A. But it's "as designed". Otherwise, Xbox360 might have cost only few chips less than PS3. It's cheaper (RRoD fiasco was really exceptional) to deal with quality issues later, than introducing delays into initial phases of development/promotion of new product.

So what you're saying is that Microsoft sacrificed quality for price and features. Sony appears to have sacrificed price for quality and features. I'll take Sony.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[cawpin]

the towing capacity of the 1984 chevy pickup are greater than the 2009 chevy pickup truck.

That is completely false.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[LordKronos]

Sorry, I don't have time to watch a 1 hour video, but it sounds like you are trying to say their console wasn't quality because the security was poor and that people could pirate games on it. Yet, no matter how easy or difficult it might be to hack, I'm failing to think of a system that hasn't been hacked to allow pirating. If the xbox is low quality, what is the high quality example that they should be aspiring to be like, and how is that really any better if people still find a way to work around it and pirate games anyway?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ThePhilips]

So what you're saying is that Microsoft sacrificed quality for price and features.

Yep.

Sony appears to have sacrificed price for quality and features. I'll take Sony.

What identifies you as niche buyer. And mass market companies do not care about niche buyers. (Even Sony.)

People see price first - but experience quality only later. That's why it is important to balance the both. If entry price is too high, provided there is competition, many wouldn't bother to even try. But once people bought a console, natural instinct of buyer to protect investments would actually smooth the negative perception of most quality problems.

In other words, in mass market, low quality is forgivable, high price isn't.

P.S. Just recall how Dell improved quality of their PCs. It's not that it improved anything, but they have people standing by with spare replacement parts. Quality is the same usual crap. But if it breaks, they simply replace it - real fast. And perception of Dell's quality really soared in past years.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[LordKronos]

No, I think that's an entirely different issue. Take the DVD, for example. The design department doesn't work out all the details of the DVD drive. It's an industry standard component, with an industry standard interface. They design the system to work with a standard DVD drive with certain basic specs, let some other department work out the pricing deals with various suppliers, and then do whatever custom firmware integration they need to with whoever the contract was made with. A lot of it is no more the fault of the design department that it would be if it turned out there was some major flaw in an intel chip used in the system.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[cyber-vandal]

I agree with all your points although this is hardly a new thing. From the same era as the BBC Micro the Sinclair Spectrum was notoriously shoddy and easy to break as was its predecessor the ZX81 (RAM pack wobble took out many a program in the bad old days).

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

While feature set and price often are predefined (e.g. in case of Xbox360) quality remains only metric business can use to regulate development/etc costs.

In the end: Yes, M$ has shitty hardware Q&A. But it's "as designed". Otherwise, Xbox360 might have cost only few chips less than PS3. It's cheaper (RRoD fiasco was really exceptional) to deal with quality issues later, than introducing delays into initial phases of development/promotion of new product.

I hope you never design an airplane ... or traffic signal system ... or a roof for a house ... or an elevator ... or anything more complicated than a sand castle.

Quality is almost always CHEAPER, not more expensive. Fix your process and produce quality, or you'll be bleeding $$$ and STILL have a broken process that can't produce quality.

N.B. Network people I'm sure can already recognize the famous "fast, cheap, secure: pick any two" pattern.

Pick one - the one that's going to give you long-term survival (hint: it's not "fast" OR "cheap").

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation Needed.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[MichaelTheDrummer]

Surely then the hardware problem lies with the TV? As far as I understand the Wii hardware came away from those incidents completely unscathed.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

so Microsoft should stop making them because people like you will buy 2, 3 or 4 of em? That sounds like a bad move to me.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[UnknowingFool]

Microsoft have a quality console under their belts. Despite it's ponderous bulk, the original Xbox was a reliable console.

The OP's point was the original Xbox was designed using off the shelf components thus it suffers from fewer defects as MS did not have to design or spec out as much as they did with the 360.

Now that same company comes out and produces the 360 with its notoriously high failure rate. And it's wasn't down to the complexity of the design. The red ring of death was due to parts and material failures. Scratched discs were again down to a substandard component. Now we have a loose video chip problem.

In the red ring of death, failure has been blamed on the graphics chip overheating. MS chose not to use an ASIC vendor to save money and designed the chip and assembly themselves. The chip overheating has been attributed to how it was soldered onto the board using cold solder joints (a design choice). This probably may have been exacerbated by the lack of adequate airflow and the inadequate heat sink size (both design choices). After the initial problems, MS went to an ASIC vendor and redesigned the chip to dissipate less heat. I'd call that a design failure.

As for the scratched discs, the only that MS could have done differently was to watch their suppliers and components more closely.

This is NOT down to design. These issues are trivial to fix if only Microsoft was willing to pay the money. The fact is, they're not. These errors all exist because Microsoft is cutting costs across the board on 360 manufacturing. For every error that is found, you can be sure that three more lurk beneath the surface as a result of substandard parts, components and assembly line procedures.

That might be true if more problems occurred as the Xbox 360 got older but these problems occurred when the Xbox 360 was launched and MS was throwing lots of money into the program. The truth of the matter is that MS cared more about beating Sony out to market with a product than getting out a quality product. There were reports that the failure rate at the the factory was 68%.

The reason is clear. Despite their deep pockets, Microsoft are not willing to make the kind of losses everyone assumes they can make with the 360. But they still want a lower price point.

The lower point is because they now have to compete with Nintendo. If Sony and MS were the only two competitors, their consoles would still be priced pretty high. However, Nintendo coming in with their cheaper console has changed the market even though Sony and MS don't want to admit they are competing with Nintendo.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

The Google Trends data is just a side-effect of the last round of "ZOMG e74 Errors!!!!" (This is the third time it's made the rounds.)

*Everyone* is eager to jump on the 360 for quality problems. But if anything beyond a normal failure rate was being experienced, would we really have to -dig- to find evidence?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Theoboley]

Every system has its share of bugs. Take the NES, Damn flashing Pink screen when you put a cartridge in, Take out, blow in it, repeat. Granted that's an easy fix.

The 360 on the other hand, Seems RIDDLED with problems. This being one in a LONG list of them. If you have to pretty much cross your fingers, toes and any other extremity on your body when you turn the system on and hope and pray you don't get an error, well that to me seems like it's a poor investment. God forbid you sit down for an afternoon of gaming, shut down the machine, and turn it back on and you get the RRoD or now, the e74.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Theoboley]

don't forget the ring of death and all those broken discs we made up... because microsoft always makes quality products!

Yes... Look at ME or Vista. Top Notch stuff there ;)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ledow]

What you say may be true, but it doesn't mean it's the right behaviour for a large company.

Some Spectrums were home-built (I know they offered a solder-kit for cheaper prices than a shop-built one). However, I agree that they had a few design flaws because of the same sorts of problems and component pricing of the time, etc. If I remember, the RAM on the early models was actually bog-standard RAM of the day where one half had failed but left enough to be usable for Sinclair's purposes. The price of buying all-new chips was prohibitive. It was also a bit "open", in that the joystick and rear interfaces were direct electrical connections to the mainboard and that even the expansion socket never had any sorts of covers. I can envisage that all this was *known* at the time and it was the result of a trade-off, but the modern XBox failures seem to be more due to either underestimating the problems, choosing to ignore them, or not knowing about them - whichever way you look at it, that's incompetence.

(P.S. Still a proud owner of at least one working 16K and one working 48K Spectrum with peripherals and tapes - although I have destroyed at least two boards and a PSU for a 48K by being a bit over-exuberant while playing Daley Thompson's Decathlon as a youngster).

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows took many years to reach any level of stability...
The problem is excessive complexity, which partly by design (to discourage clones) and partly due to poor forward planning in the earlier versions.. The excess complexity is also the cause of all the security problems.
They seem to be addressing both issues in much the same way - mitigating the symptoms rather than fixing the problems, a lot of the windows userland is still pretty unstable but the kernel is much better than in the 9x days, and for security they are making things more difficult to exploit through the use of non executable memory areas and address layout randomization and sandboxing apps etc, rather than designing a more secure architecture.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Djehuty3]

Not entirely - Certainly, the Habu and the Reclusa are Razer internally, but the outside bit is Microsoft's design - hence the jogwheels on the Reclusa..

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[LordKazan]

his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video

Vista did something intelligent!? Im shocked!

At least it has good enough taste to block out Goebel's Modern News

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

They stood behind the products because the console market is competitive and not standing behind them would have severely damaged their market position.
I don't know about Toyota, but companies will always try to get out of providing costly repairs/replacements if they possibly can... On the other hand, i had a Jaguar engine replaced for free because it failed (google for jaguar v8 nikasil)..

Remember companies are out for profit... They will weigh up the cost of fixing the problems vs the cost of the bad publicity etc, and determine if it's worth doing or not.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[CyberLord Seven]

Games or not, you can't play the games on dead hardware.

Absolutely correct!

I made the poor decision to buy an XBox 360 in June 2006. I knew about the poor design but I took the risk anyway. I treated the console with kid gloves. I placed in on top of my PS2, that I bought in 2001, giving it plenty of ventilation. I played few games on it. My son was away in college for the most part. My nephews played it when they visited. All in all, it never experienced the marathon gaming sessions the PS2 experienced.

Despite the minimum activity the 360 died two years after I bought it! Two stinkin' years!

Meanwhile the PS2 plays just fine eight years after purchase. I look at my collection of games for the PS2 and smile. Boy, am I glad I only have three 360 games. Too bad one of them is Grand Theft Auto. Never got to finish that game. Oh, well. Once burned, twice shy!

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

Simple software is not the design goal for MS tho...
DOS was simple, and several compatible clones sprang up...
Unix is simple and has many clones...

Windows is extremely complex and has far less clones which themselves are incomplete and not fully functional.
Windows is massively more complex than any other system on the market, and this complexity makes it difficult to maintain and causes stability and security problems. And much of the complexity was intentional to make it harder for third party clones to exist.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

Broke the TV, not the Wiimote...

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

"Obsolescence and stupidity wrapped in the same package. How efficient of you."

They didn't listen, of course. Obsolete men never do.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Bert64]

Short term thinking is the cause of many problems... Proprietary lock-in, flimsy vehicles, flimsy equipment, short sighted investments crippling the banking industry...
At least there are still better trucks available which will last and for which you pay a premium...

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[damaki]

Please, do not take Sony as a maker of reliable consoles. PS1 and PS2 were notorious for them crappy disc drives that used to fail rapidly in less than 3 years in many cases. PS2 could also read DVD so that you could kill your drive even faster.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[mister_playboy]

Engine output in 1984 was craptastic compared to now... no way this is true.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the PS3 even sold a third of the amount of 360s?

I would say, if the PS3 was successful that perhaps we'd be hearing about a lot more PS3 failures. Since it's a flop, we only hear about the failures from the successes like 360 and Wii.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

SNES is a glorified C64, if that's not simple I don't know what is.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Perky_Goth]

That's not true, I've heard from someone inside Quimonda that they purposely asked for lower quality standards in order to reach demand. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that it asked the same of the rest of their suppliers.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[SenseiLeNoir]

Daley Thompsons Decathalon, now that brigns memories. Thoguh the only damage that did was wear down the labels on the the n and m keys on the Chiclet keyboard! :)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[UnknowingFool]

Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

I'd say that a 1960 Chevy truck is more sturdy than a 2009 model not so much due to cheapened components as they were designed with different goals in mind. The mindset of the 1960s design to ensure that the truck survived most crashes while the 2009 models is designed to ensure the driver and passengers survive most crashes. Also the 2009 model has to contend with emissions issues, fuel economy, etc. The 1960 model while more sturdy is also more susceptible to the elements as it has a larger percentage of steel and iron components while the 2009 model has a higher percentage of corrosion resistant plastic and aluminum parts.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason is clear. Despite their deep pockets, Microsoft are not willing to make the kind of losses everyone assumes they can make with the 360. But they still want a lower price point.

Maybe they are just taking a cue from Apple. Here's a blog writeup about an article on the guardian, saying that Apple expects the iPod to last a year, while there are other reports of the battery ranging from 2 to 4 years (likely shorter).

I'd argue it is about profit and manufacturing. If you're expecting to have a new console out every 3 to 5 years, why would you bother making consoles that last 20? The market is evolving, system reliability comes second to game availability. If Xbox3 comes out 2 years from now and my 360 happens do kick the bucket around that time, I'd likely jump to the Xbox3 and keep my games.

I certainly did that with the PS1 to PS2 transition. Sony did a crap job with the CD-ROM and the wear on the laser's sled. It gave me a few months headache, but I kept it because of the games. When my PS1 finally became unplayable, I just went out and picked up a PS2.

Could MS have spent a bit more money on design and parts for 360's across the board? Sure.

Would it have put them at a price significantly less than Sony's PS3? Maybe, maybe not (Don't feel like looking up figures).

Would it have been wise for them to actually spent the money producing a more reliable product? Depends on who you ask. It seems the RROD problem got them some flak, though the warranty treatment got a fair amount of that under control.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[FrankieBaby1986]

Not to be an apologist, but i think you missed the point in the trade-off with DVD-R's.

It is well known that writeable CD's and DVD's have a limited shelf life. They're not intended for archival purposes.

The point is that every X years, where X is sufficiently short to prevent data loss, you can make an EXACT COPY of the higher-quality video, with extremely little or no loss in quality.

Try that with a VHS tape.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Nick Ives]

You seem to have quite a simplified view of games console hardware and software development. All consumer electronics devices go through hardware re-factoring in order to reduce or otherwise simplify the internal design.

When it comes to the software side of things then that gets updated too. The PlayStation had several system firmware revisions and the development libraries were updated on many occasions throughout the consoles lifecycle too. The important thing is that the game/library combination you ship is tested against all the hardware / firmware revision combinations out in the wild; the fact that there were a limited number of hardware / firmware combinations made QA easier compared to, say, a PC game.

Your limited view of what a console OS should be is at odds with what gamers actually want. I want to be able to receive voice calls from friends in different games inviting me to join them. I want to be able to stream music from my fileserver so that I can listen to it in game. Admittedly my PS3 isn't up to my 360 in this regard but hopefully it'll get there. Expecting each game to handle this themselves and still have it work is a recipe for failure.

Comparing modern games consoles to BBC Micros is so facile, a PS3 is a few orders of magnitude more complex than a BBC. If you left a modern games console in skip then all it would take is a few extreme thermal cycles and excessive amounts of moisture getting in sensitive places to knacker it. That's not bad design, it's just a fact of life.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[nine-times]

The only thing I wonder is, is it caused by inexperience or simply that they made some bad judgement calls? It seems entirely possible to me that Microsoft had the expertise necessary to build a decent machine, but the desire to rush it out the door before Nintendo or Sony, and then the desire to cut costs, have lead to a substandard product.

That's been my impression up to this point, but I don't claim to have any kind of inside knowledge. But I think Microsoft is relying to some extent on our disposable culture for success across their product line.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>Hey fanboy

Hey dipshit, I don't even own a Microsoft console. Maybe you ought to check yourself before you wreck yourself. (Check your facts before you make a fool of yourself.)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[HouseOfMisterE]

You can sometimes "fix" a finicky XBOX DVD-ROM drive by opening it up, accessing the laser assembly, and tweaking the laser output voltage. There's a little potentiometer that you have to adjust. I did this to one of my XBOX drives once and it fixed the problem. I've also used the laser assembly for an almost-compatible Samsung DVD-ROM drive to replace the laser assembly in a faulty XBOX Samsung DVD-ROM drive. This repaired drive works better than any other XBOX drive that I've used. Check this link for instructions on how to adjust the laser voltage: http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox-tutorials.php

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Penguinoflight]

To all the naysayers: towing capacity has little to do with engine power and is more reliant on the frame toughness, drive-train, and transmission.

Chevrolet's 4-speed automatics were just as solid in 84 as they are now, and the frame was significantly tougher. Even the 200hp from a 305 that was popular back then is enough for towing quite a bit of weight, so long as you don't need to do it at 100mph.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Brandee07]

There are three xBox 360s in my house (college house, rented out by room).

One of them has red ringed FOUR TIMES over the past three years.

One has red ringed once and E74'd once in the past year.

The third, which was purchased last Christmas, scratched discs out of the box. The replacement for that one wouldn't power up. The replacement for that one works... for the moment.

The real question is not "why is Microsoft's hardware so shitty?" It is "why are we still giving Microsoft so much money for shitty hardware?"

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

After years of streamlined production and cheapened components while the sophistication has steadily risen, people still wonder about fundamental design issues?

Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.

How is a 1960 Chevy truck more sturdy than a 2009 model? It used to be an accomplishment for a vehicle to hit 100k miles, now it's expected. The new vehicles are more reliable, faster, more efficient, safer, more comfortable, tow more, more powerful, basically better in every metric. Engineering today is leaps and bounds better than in 1960, it isn't even comparable. I don't mean just with Chevy either, with any auto company.

If we are talking about now vs. then reliability, how about the NES? I remember trying a myriad of tricks to get the thing to play a cart. Now the systems are more expensive and people are more reliant on them, so it is more catastrophic when there is a failure.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Kielistic]

Except they made a choice to exclude a part of the DVD drive that protects the discs to save a penny causing the system to destroy discs.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[citizenr]

This is NOT down to design. These issues are trivial to fix if only Microsoft was willing to pay the money. The fact is, they're not. These errors all exist because Microsoft is cutting costs across the board on 360 manufacturing.

ah yes, because designing PCB mount that will not BEND the PCB in NEUTRAL position is so expensive.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ProppaT]

Right, my point was that I didn't have a PSX or PS2 that lasted over 2 years (until the slim PS2...they got something right with that model), yet I've been 4 years on my xbox.

I think MS hatred and the fact that it has these fancy lights on front that flash errors help perpetuate the xbox issue. It's definitely an issue...I'm just curious why people weren't up in arms with their PSX and PS2s.

Also, for what it's worth, I still have my original NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, and now my Wii and they all work. Granted, the NES takes a little work at times (I had no idea that by blowing in the carts when I was a kid I was corroding the connectors and by double stacking games I was loosing the connectors) but it still works.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Chosen Reject]

Are you stupid? The PS3 has sold ~21.3 million units and the 360 has sold somewhere ~28 million [citation given]. Over their lifetimes, the PS3 has sold ~76% of the 360 in about 70% of the time. Which means it's doing better on average over its lifetime than the 360 is.

Disclaimer: I own a Wii, but very much prefer PC gaming.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[bonch]

Despite it's ponderous bulk, the original Xbox was a reliable console.

It was a PC without a monitor, cobbled together from standard PC parts. That's why the form factor was so big. It's not like it was some amazing design effort to Microsoft's credit.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[mdielmann]

Unfortunately, Nintendo didn't have the opportunity to define the users. I've had my kids whack each other a few times (some of them on accident), and dropped a handful of times. Not once have they thrown them across the room, or equally stupid activities.
It shouldn't be that difficult to teach someone (even a 6-year-old with his head in the clouds) that you stand far enough away from things that swinging the remote won't hit anyone/thing, and don't let go!

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[arkhan_jg]

No, it is definitely bad design.

The 360 GPU heatsink is tiny compared to the CPU heatsink, because they had to squeeze it directly under the DVD drive because of their layout. I have heard that originally that had more room - and a bigger heatsink - but it was shrunk when the case was redesigned to be smaller. The board is also under curve stress because of the case, so when the GPU gets so hot it starts to melt its own solder slightly, you get bad joints, and bing, it dies.

Many people have fixed their own RROD problem, at least temporarily, by disassembling the unit and heating the GPU heatsink with a hairdryer, while using something like the X-clamp replacement clamps to keep the heatsink clamped down tight, and effectively reheat and reflow the solder joints. Some people have used flux to fix more problematic consoles, and some repair specialists have even got their own reflow ovens.

Several of the console revisions have basically been an extra heatsink with a heatpipe to try and stop the GPU literally cooking itself off the board. The newest consoles, with the process shrink, have smaller power supplies and generate less heat in the first place, so should be more reliable.

The biggest problem with the 360 is overheating, even in normal use, and that's down to too small a case with consequential undersized heatsinks.

However, I'll grant you that the DVD scratching problem is simply down to them being cheap - they skipped putting bumpers in to stop it digging into the disc, because it saved them a couple of cents per console. The problem comes about because they're spinning the disc too fast, with insufficient magnetic grip. They could have redesigned the drive, but it would have made it too slow reading, or take longer to spinup/eject discs. Microsoft knew about the design problem, but went ahead anyway, because they were too cheap to fix it.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ThePhilips]

I hope you never design an airplane ... or traffic signal system ... or a roof for a house ... or an elevator ... or anything more complicated than a sand castle.

To answer your unasked questions: yes, most of what you enumerate has dedicated safety standards. Except for sand castle.

Yes, even roofs. Because in past some first industrial roofs where made from materials which were actually dangerous to health in long term. That's why there are standards for that now.

And hey, I have worked in safety market - it's between traffic signal system and avionics. Close to elevator's level of mechanical safety - but in electronics/software. Well, in safety market the "fast, cheap, secure" works the same: with security (realiability) commanding features and lion share of costs going to testing. But that's niche market too ;)

But game consoles they are very different from e.g. planes or medical equipment or fire alarm (fault tolerant system, life support system, safety system correspondently) in way that if you get RRoD or E74 nobody's life is endangered. That's why btw you can acquire Xbox360 for as low as $200 (compared to e.g. $800 for cheapest safety box (based on Motorola 68K CPU with 64K RAM) plus $3k safety software to actually be able to use the box plus $Nk for certification from state that whatever you coded in the box actually conforms to corresponding ISO safety standard.)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[thetoadwarrior]

Rubbish.

MS actually does design good hardware most of the time.

The problem is that they were hell bent on being out the door first to reach 10 million units first and keep their machine cheaper than Sony and this is reflected in the quality of their console.

The idea of a bit of hardware completely controlled by themselves where they earn a licence fee off of each piece of software is MS' dream come true. So they've basically given the customer a shit deal in hopes that they could be number 1 and control console gaming.

This is why I'm glad the Wii totally creamed the 360 and the PS3 has caught up within the range of 6/7 million units. It just goes to show MS's place within gaming did come down to being early and people recognise Sony's better quality and Nintendo's innovation.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[thetoadwarrior]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Old vehicles might have had more steel in the body making them appear sturdier but the whole reason the Japanese kicked ass in the automotive area is because their newer cars were better all around including their life span.

Newer vehicles will last longer. Their only real downside is they're more complicated which makes it harder for any person to fix or mod their car and they're more likely to toss it to the side because of that rather than paying out for a mechanic.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[dhavleak]

don't forget the ring of death and all those broken discs we made up... because microsoft always makes quality products!

Read my comment, and TFA again. I didn't claim the RRoD was made up. I've suffered one scratched disk myself. I'm saying, a joystiq poll, and google trends are insufficient data (extremely insufficient in fact) for coming to the conclusion that there is an increase in E74 errors.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ThePhilips]

Quality is almost always CHEAPER, not more expensive. Fix your process and produce quality, or you'll be bleeding $$$ and STILL have a broken process that can't produce quality.

Forgot to reply to that.

Quality is most expensive for one simple reason: there is no practical limit to QA.

That's because in modern software and hardware, internal state is described with hundreds and thousands items of configuration. Total number of possible states a PC system can be in long time ago exceeded number of stars in our galaxy.

That means that though there is a theoretical limit to number of of configurations and states, the limit is so frigging high that you have no chance to test a tiny speck of it in any time frame for your product to remain relevant to consumers.

Only choice is to limit number of configurations and then define focus areas where tests would be conducted. E.g. another industry average I know is 95%. Or in other words: 5% of returns are tolerable. I do not know how it is with game consoles, but some similar metric I'm sure is in Xbox360 business plan of MS.

P.S. Airplains cost what they cost mainly due to QA and certifications they have to have before they can be sold or take off - not because they just expensive.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[alfs boner]

It is well known that...

These are weasel words. Have a little self respect and don't write this way. &Auml

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[oasisbob]

A lot of it is no more the fault of the design department that it would be if it turned out there was some major flaw in an intel chip used in the system.

If you source a component that doesn't meet the most basic of operational specs (eg "doesn't scratch discs under normal use"), its a design flaw.

If I design a car with a phonograph, you can't blame the car or the phonograph when it skips and scratches the vinyl all to hell.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[oasisbob]

. The chip overheating has been attributed to how it was soldered onto the board using cold solder joints (a design choice).

Umm, you do know what cold solder joints are, don't you? They most certainly are not a design choice. They're a problem of quality control.

I agree with everything you say, otherwise.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[BikeHelmet]

I wonder what was running through their heads when they decided to add another chip, and solder it to the board the same way as the chip that was causing RROD's.

Fix the RROD's, but add E74. Great.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

And much of the complexity was intentional to make it harder for third party clones to exist.

Source? Oh, wait, you're just saying bullshit.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Golddess]

PS2 could also read DVD so that you could kill your drive even faster.

Please explain. The only thing I can think of where playing DVDs can kill a drive comes from hacking a Wii.

I'd heard that if you hack a Wii to be able to play DVDs, it wears out faster because, for DVDs the speed at which the disc is spun is variable dependent on how far out from the center of the disc you are reading, but for Wii games the disc is spun at a constant speed. I'd not heard that PS2 games were also like that.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[cyber-vandal]

I've still got a 48k Spectrum+ with the crappy plastic keyboard instead of the crappy rubber keyboard - must get it out and see if it still works! I never meant my post to be any kind of defence of Microsoft's shoddy products - to me it's a scandal that their products are so poor.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Gizzmonic]

My friend knows the thermal engineer for the 360. He resigned in 2005 when he heard that they were going to rush the 360 out for Christmas no matter what. Couldn't risk his career on that one. I have a friend with a launch 360 who's already gone through 4 units.

The E74 is almost the same problem as the RRoD (which they seem to have fixed), but the generous warranty that applies to the RRoD doesn't apply to the E74. And that's why I haven't yet bought a 360.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Blakey Rat]

Microsoft are the only game service provider in the world who are charging people to play titles online.

While I generally agree with you, World of Warcraft is the most popular game in the world and costs $15/month. (Of course, I have no clue how you're defining "game service provider".)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[innerweb]

I don't know about where you work, but if I had designed a product using a component that was not able to work properly or without causing damage in the system I was designing, it would have been a very serious design flaw.

InnerWeb

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

So until they make a tank like the PS3, I'm skipping their next offering or two.

a tank like the ps3? you mean the one that forced you to buy a bluray player, which turns out to be the most unreliable part of the console? (blu lasers are dying left right and centre) for the price of a blu laser you could buy a 360. how is that any better?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile the PS2 plays just fine eight years after purchase.

your 8 year old ps2 still working is sheer luck, just as there are people with launch 360s that havent died yet. there are piles of dead ps2's all over the world. sony had remarkably shitty qc on their lasers on the PS2 and the laser sled on the PS1, and now with the bluray ones packing in that makes 3 consoles in a row and the fanboys are still sucking the sony cock

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[BiAthlon]

Can I mod you -1 Wishful Thinking? Today's vehicles are so much better than just about anything made in the 1960's that can be measured. For instance dependability, durability, handling and performance. The only thing that stuff from the 60's gets is a big nostalga factor. I owned two 1960's era vehicles, a 1970's truck, two 1980's truck, a 1990's car, a 1990's truck and a 2000's car. With the exception of the car each successive vehicle has gotten better.

My 1998 truck has 186,000 miles on it and all I've had to do to it was replace the alternator (about $80 and 45 minutes). The 70's truck was on it's third engine by this mileage. Both 60's era vehicles were on their second or third transmission and their second engine. I got rid of the 90's era car at 137,000 because things seemed to be wearing out at about the same time and were about to come due.

Today's vehicles are the best I've ever seen with regards to measurable features. They don't have the soul of the older stuff but they also don't have the demons either.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[syousef]

The words you are looking for is Planned obsolescence and it is the reason why the world is drowning in e-waste ATM.

No, it's not. A product can be planned such that it becomes obsolete in a short period of time, but still do the job intended and not die. If the XBox 360 had a built in used by date chip or similar that would be planned obsolescence. If newer games don't work on the old version that is planned obsolescence. What we're seeing is just poor quality product. Planned Obsolescence was heaven in comparison.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[syousef]

It is well known that writeable CD's and DVD's have a limited shelf life.

My experience is that most non-techies don't realise this until they lose something of value.

The point is that every X years, where X is sufficiently short to prevent data loss, you can make an EXACT COPY of the higher-quality video, with extremely little or no loss in quality.

Many problems with that. X is very hard to determine and you have to determine it with a tolerance of some percentage of loss. If it matters you make 2 copies on 2 different brands of DVD-R, and even then if it really matters you save to some other kind of storage. It's also very time consuming to recopy disks every few years. So much so that I'm not aware of anyone in my personal circle of friends, family and work colleagues that actually does it.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Arterion]

This really depends. Traction control, ABS, airbags, and a number of other things I don't even know about might make the new vehicle safer than the old one.

A LOT of science has gone into making automobiles safer since 1960. Almost 50 years worth of it. And that's nothing to scoff at.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? The design of the Xbox 360 controllers is somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft keyboards and mice to me, and the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver For Windows (do you think they made the name long enough?) is a lot like Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse receivers.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

Microsoft should learn to make them CORRECTLY. Don't feed the trolls. I only bought two. My Elite's been repaired 3 times. Nice comprehension, bub.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

Yeah, it's got a failure rate right up there with the 360. Tell me some more funny stories. At a less than 1% failure rate (that's documented btw, unlike your conjecture), the PS3 is doing just fine. My launch PS3 still works... no repairs needed. Funny that my 360's been in the shop 3 times, yet my PS3 hasn't. Guess I'm just lucky! ;) What's the failure rate of the 360? No one really knows because MS keeps that a BIG secret. But it's more than 1% to be sure. Trust me when I say comparing the 360 to the PS3 in terms of reliability is like comparing a Honda to a Pinto. They're not even in the same league with each other. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the only thing failing at "left right and centre" is the 360. That's a fact.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Antique Geekmeister]

The strap broke. That counts as hardware failure.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

Sony's not extending the warranty for their RRoD. Sony's not dealing with piles of dead consoles being shipped to it daily. Somehow the laser problem (of which I have a launch PS2 and it still works fine) and the plastic sled (which was indeed a design flaw that was actually CORRECTED in subsequent revisions of the console, unlike this RRoD problem Microsoft can't seem to get straight) really aren't even in the same fucking ballpark. Sony LEARNED from its mistakes and made a better console. What did Microsoft learn? That people will be stupid enough to buy their crap no matter what. I'm just as guilty since I own two of the POSes. It's really sad. But if MS thinks I'll bite again, they're high. I've had my fill of Microsoft's QC. It's like a leper whore with herpes.

Get off the fanboy bandwagon and just look at the FACTS. Fact: MS extended the warranty for a SPECIFIC problem with the 360 to 3 effin' years. Fact: Now that MS decided it needed a better "environment" in NXE, we have consoles failing at a larger than average rate (enough to make the news other than the fansites), and yet THAT problem will cost most people unlucky enough not to have sold off their POS launch consoles a cool $99. Funny that. Sony's got more launch consoles in the wild than MS ever dreamed of having (without a return to service center to be outfitted with a half-assed new fan and heatsink only to fail again in 3 weeks.) So, spit out the Ballmer spooge and grow up. Better yet, keep Microsoft in business by buying MORE and MORE consoles from them! Think of the fun you'll have keeping Steve and Bill rich!

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

I think MS is burning through a HUGE amount of goodwill just to be first on the block this gen. It's bound to cost them in wary consumers who don't want to send off ANOTHER console. Yes, MS has had some good games this generation with their year's headstart on the competition. But they blew their chance at total annihilation by simply passing off a known shoddy product in order to make a deadline that was arbitrary (and fully a year ahead of Sony anyway). Now Sony makes a stronger product this go round (and in spite of that whole "laser" thing, sold a SHITLOAD of PS2s) which improves on the quality of their previous attempts, and MS is left holding their dick wondering why no one's flocking to their side in all these hardware fiascoes (well, other than the trolls of course). I'm not a Sony Fanboy (I still hate them for killing the Dreamcast with hype and hyperbole), but I can see when Sony has done it better than MS. The people who can't sit idly by waiting for the UPS truck while staring at their copy of Halo Wars, wondering if it'll be any good by the time the damn console gets back from the service center (for the 4th time).

I have had two consoles fail on me in my long history of owning them (dating back to the Saturn... I hated consoles in the Genesis/SNES era) and BOTH of them are from Microsoft. The dirty laser problem on my original XBox and the RRoD on my Elite (with the "new" heatsink"). Now, if I happened to have the worst luck in the universe, I'd still be suspicious of another MS console and be wary of buying one. But you add 2 or 3 million (probably way more) to that total and you see Microsoft's dilemma. They are putting a LOT of faith in the "goodwill gesture" of 3 year extended RRoD warranty. Time will tell if it pays off.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[toddestan]

I'm sure he's just refering to the added wear and tear that using your PS2 to play DVD will cause (as opposed to using a standalone DVD player). It was a bigger deal for the PS2 more than any other console, because at the time a lot of people who were buying PS2s were also planning on using it as a DVD player to save some money since the standalone players weren't cheap at the time.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[hairyfeet]

You apparently missed this part of my post:"It also stems from the "save every last penny" attitude that has our landfills full of cheap Chinese junk.". Which fits this case to a T. The PHBs at MSFT used substandard cooling on the 360 and they knew about the problems before launch, and simply decided not to spend the time and money.

This is EXACTLY the short term, profit above the customer kind of thinking I was speaking of. To save some bucks and get to the market quicker MSFT has forever tarnished this generation Xbox and there is no telling how many sales it has cost them from wary consumers. And of course when the Xbox 720 comes out(if they even bother to make another console. Ballmer has had that company bouncing from one idea to the next like the corp has ADHD) and MSFT no longer supports it you will see countless 360s end up in the dump. I wonder how many have already made it into the trash from customers getting sick of dealing with the thing?

This kind of thinking has to stop. And I know I'll probably be unpopular with the greens for saying this, but we need to bring back the old solder. The new solder is frankly shit and will cost us more damage in the long run due to dead electronics than simply coming up with a responsible reclamation plan. Of course the greens don't realize they are playing right into the corporation's plans. As long as the new solder lasts just past the warranty they are fine with it, as they will get to sell you more tech crap to replace the garbage they are putting out. My mom's old DVD player with the old solder lasted nearly a decade before the motor finally gave out. With the new solder? She has gone through 3 in 3 years. They are just disposable crap. If we don't change this we are ALL going to be buried in disposable tech crap.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Theoboley]

I had heard something about the corrosion of the connectors, so i only did it to rentals lol. And double stacking games causing them to come loose??? That's News to me even to this day. Interesting indeed.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Golddess]

I'm sure he's just refering to the added wear and tear that using your PS2 to play DVD will cause

Which brings us back to the question I was trying to ask, why would playing a DVD wear it out faster? Is it because of what I said above? Or, another possibility I just thought of, is it simply because, in theory, you'll end up using the PS2 more often than if you used it just to play games? IE, Operating the device for four hours per day to play games vs four hours a day on games plus four hours a day on DVDs, effectively wearing it out in half as many days.

Or is it some third option that I hadn't thought of?

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

World of Warcraft is a subscription for one particular game, not to an online gaming service. I would classify a gaming service as something liek Xbox Live, PSN or Steam, which allows the playing of multiple games under one account.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>I hated consoles in the Genesis/SNES era

That's odd. Most consider that the best era of gaming, mainly because Nintendo and Sega were battling it out to produce the best games possible. Ultimately they tied, with the Super Nintendo pulling ahead only because Sega stopped selling the Genesis.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>a tank like the ps3? you mean the one that forced you to buy a bluray player

By that reasoning, none of us should have owned a PS1 because it "forced" you to buy a CD player instead of using a standard cartridge (like the N64), or the PS2 because it "forced" you to buy a DVD player, or a Nintendo Gamecube or Wii because it "forced" you to buy a proprietary GC Disc. Sorry pal, but you need to come-up with better reasons than that.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

Since I posted that message, I've upgraded my brother to Firefox. Now foxnews.com videos play flawlessly. It was just the Internet Exploder who refused to play the videos, even though I installed the required Adobe Flash plugin three separate times. It appears the User Account Control "disfeature" of Vista was the problem.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

>>>The point is that every X years, where X is sufficiently short to prevent data loss, you can make an EXACT COPY of the higher-quality video, with extremely little or no loss in quality. Try that with a VHS tape
>>>

No YOU missed the point. With a VHS tape there's no need to make backup copies because the original doesn't deteriorate (unless abused), and it is still watchable even if a wrinkle develops in the medium. In fact cops have discovered the same thing. DVD-R recordings of criminal interviews are erasing themselves left-and-right, whereas the VHS tapes are still good even ten years later sitting inside a dusty evidence box.

Another thing is that constantly backing-up your stuff is a pain-in-the-ass. Digital video is good, but it needs a better method of storage than a dye-based CD-R or DVD-R which fades. We need a method that will last 50 years (typical human lifespan) without user intervention.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

I don't even waste time with DVD-R. I store my family videos direct to VHS at SP speed which has the demonstrated ability to last a long, long time. Probably longer than I will.

And for digital videos, like downloaded stuff, I simply store two copies - one on my C: drive and one on my external USB: drive. That way if one fails I'll still have the other. I don't even bother recording to a temporary media like CD-R or DVD-R.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[commodore64_love]

It isn't the heat - it's the dye. You know how your curtains or carpet fade over time? Well CD-Rs and DVD-Rs do the same thing. Yes it's true that avoiding sunlight will make them last longer, but they still fade even if kept in complete darkness.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[FrankieBaby1986]

I think we both missed something.

As far as VHS, tapes develop wear simply from being used. Each time, the tape itself is dragged across the rotating read head, after being pulled across it by two spindles. There are typically at minimum 4 points of contact between the storage medium and another surface. Any dust or imperfection can cause damage, and the necessary tension on the tape slowly causes wear. Such conditions do not occur in optical media (at least not during normal playback). **However, if the intent is for archival purposes, this is a non-issue.**

Additionally, Re-producing a CD/DVD in perfect quality takes drastically less time than duplicating a VHS.

Now, Digital Video Tape may be better, if it includes error checking and allows for high-quality high-speed dubbing, which I believe it does. As far as long term STORAGE goes, Tapes are still used for important data, as they do tend to have Much longer shelf life than burned optical media. However, I do agree that as far as degradation goes, analog media tends to degrade much more gracefully (one of the reasons I dislike DTV)

I think it's really a question of what your needs are :)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[syousef]

I store all my family photos and video on multiple external hard drives, which I replace every few years. (I do not however wipe and reuse old drives, I just leave them in tact with all the data). I also make sure at least one copy is off site, though that copy only gets synchronised every 2-3 months. That strategy hopefully limits my exposure to 2-3 months. Hasn't failed me yet.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Doctor_Jest]

I know, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been such a C=64/Amiga snob. :) Playing the old titles on things like the Sega Genesis collection (PS2) are very fun... I just stuck with computers back then and shunned consoles as "not as good". :)

I particularly missed out on the RPGs... I loved CRPGs on my computers, and I figured the ones on the cartridges with no keyboards to control them would suck. I was totally wrong. :)

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[LordKronos]

Sure it's a design flaw, but not a Microsoft design flaw. Put it this way. What if it turned out there was some bug in the IBM processor they used that caused the processor to randomly fry itself completely? That would be IBMs fault. When you choose a vendor to supply your components, you expect those components to live up to specifications and industry standards.

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[innerweb]

Sure it's a design flaw, but not a Microsoft design flaw.

From the article for those too lazy to go to the top:The E74 error seems to be related to video problems. It's occasionally caused by a faulty AV cord, but more often than not, the solder on the ANA/HANA (in HDMI models) scaling chip has come loose.

Seems potentially a change in the material being used in the construction of the box. Maybe not, but it is the material failing based on a decision at MS. Changing materials would be something that needs to be tested thoroughly, as well as receiving a new batch of a material already being used (I work in manufacturing these days and that IS how it IS done. Now, it may be that they got a bad batch, or it may not, but however it comes out, what I said still stands. It would still be my ass on the line. I selected whatever supplier, or I changed the design specs. Whichever it might be, it would be my decision to use whatever was used that was then causing the error.

InnerWeb

Re:I don't quite see what this is about

[Zoshnell]

I hold the Phantom Console up to this standard. So secure IT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST!!!

This is a Microsoft plot

[BadAnalogyGuy]

They are gradually getting games accustomed to strange errors through the steady introduction of problems. As time goes on, these errors will become so prevalent that they become invisible to the average player.

As unlikely as it seems, this is actually Microsoft's strategy to decrease their own support costs. By reducing the helpdesk manual size to "have you checked that your cables are plugged in correctly?" and "Have you tried rebooting the machine?", they are also reducing the amount of time each support call requires. Reduced call times means fewer support technicians which means more money remains in Microsoft's pockets.

It's sad that they always think of the bottom line rather than their customers.

Re:This is a Microsoft plot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all a conspiracy!!!! Microsoft is responsible!!!!

Re:This is a Microsoft plot

[TheSeer2]

That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Re:This is a Microsoft plot

[baegucb]

And how often have you called MS for support? I have never done so, personally, or professionally. And I don't even recall meeting anyone who has.

And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

And who said Microsoft couldn't bring their high level of standards to the console world? The sad thing is that despite all these problems, their leading in this realm, too. It just shows that the world will eat up whatever second-rate crap they're fed and they'll keep on asking for more. MS has proven that twice now.

Re:And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right except you're wrong, Microsoft is not leading here by any meaningful metric

Re:And who said

[daveime]

And the late 20s / early 30s still-living-in-moms-basement, M$ is bad, OSS is good, information should be free except when it's under a GNU licence crowd you get in here are a "meaningful metric" ?

Yes, the most insignificant 0.007% of the population who have nothing better to do (myself included) than to post variations of "we hate microsoft" on a glorified BBS, and who have nothing but the support of our fellow peers modding us up or down to make us feel like we belong to an elite part of tech society.

I might have been tempted to say "you must be new here", except for the fact you didn't have the guts to post as anything but Anonymous Coward.

Sorry, I'm in a funny mood today ...

Re:And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about?
Whether MS is good or bad is of no interest here,
it's just that the MS box is not leading, the Nintendo boxes that everyone are hating are leading.
And i'm too lazy to even give a fake email to register, and seeing how well a 7digit account like you behave that doesn't sound like a good idea anyway.

capcha : despises
fitting i guess

Re:And who said

[__aamnbm3774]

"despite all these problems"... do we really know how many people the RROD and E74 affect? I've seen ridiculous reports at over 30%. Gimme a break. I know over a dozen people with 360s and only 1 had a RROD error, and that was after he moved to a different apartment, so who knows what happened in transit.

Whatever, this is slashdot, so logic and reasoning don't apply to MS bashing, but I enjoy my 360 over the higher priced, less games available, PS3 at the moment.

Re:And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

I know over a dozen people with 360s and only 1 had a RROD error...

Yes, the 360 is built like a Humvee, and this man has the anecdotal evidence to prove it!

...so logic and reasoning don't apply to MS bashing...

Calling out a company for knowingly pushing out shitty hardware is hardly bashing, kiddo. Grow up.

Re:And who said

[scubamage]

Are you effing kidding man? No offense, but chip creep? That hasn't been an issue in production hardware that *I* have seen for well over 15 years, possibly 20 - even in the cheapest, shoddiest equipment. For it to suddenly appear in an XBox 360 is nothing short of pathetic. Set your fanboyism aside - and don't kid yourself, reread your post and you'll see that's exactly what it is - just look at the actual issue.

For those who don't know what chip creep is, it's the term used to describe the movement of chips that occurs when they're not soldered/improperly soldered, and is caused by repetitive heating/cooling over a span of time. The metal expands and contracts, which eventually causes it to work itself loose. It's an issue as old as the hills, and its really pretty shameful for it to be occurring in the 360.

Re:And who said

[Leafheart]

The sad thing is that despite all these problems, their leading in this realm, too.

Nintendo would like to disagree with you.

Re:And who said

[binarylarry]

Well, actually they're a distant second.

Microsoft is basically the Linux of the console world.

Re:And who said

[__aamnbm3774]

what I'm saying is that I haven't seen this error, nobody I know has seen this error, maybe it only affects 300 consoles total. In which case, fire the guy who wasn't paying attention that day.

calm down, it'll be alright.

Re:And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

nintendo is the leader in consoles. Had sony released the PS3 at the same time as the 360 they would be ahead. In two years sony have sold 21 million whereas the 360 out for 3 years has sold 28 million. The PS3 was also only released in europe six months after the us release, and europe is their stronger base.

Re:And who said

[PitaBred]

Sure they are! They're selling more than the other HD capable console. It's like Ferrari leading Lamborghini in sales, while both of them are being out-profited by Toyota, which actually makes something normal people want and can afford and enjoy ;)

Re:And who said

[MBGMorden]

Depending on which statistics you're reading, Linux commands anywhere from 0.25% of the OS market as a low to 5% of the market as a high.

Xbox 360 accounts for 30% of worldwide current-gen console sales, compared to Nintendo's 48% (if you compare US numbers XBox 360 comes in at 31% and Wii at 54%). Even Playstation 3 at 23% and 15% (respectively) isn't that bad off in 3rd place.

It's far from a "distant" second, and aside from simply being in second place, the comparison is not valid at all.

Also, though I'm having trouble finding anything too new (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171200 is the best I could find with a quick search), the attachment rate (games sold per console) for the 360 has consistently been the highest of the current gen systems. Microsoft doesn't need to sell the most consoles if it sells more games per console.

Re:And who said

[yo_tuco]

"They're [Microsoft] selling more than the other HD capable console."

Hence, the OP said, "...the world will eat up whatever second-rate crap they're fed and they'll keep on asking for more."

Re:And who said

[Repossessed]

Buying Microsoft's second rate hardware for gaming keeps me from having to use their second rate software to do real work with.

I'd call this a fair trade.

Re:And who said

[Megane]

Also, though I'm having trouble finding anything too new, the attachment rate (games sold per console) for the 360 has consistently been the highest of the current gen systems.

That is easily explained.

A lot of people buy a Wii just for the Wii Sports pack-in, and maybe Wii Fit. Result? Low attach rate!

The PS3bots scream "It may be the most expensive, but it's really a great value since you can use it as a BluRay player!", and what happens when people buy it and mostly use it as a BluRay player? (or emulators under Linux) Low attach rate! (but not in the Sony bean-counter thinking, since they're pushing a Sony media format, most of which fail in obscurity.)

The 360 did have an HD-DVD option, but it was an expansion in a separate case, and thus was no substitute for a real player. And there's no one game (not even Halo 3) that sells tons of systems to people who want to do nothing but play that game. So if you buy a 360, you're buying it to play 360 games. Result? High attach rate!

The moral? "versatile" = low attach rate, and "pack-in game so awesome that non-traditional users buy it by the truckload" = low attach rate

Re:And who said

[thetoadwarrior]

It's amazing how many people repeat that BS from MS and Sony about how the Wii is something completely different to them and thus making Nintendo's monstrous lead invalid. They should be embarrassed that Nintendo can tape two Gamecube's together and beat the crap out of both Sony and MS.

The Wii isn't something different and it's not a toyota to MS's Ferrari. For starters in order for the 360 to be a Ferrari it shouldn't die just from looking at it funny and it should host the best selection of games rather than a very narrow selection of games featuring either WWII guys shooting each other in a first person view or homo-erotic space marines shooting each other in a first person view.

MS is losing the multimedia angle too especially with it looking like Netflix may come to the Wii. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/21/netflix-headed-for-the-wii/

The Wii also has better peripheral suport and support for real keyboards by just plugging your existing USB keyboard rather than selling some ugly keyboard thing to attach to your controller.

Then when you look at the arcade version, that's not even a Toyota let alone a Ferrari. Which is also cheaper than the Wii which sort of ruins your joke about the Wii being the cheap option. :P

As much as Microsoft would like people to think they're in some higher league of gaming than the Wii and that they some how offer something Nintendo can't; they are wrong. Sure they can offer better graphics but at a higher price through actual financial costs and lack of innovation.

The fact is Nintendo's hardware runs like a Ferrari and will last while the 360 is the cheap Yugo option that will fall apart in 6 months. ;)

Re:And who said

[thetoadwarrior]

What is Microsoft leading in? It's not console sales. They're in second place over all but only by 6/7 million units. They're in 3rd place in Japan and their lead over Sony outside of the US is only like 1 million units and this is despite being cheaper, supposedly having a better selection of games and at least a 1 year lead.

Sony doesn't even have to try that hard to over take Microsoft in the next round. All they have to do is try harder in one market, the US, and if they take that Microsoft won't have a chance because quite frankly the rest of the world doesn't care for the cheap hardware and limited variety in software.

I don't think a 6/7 million unit lead is that big but for those that do, keep in mind Nintendo has at least a 6 million unit in every market over Microsoft.

The numbers just show that Americans will eat up Microsoft's second-rate crap but that's simply because their games are very limited and very Americanised which is why they struggle elsewhere.

Re:And who said

[Blakey Rat]

For starters in order for the 360 to be a Ferrari it shouldn't die just from looking at it funny and it should host the best selection of games rather than a very narrow selection of games featuring either WWII guys shooting each other in a first person view or homo-erotic space marines shooting each other in a first person view.

Hey now! Mass Effect has homo-erotic space marines shooting each other in a THIRD-person view.

MS is losing the multimedia angle too especially with it looking like Netflix may come to the Wii. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/21/netflix-headed-for-the-wii/

So Netflix *is* on the 360, and *may be* coming to the Wii, and therefore "MS is losing the multimedia angle?"

The Wii also has better peripheral suport and support for real keyboards by just plugging your existing USB keyboard rather than selling some ugly keyboard thing to attach to your controller.

You could just plug a USB keyboard into the Xbox, too. The "ugly keyboard thing" is optional, you know, it works fine with off-the-shelf keyboards.

The fact is Nintendo's hardware runs like a Ferrari and will last while the 360 is the cheap Yugo option that will fall apart in 6 months. ;)

Ferrari's can go fast. Wiis barely beat the original Xbox, graphically.

Re:And who said

[CronoCloud]

It may be the most expensive, but it's really a great value since you can use it as a BluRay player!", and what happens when people buy it and mostly use it as a BluRay player? (or emulators under Linux) Low attach rate!The moral? "versatile" = low attach rate,

Agreed. I use my PS3... a lot, but Linux use probably outnumbers GameOS use in the number of hours it's been used for that purpose. It's just so versatile in what it can do, and if you bought a relatively early model, like I did (80GB MGS4 bundle), you also have PS1 and PS2 game compatibility. I rarely use it to watch DVD's or BD discs.

I bought my PS3 in June of last year and have 6 games for it: MGS4, Oblivion, Fallout 3, The Orange Box, Karaoke Revolution American Idol Encore, Guitar Hero III:Legends of Rock. I have around 60 PS2 games, and about 40 - 50 PS1 games.

Re:And who said

[Anonymous Coward]

Ferrari's can go fast. Wiis barely beat the original Xbox, graphically.

And it's easy for *that* particular Ferrari to go as fast as it does, seeing as someone went ahead and cut the brake lines.

Re:And who said

[sonicmerlin]

You FAIL at statistical analysis. GO TAKE A MATH CLASS.

Re:And who said

[__aamnbm3774]

I've taken several. I need things like 'numbers' in order to compute statistics. Although my sample is small (12 friends) I was not given anything else to work with.

Since you are so smart, maybe you can tell me what the actual numbers are. Oh, they're kept secret? So all we can do is make a best guess? Oh, well, thank you for your comment. It was really insightful. My numbers stand until you can provide something better to work from. (an unbiased random sample)

Re:And who said

[sonicmerlin]

There *are* stats. Other comments, including one in particular from a guy who apparently is heavily involved in video game console repair services, cited a nearly 100% failure rate on first generation 360's.

Heh, figures.

[rarel]

I don't want to troll, but that's exactly why I chose to buy a PS3 instead of a 360. It cost me more, and the 360 has *plenty* of games I'd like to play, but I just can't justify paying that kind of money for a shoddy brick that could actually be broken before I even plug it in for the first time.

I'm not disappointed by the PS3, I actually have quite a lot of fun with it, but I'd have bought a 360 Elite instead a long time ago if it weren't for the litany of failures reported everyfuckinwhere.

The games are cool, but they managed to ruin this making the hardware a piece of crap. Mod me troll if you like, that's just how it is.

Re:Heh, figures.

[skaet]

Hosestly, I don't know if anyone has actually bothered looking for the real failure rate rather than jumping on the /. Bash Microsoft Bandwagon. What do you suppose it is? /. would probably have you believe it's anywhere upwards of 30 or 40%. If you went to the retailers they'd tell you it's between 15 and 20%. Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds. Especially when they now have a 3 fucking year warranty. (see I can emphasize phrases with cuss words too!)

Call me a fanboi if you must, I have yet to see a problem. I've bought two Xbox 360 consoles - one original from 2007, the other from 2008. Neither one has ever RROD, crashed, over-heated, read error, scratched disc, or E74'd.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you prove something interesting, though: no xbox 360 fan seems incapable of owning just -one- xbox 360.

Everyone I have talked to about their xbox has bought at least 2; either because one of them broke down, or for -no damn good reason-.

My Wii is being played 'upside down'. I have dropped it, accidentally kicked it, had a piece of paper get wedged in the CD slot by mistake...and my Wii doesn't even hesitate on a loading screen. Have you tried to do any of that with your xbox? Yeah, thought not; have fun with your pansy computer that can't handle the abuse of -moving-.

Re:Heh, figures.

[ericrost]

I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I am on my third Xbox (I've only purchased one). The first one would sometimes freeze up on powerup, sometimes give an E74, and they wouldn't replace it till it RROD'd, it lasted two months. The second one lasted just over a year (long enough for the standard warranty to run out) it started randomly freezing up in the midst of games, the menus, etc and at completely random intervals. They refused to replace it. Flatly refused, the only thing the 3 year warranty is for is RROD's. Eventually (a few weeks later) it did RROD:

Advice for the unfortunate out there, don't pay $100 or so to ship your console to Microsoft if its freezing up, wait a bit and actually use it and put up with the freezing for a few weeks, it seems likely to result in a RROD.

Re:Heh, figures.

[lubricated]

There is a high failure rate and then there is the stuff that doesn't show up in the statistics. I've owned two 360's. The first one got stolen. The first one also would randomly freeze up from overheating. Even though it was placed away from other electronics on it's own table. My new one doesn't overheat but the drive in there is shoddy and gets read errors from random reads. This is now sort of fixed since you can now install games to the hard drive. The point is that neither of these consoles would have been recorded on the failure rate. The three year warranty only covers red ring of death issues after the first year.

I also have a ps3. It was a waste of money, I prefer to play games on my 360, I prefer to watch movies on my htpc. The only game I've liked on the ps3 is metal gear. Little big planet was made for little japanese girls.

Re:Heh, figures.

[berend botje]

I'm now on my ninth Xbox 360. All replaced under warranty. I've had multiple RRoD's, one dead-on-arrival, scratched disks (they didn't replace the disks) and other failures.

So, lets make this very clear.

I bought an Xbox 360, which broke. It was replaced, and it broke. It was replaced, and that one broke. It was replaced, and it broke again. It was replaced, and it broke, just as the ones before. It was replaced, and it broke. It was, once again, replaced, and it broke. It was replaced, and it broke, as usual. It was replaced, and now I'm waiting for it to break.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Threni]

> Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds

Things have pretty much changed over the last 30 odd years if people genuinely believe a 1 in 6 failure rate is acceptable.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Blimey85]

I bought one a 360 a couple years back and it just failed two months ago. I went online, filled out a quick form, MS sent me a box, I sent in the unit, had it back right away and it's working great again. Less than 2 weeks total downtime. Sure it would be great to have no downtime at all, but hardware fails. If MS hadn't extended the warranty on the unit to cover these failures then I would be upset but I feel like they've done a fairly good job of taking care of the mess after the fact.

To me the PS3 is too spendy and the games I really like are all 360 titles. Gears of War, Halo, and lately the big one has been Fallout 3. Sure I can get that on PS3 but the dlc isn't avail for PS3. The first expansion wasn't all that great IMO but for the money it wasn't all that bad either. Second one comes out tomorrow and then the big one in a month or two. If I had a PS3 and had bought this for PS3, I would have paid the same $$ for the game but wouldn't be able to buy the expansions that make the game that much better. The third expansion will lift the level cap from 20 to 30 and change the ending. That's significant.

So yea, the hardware failures suck but they aren't the end of the world when you can just mail your unit in and get it repaired pretty quick. MS even covers shipping.

Re:Heh, figures.

[cawpin]

How in the world are you on your 9th fucking console? I can understand 1, or maybe even 2, but not 9. That has to be something specific to your environment or your destruction of the console.

I bought a 360 2 years ago and it has been just fine the whole time I've had it. It's never locked up and never RRODed on me.

I don't understand how you can kill 9 of them. And that's what it is at this point, you're killing them, they aren't dieing.

Re:Heh, figures.

[AvitarX]

Based on the losses MS estimated for the RRoD warranty, and the units sold at the time.

30% of the 1st batch of 360's is a reasonable estimate. I imagine that with time it went down though.

Re:Heh, figures.

[MWoody]

So, you are - by your own admission - missing out on games you want to play on the small chance you might, at some point in the next few years, possibly have to send it in for repair under its extensive warranty? Is that supposed to make sense?

For what it's worth, launch day 360 here, never had the slightest glitch. Sees a fuck-ton of use, too, and does it while sitting in a cramped little stand. And, in the interest of fairness, it's sitting next to an equally functional launch ps3.

Re:Heh, figures.

[AbRASiON]

Actually 75% of the 'cool' games on the 360 are on the PS3 and PC as well, it's just that people associate them with the 360.
Just because SFIV, DMC4, COD4, Burnoute Paradise, Dead Space, Oblivion are on the 360, doesn't mean they aren't on the PS3 as well.

Love my PS3, best console I've ever owned (ok except my Xbox 1 but hey XBMC is amazing)

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do want to troll, and that's why I bought an Xbox360! J/K! I do want to troll though...

I saved up for over a year to buy an HDTV and a 360. Meanwhile most of my friends jumped on the $600 PS3 ship when it set sail. Around the time I actually spent the $1500 on the HDTV, one of my friend's PS3s stopped reading blu-rays. Last Christmas I decided to get a 360 Elite, and within a week of bringing that one home, another friend's PS3 stopped reading blu-rays.

That's two failed $600 PS3s. Now, for the cost of those two failed PS3s I could buy six 360's. According to the fake numbers people are throwing around in this thread, that would guarantee me 5 working ones and one RROD.

I guess what this thread is really boiling down to now is this: Which paperweight is more attractive to you, a $200 one or a $600 one that says Blu-Ray on it?

Re:Heh, figures.

[berend botje]

Perhaps I'm killing them (except for the one DOA), however I'm not sure how I do that.

They are stationary, in a well ventilated space. No extreme temperatures or humidity. No pets, no kids. There are no known issues with the power company (no brown-/blackouts in over a decade).

So please tell me how I kill them. It would save me a trip to the post office every now and then.

It seems I'm not alone in this. Google is filled to the brim with people that are on their n'th replacement.

So maybe it isn't me. Maybe it isn't all the others that suffer high failure rates. Maybe, just maybe, it's that the design or build quality is poor. I think so, at least.

Re:Heh, figures.

[bartosek]

Speaking from personal experience that 1 in 6 set of odds is only for the first 360 you buy. If you have to send it in for warranty repair/work then you get a refurbished unit which has a significantly higher rate of failure. In my case I went through 3 refurbs which each arrived DOA before I sold my 360 and all my games and went and bought a PS3.

I went against my conscience and bought a 360 because it had some cool games, but it wasn't worth it, and that's the last dime of my money that M$ gets.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many have not had their xbox fail? Mine hasn't. It does seem an unusually high failure rate, and I know personally of several, but mine has been great and error free.
p.s. not an MS fanboy, Mac fanboy if anything

Re:Heh, figures.

[Pohket]

... If you went to the retailers they'd tell you it's between 15 and 20%. Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds. ...

Basic math and knowledge of ratios tells us that 1 in 6 (1:6 or 1/6) is actually 16.6666....%

You don't like 15-20%, but you like 1 in 6?

Re:Heh, figures.

[mister_playboy]

I felt that way too... until I got the RROD on my Elite. Lesson learned! I'll send it in to be replaced, but I refuse to spend any more money on games or add-ons. Microsoft benefits from each person that thinks "surely it won't happen to me..."

Re:Heh, figures.

[Five Bucks!]

It depends on the failure rate, obviously, but you're one VERY unlucky person if this is the case.

Failure Rate
1%: 0.01^9 = 10*10^-18 * 27930000(360s sold) = 2.79*10^-11 people have experienced nine replacements

10%: 0.1^9 = 1.0*10^-9*27930000 = 0.028 people have experienced nine replacements

50%: 54550 people have experienced nine replacements.

I tend to believe that the failure rate isn't 50%, or there'd be class action lawsuits. In any case, you're a truly unlucky person.

Re:Heh, figures.

[foo fighter]

Or put a heat gun/hair dryer on the air intake.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a launch day 360. It sits in on a shelf in an AV cabinet beneath my TV and works flawlessly as the day I purchased it. Its been used several times a week since it was purchased-- Up until a few weeks ago.

But not because it's broken. It still works fine. I wanted a newer unit with HDMI support, so I picked up one of the newer arcade units with integrated flash and cooler/quieter die-shrunk chips.

But since my anecdote is a positive one, it won't go past -1, troll.

Re:Heh, figures.

[rochrist]

As for myself, I just got E74's, 13 months into the life of the console. Our PS2 still runs fine after 5 years.

Re:Heh, figures.

[berend botje]

Truly off-topic, but it's neat you're living in Paradise! :-)

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

There needs to be a (-1, False Matyr) rating for people who claim to expect to be modded troll.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Workaphobia]

Eight replacements is a bit absurd, but if it was going to happen to any consumer electronics hardware, it'd be a 360. Microsoft has had a terrible time designing and producing it, as has been well documented over the years.

Re:Heh, figures.

[thesandtiger]

I'm on my first - I got an Elite when the Micro Center by me ran a sale when the Elite was first introduced. I've had no issues with it at all, though I probably don't use it as much as some, and almost certainly not for as many consecutive hours as some - maybe 12 hours a week, though there was a month when I was ill where I probably played 5-6 hours at a shot every day, and 10+ hours if I had friends over to visit.

Maybe I'm lucky, maybe the Elite version was more solidly constructed, no idea. That's got to be really frustrating having it break - and I do admit to pangs of fear every time I'm bringing home a new game I'm eager to play: will this be the time it breaks? Fortunately those pangs are momentary and totally outweighed by the fun :)

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I'm killing them (except for the one DOA), however I'm not sure how I do that.

They are stationary, in a well ventilated space. No extreme temperatures or humidity. No pets, no kids. There are no known issues with the power company (no brown-/blackouts in over a decade).

So please tell me how I kill them. It would save me a trip to the post office every now and then.

It seems I'm not alone in this. Google is filled to the brim with people that are on their n'th replacement.

So maybe it isn't me. Maybe it isn't all the others that suffer high failure rates. Maybe, just maybe, it's that the design or build quality is poor. I think so, at least.

I have an old 360. I first played it in the summer when the Xmen game movie game first came out (rental). It was hot outside and the video started to have artifacts, like when a video card is over heating. Maybe their ventilation is just barely adequate in an AirCon room and degrades over time. Whatever the cause, I bought a $20 snap-on fan for the 360 and have never had another problem since. The stock fan was quiet and the snap on less so, but it beats a trip to the post office.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Alamais]

> -no damn good reason-

Two-screen multiplayer with friends? At least, that's why I bought my second (used, broken, and now RROD-repaired) 360.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Kneo24]

1 in 6 is terrible. At most you'd want 3 in 100, or 3%. I doubt any other company that manufacture's any sort of electronics could get away with 1 in 6. So the question remains, why are you and countless others giving them a free pass for their shitty processes which leak this bullshit through?

Re:Heh, figures.

[Your.Master]

If we assume the RROD failure rate has been a constant 33% (a number that a quick Google search says is the conservative rate estimate reported by a number of retailers as of ~Feb 2008) for the entire time (anecdotes show the RROD problem is less common on more recent revs but I have no stats) for a typical environment, the odds are a bit less than one in twenty thousand.

So, conservatively, given a bit more than 25 million 360's out there (estimate from Nov 2008, I can't be bothered to get more recent), that means about 1200 users on their 9th, making your claim reasonable, though still an outlier.

That said, I think the failure rate more recently is lower; then again, the older failure rate could be higher even than 33%...I doubt it, though. Still, you're not in the realm of utter disbelief. Just really shitty luck.

I'm still on my first 360 from the first gen. No RROD. I guess I'm part of the lucky 67%.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Purity Of Essence]

Obviously, you're not a Backgammon player.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should just ship your XBOX to MS and say it's RROD'd. Thing is that MS has such a high volume of RRODs that they just take yours and throw it into a "to do" pile and just ship a refurb.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Blakey Rat]

Right now, someone at Microsoft Games is reading your post and going, "wow, our console is so great that a Slashdotter, from a community that usually hates everything Microsoft, has replaced their machine fully 8 times in order to play the great games we offer!"

Heh. For what it's worth, I'm on my second 360. The first one was a day-of-launch model that lasted fine until like 2 months ago. But maybe I'm just lucky, I dunno.

Re:Heh, figures.

[MMMDI]

If you have to send it in for warranty repair/work then you get a refurbished unit

Not entirely true. I know that they send a refurb if your console is beyond repair or in other special circumstances, but myself and a couple of friends have all had to send in the console for RRoD repair - we've all got our original, repaired consoles back (verified by the serial number, and in one guy's case, the stickers).

Re:Heh, figures.

[LackThereof]

Why is parent modded funny?

Seriously, this is what most 360 owners do if they have a hardware failure that's not a RROD and thus not covered under the extended warranty. Either subject it to a hairdryer, or wrap it in towels and run it until it RROD's.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Threni]

I'm a casual Backgammon gambler and don't tend to risk that level of stakes...

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to RROD figures, I've always wanted to see the data grouped by country. I say this because in Australia, I don't know a single person who has had their Xbox 360 fail. I've had mine over a year and no problems with it what-so-ever. No freezing, slowdown or anything.

But I continuously hear American consumers complain about the shoddy wuality of the hardware. It's made me wonder if the place that manufactures the consoles for American consumers is cutting corners in ways the Australia producers aren't.

Re:Heh, figures.

[skaet]

Correct, the original batch was around 30%, but they're impossible to buy now so the figure is out-of-date.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they call it the Xbox 360?

Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.

Re:Heh, figures.

[RomanesEuntDomus]

What likely happened is he was one of the unlucky ~30%. Then he gets shipped somebody else's badly refurbished RROD. This process then continues until he is lucky enough to get shipped a brand new console. Good luck.

For my anecdotal story. I have all 3 current gen consoles. My 360 gives me read errors. When a game comes out that is for both 360 and PS3, I always buy the PS3 version as I get a flawless play experience. Shame on MS for producing such a shoddy console.

Re:Heh, figures.

[Five Bucks!]

It's a misnomer, unfortunately :p
It's sadly lacking in proper greenspace and urban planning.

The GoogleEarth imagery is very out of date; there's not half the amount of trees anymore :(

Sony not much better

[abigsmurf]

There's a lot being said about the infamous red ring of death killing 360's but Sony are getting almost no coverage of their issues.

There's been a large scale problem of Blu Ray drives in PS3s dying from the Diode burning out. This recently happened to me when I wanted to dust off the console to play RE5. I've replaced drive heads in the PS2 before so I thought I'd save £60 and repair it myself. Turns out the drive head that is in 'all EU 40gb ps3s' with two lenses, isn't in mine and I have to fork out another £60 on top of what I've spent already to get the correct part...

There seems to be two main possible causes of this happening: a patch increased the voltage going to the drive in an attempt to speed up the slow load times, some models can't take this and fail (the way the drives take a while to fail completely and cases focus around big new releases that force you to patch make this seem possible).

Second is turning the power switch off when there's a disc in the drive, apparently the drive hates it and is very sensative to power fluctations. Seems incredibly crappy if this is the case. I hate leaving things in standby.

I just can't understand why modern games consoles have so many problems. I've never had any drive fail except in consoles, Not even the cheapest, nastiest generic drives I could get have ever failed.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

any documentation or a reliable link to prove that this is a "large scale problem"? i've had my ps3 since launch date with no problems.

Re:Sony not much better

[grodzix]

First version(s) of PSX had plastic elements in their cd drive instead of metal ones to decrease cost. As it turned out they got worn out much quicker than predicted so they've fixed it with putting in propper metal parts.

Also I heard that some versions had serious overheating issues when used for a long time.

You know, nothing new here. If you try to cut costs the quality gonna go down in one or other place.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, there's a reason they aren't getting much coverage. Maybe because it isn't happening (on a large scale, anyway).

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not getting coverage because the scale of the problems is vastly smaller. I've neither known anyone who suffered this problem or even heard of this problem. Xbox's and X360's are dropping like flies and always have been. Every complicated peice of hardware is going to have glitches and failures, but a few reports does not a 'large scale' problem make.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. And it seems like most of abigsmurf's problem is that he decided to do the repair himself and he bought THE WRONG FUCKING PART! If you're going to try to repair something yourself, it really helps if you know what you're doing. And then when you screw that up, you should only be getting mad at yourself, not the company who would've gladly fixed it for you. Then again, sounds like today's I-take-no-responsibility-for-my-actions youth. Now get off my lawn!

Re:Sony not much better

[abigsmurf]

Google: ps3 won't read discs. there are plenty of forums full of people with PS3s with dead drives.

There are lots of people recently having this problem, specifically from the end of feb. There are measures which seem to fix it for a week or so, but as soon as your PS3 starts struggling to read discs, it's on the verge of death.

Although the scale of it is hard to guess, the same thing is happening to a lot of people suddenly.

Sony have suggested there's nothing wrong with their patches it's just that lots of people dusted off their consoles to play RE5 or KZ2 which is why there's been a sudden surge of failures.

Re:Sony not much better

[abigsmurf]

Yes... Try thinking before you write.

How would me buying the wrong part for my already broken console be the cause of the breakage? As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.

Re:Sony not much better

[AC-x]

> Not even the cheapest, nastiest generic drives I could get have ever failed.

Really? I usually end up replacing my optical drives in my PC every 18-24 months or so as they get slowly worse and worse at reading discs (even after cleaning). At less then £20 each I'm not really surprised tho.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading before you write.

At no point did I ever claim or insinuate that your purchasing the wrong part is what caused the breakage. I did however claim that your inability to perform the repair by yourself is the root cause of your angst. Or would you still be pissed off if you had been able to fix it yourself? I'm guessing you wouldn't.

Re:Sony not much better

[abigsmurf]

Erm yes? I would've been?

Even if the part had been the correct one, I'd still be out £40 and had to have spent an afternoon taking the console apart, not to mention the time spent restoring the console and backing up the save files. 'Most of my problem' is the console breaking in the first place.

Re:Sony not much better

[Megane]

As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.

Are you sure about that? The way Sony was talking just before the PS3 was released, I'm sure I remember them claiming it had psychic powers, and the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, too!

Re:Sony not much better

[gregorio]

That's simply the Sony Timer in action. The Japanese consumer is extremely lenient when it comes to faulty products. They won't mind if a product breaks after the warranty expires, as they're always buying new, updated stuff anyway.

Sony was never a synonym of quality. They used to be the usual kind of cheap rip-off oriental electronics company and all their products were cloned crap. The current Sony image was obtained by a marketing campaign from the late 80's - early 90's.

They started to sell a few premium devices by the end of the 80's, as part of that campaign. And now they're able to sell the same crap they used to sell before, while convincing you it's a premium product. The Bravia TV line, for an instance, is a line composed of crappy TVs with a high aesthetic appeal and a good marketing campaign to convince you it is the best TV line of the market. But when you really look at it, they use the worst kinds of panel available (but they configure the boards to saturate all colors, for a "woooww!!" effect at the TV store), along with the crappiest signal boards, filled with the same Taiwanese all-in-one chips used inside TVs costing nearly half as much.

Re:Sony not much better

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

put on standby FIRST, THEN turn of the switch. you know it's safe to turn off the switch when the power LED turns red.

simply cutting the power to any modern electronics is a recipe for disaster. stand-by firts, power off later. serves for consoles, TVs, computers, and the like.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not the blu-ray drive it is one of the controller chips that go bad and need replacing.
http://www.modsupplier.com/catalog/ps3-bd7956fs-p-264.html

Re:Sony not much better

[Klaus_1250]

Not sure if it is large scale, but it is not uncommon. The issue made it on a large Dutch consumer tv show, because Sony was charging people 200 euro for repairs even though it should fall under warranty (Sony claims there is only a 1 year warranty on the PS3, but Dutch consumer law states that warranty extends to the expected life-time of a product; essentially Sony tried to claim that the PS3 only has a one-year life-time).

Re:Sony not much better

[Bert64]

I hardly ever use optical drives, i might use it once to install a system and then not use it again for months... I guess they might fail more quickly if they were heavily used. The drives in consoles are typically used a lot more heavily... Except the first xbox, where you could copy the games to HD.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed, my ps3 also had problems, stopped reading blueray first, then games too.
took it back, GAME had heard of the problem and said i was unlucky, swapped it same day. i'd only had the ps3 3 months. 80 GB version.

Re:Sony not much better

[realisticradical]

I think one major reason that the XBox gets so much coverage of its hardware failures is because they have a good name and visual. It's easy to talk about the dreaded Red Ring of Death much less interesting to talk about hardware failures or scratched disks. Language goes a long way towards shaping the debate.

Re:Sony not much better

[Workaphobia]

In some ways that's just a natural consequence of the fact that consoles are not modular like PCs. For all the grief hardware variety has caused PC software (including games) developers and users, it does cause consumer choice (free market, yada yada) to force the best parts to the top.

Re:Sony not much better

[Workaphobia]

As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.

Actually, that's not the impression I got from Sony's adverts a couple years ago. In fact, it was pretty explicitly the opposite.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason it's not happening on a large scale isn't because it's made any better, it's because next to no one bought one. (At least outside of Japan.)

When you have less than half the install-base of your competitor, of course you're going to have fewer people running into them breaking.

But they do routinely break.

Re:Sony not much better

[Yeef]

It is happening (though you're right, not on a huge scale), chiefly to people with old 60gb models (like me). I actually had the same exact problem as the OP. Halfway through RE5 my laser crapped out. I shelled out 75 bucks and got a new one, but during my research I found tons of people having the same problem.

The reason it's not reported much is because:
- The occurrence of the problem seems to be relatively low (supposedly less than 1% of all PS3s)

- The PS3 has a smaller install base with a slower uptake than the 360. It seems to be happening to mainly the launch/early models (which most people don't have), but the fear is that in a year or two the newer models will have the same problem.

- It's covered by the one-year warranty and relatively easy to fix yourself if it's out of warranty. Sometimes it's not even the cause of a dead last; just a dusty one, so you don't even have to buy any replacement parts.

When my laser broke I was interested in buying a new one straight from Sony. There's apparently a bad replacement model of the laser (you can spot the difference because it has a white clip instead of a brown one) Of course, they can't offer anything like that, because it'd be admitting that there's a problem, so you just have to try your chances with 3rd party vendors and hope that their image is accurate and not just a stock photo.

Re:Sony not much better

[jandrese]

Dead laser diodes have been a problem on the Playstation platform going back all the way to the original PSx models. Probably the most common cause of failure outside of perhaps the spindle motor. That said, it's typically considered a risk of owning the system so you don't get a lot of press coverage over it. Plus, the PSx and PS2 were both cheap enough that if the thing crapped out after 3 or 4 years of play, it wouldn't break the bank to replace it, especially since you'd be buying one of the considerably cheaper late model versions.

I've long wondered how much of the PS2s strong sales numbers are coming from people who are replacing old broken ones.

Re:Sony not much better

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had two ps3s and they both broke and were replaced for free.... I also have a friend with a ps3 who had it replaced once but had to pay because he bought it used.

It is definitely happening with PS3, just there are not as many people WITH ps3s, so it is less obvious.

Meanwhile MS is killing off PC gaming

[syousef]

I don't think it was even reported on slashdot, but those Microsoft job cuts in Jan/Feb included all but 6 members of the Aces Studio team that developed Microsoft Flight Simulator for about a quarter century. After creating a buggy resource hog with version 10 which required 2 service packs to make bearable (and it's still buggy by most accounts), they simply killed off one of the best educational tools they ever built.

Re:Meanwhile MS is killing off PC gaming

[abigsmurf]

So is it a bad thing they laid of the studio that ruined flight simulator or a good thing then?

MS does do a lot for PC gaming. For all the negativity DirectX gets on here, they work heavily with graphics card makers and software developers creating each version, including it in their consoles enables easier ports between consoles and PC gaming making PC titles get a chance at a wider audience and in general most games companies are generally happy using the API over alternatives solutions such as OpenGL and SDL.

Re:Meanwhile MS is killing off PC gaming

[cyber-vandal]

I've never seen any negativity about the quality of DX, only about the platform lock-in. AFAIK it is a good library - if only it was cross-platform like the others.

Re:Meanwhile MS is killing off PC gaming

[Blakey Rat]

I don't think it was even reported on slashdot, but those Microsoft job cuts in Jan/Feb included all but 6 members of the Aces Studio team that developed Microsoft Flight Simulator for about a quarter century. After creating a buggy resource hog with version 10 which required 2 service packs to make bearable (and it's still buggy by most accounts), they simply killed off one of the best educational tools they ever built.

While I agree that Microsoft is killing off their Flight Sim product (or at least retiring it for a long period of time), saying that they're "killing PC gaming" is ridiculous.

Microsoft does more to keep PC gaming alive than any other single company, except perhaps Valve. I mean, why would Microsoft spend so much time and effort on DirectX if not to directly support the PC gaming industry?

And their Games for Windows certification program is specifically designed to combat Windows games developers who do a shitty QA job and shovel out crap that drives people to consoles. Say what you want about how successful it's been, but at least if a game has the "Games for Windows" logo on it, I know it fucking *works*, regardless of what video card you have. (Which is a lot more than you can say for the typical non-logo-ed Windows game.) The quality of PC games has been abysmal for years, decades even, and Microsoft is doing their best to fix the problems.

Overheating

[grodzix]

The overheating issue is quite funny one as XBox 360 has external power supply ^^ (and as far as I know power supply is quite important temperature increase factor).

Re:Overheating

[Anonymous Coward]

The overheating issue is quite funny one as XBox 360 has external power supply ^^ (and as far as I know power supply is quite important temperature increase factor).

Actually, the processors inside the unit also generate a substantial amount of heat. That's why they all have these giant heatsinks on them.

Re:Overheating

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the processors inside the unit also generate a substantial amount of heat. That's why they all have these giant heatsinks on them.

Sure, they ALSO do, but a power supply is a very significant source of heat. This is why they usually have dedicated, active cooling.

The guy's got a point, other consoles have power supplies stuffed in the unit, and run quieter than a 360 with external brick. Hard to blame their problems on the heat, even if heat caused them.

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

Artist: Johnny Rebel Song: who likes a nigger

L.B.J. was a-flyin' one morn', Over south Louisiana...feeling for alarm, When he looks down below, and what does he see?, Two cajuns pullin' a nigger on ski's!, So he lands, and says, "Thanks for helping your black brother!", And them two cajuns just looked at each other, And said, "He might be smart, but I'll tell you something...", "He don't know a thing about alligator huntin'!", O-wop-bop-bam-bam, Who likes a nigger?, o-wop-bop-bam-bam
(CHORUS), Who likes a nigger?, o-wop-bop-bam-bam, Who likes a nigger?, And the hatin', everybody, is a-gettin' much bigger, Rich man travelin' down thru the South, Stopped in Mississippi to get a tooth pulled out, When he paid the doctor the charges due, He said "My nigger chauffer's got a bad tooth, too", "Well, I'll pull it...", said the doc, "but you'd better not holler!, Cause I'll have to charge you $200.00, Cause here in Mississippi he can't open his mouth, We'll have to go thru his bottom, to get the thing out!"
Chorus
There ain't much difference 'tween a nigger and a donkey, 'Bout as much between an ape and a monkey, Ones a little bigger, but you gotta agree, There's not very much more that you can see., But a mule earns his livin' by the sweat of his neck, While a nigger sits down and draws a gov't check, The nigger should be smarter, as a general rule, But in a spelling contest, I'd pick the mule!

Artist: Johnny Rebel Song: nigger hating me

I like sugar, and I like tea, But I don't like niggers...no siree!, There's two known things that'll make me puke, And that's a hog eatin' slop, and a big, black spook!, You know it...cause I show it, Like a barn-yard rooster I crow it!, And the NAACP, Would sure like to get a-hold of nigger-hatin' me!, Roses are red, and violet's are blue, And nigger's are black, you know that's true, But they don't mind, cause what the heck!, You gotta be black to get a welfare check!, And I'm broke...no joke, I ain't got a nickel for a coke!, And I ain't black, you see, So Uncle Sam won't help poor nigger-hatin' me., Jig-A-Boo, jig-a-boo...where are you?, I's here in the woodpile...watchin' you, Jig-A-Boo, jig-a-boo...come out!, No! Cause I'm scared of the white man's a-way down South, You know it!...cause I show it., Stick your black head out and I'll blow it!, And the NAACP, Can't keep you away from little old nigger-hatin' me!, Mirror, mirror...on the wall, Who is the blackest of them all?, A man named King, and there ain't no doubt, That he's causin' lots of trouble with his baboon mouth., Brewin'...he's a doin', It's caused by the trouble he's a-brewin', And the NAACP, Can't win if the white men stick with nigger-hatin' me!, Hey! Mr. President! What do you say?, When are we whites gonna have our day?, The nigger's had there's such a long, long time, I'm white, and it's time that I had mine!, You know it...cause I show it!, Stick your black head out and I'll blow it!, And the NAACP, Can't win if the white man sticks with nigger-hatin' me

Artist: Johnny Rebel Song: Affirmative Action

Affirmative action, what's this country coming to?, Affirmative action, what's the white man gonna do?, It's another government handout and simply said, "You've got to hire a nigger instead", I was down at the office, cleaning up the joint, Just doing a little extra, making brownie points, Cause I'd heard somebody say, a promotion's on the line, So I was working hard, I wa.nted that promotion to be mine, So I asked the CEO if I could have a try, He said "you work hard, son and I know you qualify., You're the best man for the job but it's out of my hands, I've got to give it to a nigger, courtesy of Uncle Sam", Oh affirmative action, what's this country coming to?, Affirmative action, what's the white man gonna do?, It's another government handout and simply said, "You've got to hire a nigger instead.", Now I went looking for a new job the very next day., I got an interview and things were surely going my way.., I was asked a lot of questions, I was giving it

Microsoft's mascot should be a bug

[Anonymous Coward]

The early releases of Windows Vista and the xbox 360 remind me of Microsoft's special touch.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030329

After this long...

[sunami88]

All this time since launch, and consoles are still dropping. I feel a fool for giving them my money *stares pointedly at his 360 with messed up video output*.

Call me a troll, but I feel ripped off: Fucking FAIL

Re:After this long...

[Megane]

Call me a troll too, but I can't help feeling awesome for having waited all this time. But I have almost every TV console system released in North America from the PS2/GC/XBox era all the way back to Channel F, so it's not like I have a lack of things to play. And I even have a Wii but play my PS2 instead.

I'm still leery about a system that nobody has cracked yet (I love my two jukebox XBoxes and will do it to fat PS2s when I have the time), but mostly it's the RROD and disc-eating that I wanted to avoid. Now that the 65nm/65nm units are out, and the new LiteOn drives are supposed to be more reliable, maybe I'll get one later this year. That is, if there's something I want to play badly enough to pull me away from my PS2.

And the replies in this article are the first I've heard of PS3 hardware problems... ah yes, good old drive decay. I hope you "but it's such a great value because it plays BluRay movies!" people finally understand why it's BAD to use a video game system to play movies. Me, I'm still pissed that they took out the PS2 compatibility, and didn't even keep it as an option. Now if I want one someday, I'll have to worry about the drive dying too. The good news is as long as the drive works long enough to install Linux, it's still a good emulator platform, even with the gimped graphics access.

Re:After this long...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, call me a troll! I'll even link you to goatse! Please??

Re:After this long...

[Anonymous Coward]

well you can call ME a troll, but you're all ugly

Re:After this long...

[drinkypoo]

Call me a troll, but I feel ripped off: Fucking FAIL

I won't call you troll, I'll call you "early adopter" which is more like fool - especially given the track record of the original Xbox.

Re:After this long...

[sunami88]

I waited a full year after launch to buy my console.

Re:After this long...

[drinkypoo]

I waited a full year after launch to buy my console.

I thought this site was news for nerds? Apply a little mental grease. You have to wait for all of the original model to clear the channel, and long enough for any new models to prove themselves. Just waiting isn't enough, you also have to do research and make a pragmatic decision about your purchase. I held off on the original Xbox until things were well-settled, have had it for years, and am only now having optical drive problems. I waited until XBMP would run on it, too. But the game playing aspect wasn't enough to sell me :P

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually chocked full or informative links and information. Interesting.

360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox 360 consoles were dying in store demo kiosks months before the console went on sale.

> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed it was incompetent store employees who didn't know how to hook up a console

Xbox 360 consoles were dying at game media offices months before the console went on sale.

> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed it was just pre-release hardware and the real consoles wouldn't have those problems

Xbox 360 consoles were dying when they went on sale to the general public

> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed that they were just the first batch and that once production got moving those 'kinks' would be worked out

Every new Xbox 360 model continued to have massive numbers of hardware failures

> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed the new models about to come out fix those problems

Microsoft knew about the problems before the console was released and they went right ahead and put the turd of console up for sale regardless. They knew they had a fundamentally botched hardware design and lied through their teeth about the defective hardware until they finally had to fork out 1.1 billion in repair bills.

There is ZERO incentive for Microsoft to ship working hardware. The niche Xbox fanbase of the console market has demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to buy 3,4,5 or more new consoles without hesitation. It has helped inflate the installed base for the 360 mostly in the US but done nothing in Japan and Europe where the number of fanatical Microsoft fans is tiny.

The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.

Either:

1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners

2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Dr. Manhattan]

PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners

Actually, that's not a completely unreasonable prospect. There's been more exclusives for the 360 in the past couple of years. (No, I'm not an xbot, just being honest.) That being said, the 360's hardware issues seem likely to be the bigger contributor, at least IMHO. (Oh, and this year's looking pretty good for the PS3, game-wise. I'm pretty hopeful about inFamous.)

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[johannesg]

Not only that, but people who own both consoles might prefer to buy multiplatform games for PS3, since that platform has less problems and might be expected to have a longer future (Sony supports its old consoles, Microsoft drops them like hot potatoes).

But still... I have long wondered if Microsoft might be counting replacement sales as fresh sales. It would be interesting to know the real number of people actively using their consoles (for all three consoles).

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[LordKronos]

Xbox 360 consoles were dying in store demo kiosks months before the console went on sale.

Really? I didn't know any stores had them on display before they were available (I certainly never saw any), and stores are usually pretty reluctant to waste floor space on a product they can't actually sell yet.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[CronoCloud]

I saw them, about a month or so before the 360 launch. They had an interesting looking demo disc in them....at least until the one in the local big box store died. And they keep dying, they can't keep the 360 demo station up. Reminds me of the later PS2 days when PS2 in-store demo stations began showing DRE's and since the PS3 was either out or soon to come out, they didn't replace the "fat" PS2's in them

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Tharsman]

Xbox 360 consoles were dying in store demo kiosks months before the console went on sale.

PS3 consoles where dying in store dome kiosks months AFTER the console went on sale. I think there is a big reason XBox consoles fail more: more people have them and people that have them play them WAY more than people that have PS3s. Stress anything enough and the quality won't matter, it WILL break.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[SenseiLeNoir]

Disagree totally.

Even at release the PS3 was a capable BluRay player, and was used as such, as well as a games console. It also had upscaling DVD, and DivX playback, from either USB, HD, or network. Add to that the built in Folding@home client, PlayTV DVB DVR system, Web Browsing (with YouTube) and a few other tricks meant that the PS3 was being used for more than just playing games, and that non game use is increasing.

Yet it seems the system is takign it with stride.

I certainly use my PS3 for much more than just a games machine.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Nick Ives]

Not only that, but people who own both consoles might prefer to buy multiplatform games for PS3, since that platform has less problems and might be expected to have a longer future (Sony supports its old consoles, Microsoft drops them like hot potatoes).

I think that's a little bit unfair to MS. They acknowledged that they dropped support for the original Xbox far too rapidly but that was due to several factors, the most notable being Nvidia wanting more money for the gfx part. That was one of the main reasons that they made sure that they did all the design for the 360 in house: so that they wouldn't have a similar licensing nightmare at some point in the future.

Still, I buy multiplatform games on PC first or if they're console only, PS3. I like playing games without having to put up with what sounds like an airfield in my room (NXE is an improvement, no horrible whirring drive noise at least) and the PS3 controller just feels nicer.

I'd guesstimate that the number of broken 360s is about equal in the difference in sales between 360 and PS3, which is currently 6 million. Even if that number is a little high then I think it takes into account the number of hacked 360s that just play pirated games.

Sony needs to cut the price of the PS3, then they'll start taking a sales lead over MS and this generation will start to look a lot more interesting in the console wars department!

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[NeutronCowboy]

And yet, the attach rate (ratio of software sales to hardware sales) is about 8:1 for the xbox360, and about 5:1 for the PS3.

The only thing more annoying than gloating MS fanbois are panicky (and anonymous) Sony fanbois.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe its just the fact that the 360 has been hacked to play pirated games and the PS3 has not.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.

Either:

1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners

2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic

Major game companies like Capcom? According to VG Chartz, Resident Evil 5 has sold 48 % more 360 copies than PS3 and Street Fighter 4 has sold 25% more 360 copies than PS3 in the US.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[LackThereof]

The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.

Either:

1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners

2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic

1 is the most likely - the owners of the more expensive console are freer with their money, and are more likely to buy a big stack of games.

It is also worth mentioning that the best selling games on PS3 are multiplatform games. GTA IV is the best selling ps3 game to date, and has sold 5.5 million copies worldwide. The top selling title on 360 is an exclusive (Halo 3), as are it's #4,#6,and #9 selling titles.

Actually, on reviewing the sales numbers, I'm beginning to doubt your statement that multiplat titles are selling better on PS3.
Top selling PS3 games vs. top selling 360 games

Just from a quick examination of the numbers for the PS3's top multiplatform titles:

GTA4
PS3: 5.5m, 360:,6.9m
Call of Duty 4
PS3: 4.1m, 360: 7.1m
Assassin's Creed
PS3: 3.3m, 360: 4.5m
Call of Duty: World at War
PS3: 3.0m, 360: 5.5m

Of course, there may be a boatload of small sellers at the bottom of the list which swing it back to the PS3's side, but that would require a much deeper examination, so I'll just ask for your source.

I don't doubt that some people are buying new 360's rather than redeeming their warranties, I just doubt your method for measuring how many.

Re:360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005

[metaforest]

Hurm....

This reminds me of a story I heard told about Henry Ford. Story goes that many years after the success of the model T and it's immediate successors, Ford sent a team of engineers to dig in the auto graveyards of the US and examine failure modes for the cars to determine why they were there and what components failed... and most interestingly, what components didn't fail. The study was completed, the report delivered and Ford was presented the results... The study supposedly showed that only one component in the entire vehicle never seemed to fail... Ford allegedly told his engineering staff that the part was over engineered and to redesign the part so it had the same likelihood of failure as the rest of the components examined.

I wonder... if Fords team could pull that off.... why couldn't M$ design for an abnormally high fail rate just to boost sales figures?

Oh but thats silly.... only a Monopoly could afford do something like that....

Hardware Problems?

[Hasney]

On my 360? I never thought I'd see the day!!!!

Re:Hardware Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware problems? In my xbox 360? It's more likely than you think!

Re:Hardware Problems?

[Theoboley]

WHOOOOOSH

An Xbox 360 breaking...

[Sabz5150]

This is news? Oh... it's breaking in an entirely new way? Now that's news.

Re:An Xbox 360 breaking...

[sokoban]

In fact, it is "Breaking News"

Go microsoft

[davro]

Son "Mum i have a red ring of death on my ..." interrupted by Mum Mum "Your going straight down the doctors and your not playing with Jonny and Billy any more" Son "But Mum the red ring of death is on my X box ?" Mum "More the reason to get you down the doctors, Now get in the car!" Son "But Mum just look at my X box ?" Mum "You dirty little boy get in the car now were going down the doctors, and then to the psychiatrist."

LOL! What An Idiot!

[Anonymous Coward]

The E74 problems have been a active source of discussion on both general and Xbox specific forums for a long time now. It is a problem that has hit many long time and well known Xbox 360 owners who have no reason to lie about the problem.

In other words, keep your mouth off about something you don't have a clue about.

People want this shit fixed. Dimwits like you sat around in forums two years ago spouting the same garbage about the RRoD fiasco and the problem dragged on and on and on because idiots like you constantly filling forums with the same stupid shit you just posted.

E74OD

[MrKaos]

Microsoft's E74 Of Death

Re:E74OD

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's E74 Of Death

You mean... Blue screen, er wait, black, no, red, no, green, no, pink, no.... ahhh SOD IT!

Re:E74OD

[tiananmen tank man]

The error has one red ring (out of 4) that is lit on the front console, so it is the Red Arc of Death (RAOD)

Re:E74OD

[MrKaos]

Miscoroft has a whole series in the 'Of Death' error business unit First there was the 'Blue Screen Of Death' then The 'Red Screen of Death' The 'Error 74 of Death'

But also several new series...

The 'Corrupted Registry Entry of Annoyance' The 'Lost Office Document of Aggravation' The 'SQL Server Lost data of Frustration' and the 'File system of falling off throughput for no apparent reason of Complete Bewilderment'

News at six

in recent years???

[theeddie55]

This is not the first time the Xbox 360 has experienced technical issues; in recent years many people have complained about scratched discs and over-heating consoles â" the 'red ring of death.'"

I think the term "in recent years" is more than a little unnecessary in reference to a console that's only been available for a little over 3 years.

Xbox Sales Rate Same As 360 Sales Rate

[MediaStreams]

The obviously huge number of people who own duplicate 360 consoles puts an amazing perspective on the worldwide sales numbers for the first Xbox compared to the Xbox 360.

The Xbox was on the market from Nov 2001 until June 2005 when it went out of production. It sold about 25 million consoles worldwide. About 3.5 years.

The Xbox has been on the market from Nov 2005 until the present. Just over 3 years.

Even going with a modest estimate of the number of people who own multiple 360 consoles, the sales rate of the Xbox and Xbox 360 are almost identical. Even the relative sales rates from the three major regions are virtually identical to last gen. The 360 is pretty much dead in Japan just like the first Xbox. European sales are mostly from the UK just like the first Xbox. And bulk of 360 sales comes from the US just like the first Xbox.

Xbox Fans - The Scum Of The Console World

[Anonymous Coward]

What a disgusting piece of shit abigsmurf and other Xbox fanboys are.

Fuck off and die you lying piece of garbage.

Wow, does that article suck.

[Petersko]

I had an XBOX360, and I had a PS3. Sold both a while back when I realized I hadn't played a console game in over six months.

I don't have a vested interest in this article. I don't measure my self-worth by what strangers think of my choice in consoles. I don't give a damn about the RROD, or about the E74 error.

However, I hate stupid articles like this one.

Everything you need to know about the worth of this article is contained in this chart

Lovely, isn't it? And no, the numbers aren't "in thousands". They're talking about reports over the last year going from 3 per month to 15. That's not failures - that's "emails to joystiq.com". It's worse than useless.

Did the emails spike because owners are, in fact, seeing spiking numbers of failures? Did the spike occur because some other site mentioned it with a link to related materials on joystiq.com? Did the emails say if the failures occured this month, or if some people were reporting failures from a couple years ago?

Al Gore would most assuredly approve of that chart.

They point out that their "little study" isn't perfect, and that it's unscientific, but then they say, "as we interpret the data...". Of course that data is statistically insignificant and hopelessly flawed.

If you're going to start beating the drum on something like this you should get your shit together in advance. Otherwise you're going to look like an idiot.

That was my first trip to joystiq.com. Probably my last, too.

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha ha - Al Gore. Maybe the uptick in XBOX 360 errors is due to "Global Warming"! That's it; I'm buying a Prius.

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[onecheapgeek]

Wait...you mean to tell me that 60 problem reports from folks like "hugmonstercok220@yahoo.com" in a year doesn't mean there's a problem waiting to sweep over everyone with a 360? But I read all those comments up there that said my 360 was going to die in new and creative ways and I should have built a bsd box instead to play console games...

WHO IS LYING TO ME?

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[LordKronos]

Exactly. As far as the google trends thing goes, I hadn't googled for E74 prior to early Dec 2008, but then I started reading about people saying the E74 was a growing problem. The result...I started googling for E74 to learn more about it, to see what data there was.

This would be no different than if I said there was an increased number of reports of people spotting 4 foot tall cyclops ducks***, a bunch of curious slashdotters read my post and go search google for "4 foot tall cyclops ducks", and then a few month later I come back and point to the increase number of google searches for "4 foot tall cyclops ducks" as proof that people really are spotting them.

***They really do exist. Go search for them on google.

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google says that you're wrong, and the journal Nature agrees with them.

Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data

That duck analogy is cute though.

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[LordKronos]

Yeah, I know about that, but it is a different issue. In that case, they didn't go out and say "we're having some nasty flu problems" and then wait a few months to see how many people googled for the flu after their report. In the case of the flu study, there weren't any reports prompting the searches, because the searches were done before it was realized there was an increase in flu cases. Also, the flu study went further and looked for regional patterns. Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that a local TV station ran a news report on the flu, prompting the searches in that area, but they have a much stronger correlation and have done more to weed out any chance of errors like this.

BTW...it also helps that the flu is a pretty well established phenomenon, and isn't so likely to be influeced the way these E74 problems are, where people hearing about E74 for the first time have no idea what it is, what the symptoms are, etc, and go and google for info after hearing about it.

Re:Wow, does that article suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, your post expressed my sentiments exactly.

The last time I saw any decent figures, they came from the companies quarterly reports to shareholders.

I can't seem to find the link to the last bit of data I saw published, but from what I remember the 360's failure rate was horrible with the first gen systems, but has got a lot better since.

Now, MS appears to be doing the right thing by extending warranty and lowering prices.

My only hesitation with purchasing the 360 is not directly tied to the failure rate- it's the fact that I'd have to talk with MS customer support, and I won't go through that hell even if I'm being PAID for it.

Yep, happened to me last year

[Anonymous Coward]

In October or so of '07, the 360's video died. Thankfully, I had the BB extended warranty and swapped it right out.

Still, it sucks to have to lose everything you downloaded and played through.

Yep, No Reason Other Than The RRoD...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!

If only the 360's hardware wasn't a stinking pile of shit, you'd have an amazing console that:

* Has 1.5 gigabytes less storage than the PS2 and Xbox had last gen for game - "Buh,buh,buh...compression!"

* Is jet engine noisy thanks to the shitty hardware and outdated 12x DVD drive spinning at an insane rate

* Has a stupid giant external power brick

* Wimpy graphics hardware - the 360 graphics hardware is so botched and underpowered the system after 3 years on the market only has the stupid and outdated crossplatform Unreal Engine as its 'big graphical showpiece'. Gotta love those Epic 5000 by 5000 16xAA UE3 marketing renders for 360 games!

* Won't let you upgrade the internal harddrive with off the shelf drives from any store but instead have to pay roughly double or more from Microsoft themselves

* 50 dollar a year online charges adding an extra couple hundred dollars to the price of the console over its life

* No dedicated servers for big online games. Lag, lag, lag, and tiny player counts for online games

* Pathetic first party studios. Only 3 Xbox first party stuidos for the 360: Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. An absolute joke compared to Nintendo's 10 and Sony's 20

* No keyboard and mouse support

* No webbrowser

* No Blu-Ray movie support

But I guess there is the 'amazing' 360 2009 and beyond games lineup of multiplatform games you can play on other consoles or your PC and DLC and...uh...another fucking Halo game!

Re:Yep, No Reason Other Than The RRoD...

[Anonymous Coward]

amazing that if what you said was true, or even decent, you wouldn't have posted it as AC, but you know that you're wrong, and know that you are on /. so everything anti M$ is true and the right way to be. Grow some balls and post as yourself. Your friendly AC :)

Re:Yep, No Reason Other Than The RRoD...

[jellomizer]

All that for $100 less then the PS3. In business the winner is rarely the most technological advanced but the one who finds the best balance between price and performance. These devices are strictly designed for entertainment, I know some grammes base their lives around this, but to be realistic these are designed to play games. Most of the population who buys these products want to play the games more then drool at the graphics, sound, analyses the story plot etc...

Re:Yep, No Reason Other Than The RRoD...

[MediaStreams]

The PS3 is 200 dollar more expensive than the 360, not 100.

Even with the 200 dollar extra cost, the PS3 just sold virtually identically number of units worldwide as the 360 in 2008, and is selling at significantly faster rate in life to date sales.

So much for your theory...

Re:Yep, No Reason Other Than The RRoD...

[tomz16]

Meh.. You can look at hardware specs all you want, but the most telling thing here is to go through some of the reviews for cross-platform releases.

From what I've seen, 9/10 times the X360 version of a particular game gets higher (overall) reviews with comparable or superior graphics to the PS3 version. The other 10% of the time, the reviewer finds both versions comparable. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a cross-platform review where the reviewer preferred the PS3 version of a game (I'm sure they exist, but must be pretty rare!).

I attribute this the fact that developers haven't fully caught up on the cell architecture yet. However, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter to me (the consumer). All that matters is the fact that the games that I want to play right now seem to play better on the x360 (when it's working)!

abigsmurf, Absolute Loser

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking embarrassment to all console gamers you piece of shit Xbot.

A fucking lying and pathetic loser.

No wonder everyone in the console world despises Microsoft, the Xbox, and its loser fanboys like abigsmurf.

MOD UP, BITCH

[Anonymous Coward]

~

Stupid Xbots...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Neither one has ever RROD, crashed, over-heated, read error, scratched disc, or E74'd."

Someone stupid enough to buy two of the universally regarded Worst Console Ever Made.

Stupid enough to try to get anyone to believe the shit you just wrote.

What a coincidence! What a total fucking loser.

Re:Stupid Xbots...

[Bert64]

Quite a lot of people have bought 2, or more, of them... Because the first one(s) they bought died and they had invested too much in games for it.

Re:Stupid Xbots...

[Cornflake917]

Wow I can't believe you get modded insightful for calling someone a "total fucking loser" while the GP gets modded troll for making a pretty reasonable defense of the 360. Just shows how biased Slashdot is against the 360.

Re:Stupid Xbots...

[NeutronCowboy]

Too bad I replied before I saw this waste of a post. Otherwise I could have modded this to where it belongs.

That said, there's always meta moderation.... but yes, Sony fanbois are truly getting pathetic.

Re:Stupid Xbots...

[Kneo24]

How can you call giving a 1 in 6 (16.66666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666667%) failure rate "reasonable" when no other electronics manufacturer could get away with that?

Re:Stupid Xbots...

[brkello]

Because they replace it for free if you have any issues within 3 years? I have a 360, no issues. In any case, all he was saying was that it is pretty dumb to mod someone up on here who is calling someone else a "fucking loser". Feel free to make a rational argument...but obviously, that wasn't this guys goal. If you are afraid to risk the failure rate on a 360, that's fine. If you are just going to be a dick about it because you are one of those wierdo fanboys of a specific console, then just keep your comments on the inside or expect to be modded down.

No way!

[PeeShootr]

It is not possible that Microsoft has put out a shoddy product. I don't believe it!

Xbox Is Being Slowly Let To Die Off

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think Microsoft has realized this and is now simply treating the Xbox as another part of its home computer strategy,"

The Xbox hardware has as much of a future at Microsoft as the Zune hardware does.

Zero.

Microsoft has been consistently shutting down the lifeblood of a viable console, first party development studios over the past two years. They are down to only three now. And it sounds like Rare is up next.

The absolutely barren 2009 and 2010 360 exclusive game releases makes it clear that the days of wasting money on the Xbox fiasco are over at Microsoft and they are milking the current installed base for as much money from the 50 dollar a year online charges as they can before killing the 8 year long disaster once and for all.

 

How many errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think the 360 was called 360?

"Steve, how many different errors have been found with the new xbox?"
"Three-hundred and Sixy, Bill."
"I think we have our name."

I think there's a chair-throwing reference in there somewhere...

Re:How many errors?

[Bert64]

But Windows 2000 had 65,000 known bugs when released... So more likely the xbox 360 has 11700 (multiplied by 32.5) bugs.

Re:How many errors?

[thexile]

[citation needed]

Re:How many errors?

[Bert64]

Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/02/11/1840225.shtml

I would have thought people on slashdot were smart enough to use google...

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be a troll, but at least he is a well-referenced troll.

The Hardware should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

What is happening is compatible with the ideals of MS. The hardware should be free, you should pay for software suscriptions.

Re:The Hardware should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

FREE? You smoking crack? Microsoft DEPENDS on hardware vendors to make new stuff, to run new Microsoft software. It's a feedback loop.
Microsoft needs new HW features to sell new software features. Faster & more of everything, 3d accelerators, flash cards, SSD, you name it. They are part of a pretty big PC ecosystem, and very little of that free.

An aftertaste of Apple III

[obarthelemy]

Come on... when will MS stop coyping Apple ??

Re:An aftertaste of Apple III

[obarthelemy]

link: http://oldcomputermuseum.com/apple_3.html

360 Muppets

[montibbalt]

ANA/HANA
Doot doooo do-do-do.

Google Trends doesn't work that wa

[Sockatume]

Google trends doesn't tell you how many search results the topic got at a certain time, as the summary would suggest. Instead it lists the frequency with which people are searching for a particular keyword. So if loads of people suddenly start searching for a particular error code, it's a pretty good sign that the error code is appearing all over the place, not that people are simply talking about it more. However that Google Trends result shows searches for E74 following the same trend as searches for "xbox" and "rrod" so I suspect it's no more prevalent than any of the other errors.

FWIW

[javacowboy]

I've had an XBox 360 (newest 60Gb Pro model) since September, and I've had no problems aside from the occasional freeze, corrupted save file, and a single red ring of death (to my surprise, a simple power cycle made it go away). I got a cheap HDMI cable and I use that in place of the standard component connector.

I like the games, the interface, the online movie rentals are decent, and it even makes a great upscaling DVD player. This is coming from somebody who is far from being Microsoft's greatest fan, since I switched to Mac and swore never to use Windows again.

YMMV, but I'm very pleased with my purchase. I can only speak for myself, though, since some people I know have had nightmarish problems with the earlier models.

Re:FWIW

[RedK]

I've had an XBox 360 (newest 60Gb Pro model) since September, and I've had no problems aside from the occasional freeze, corrupted save file, and a single red ring of death (to my surprise, a simple power cycle made it go away). I got a cheap HDMI cable and I use that in place of the standard component connector.

This was sarcasm right ? It's not registering on my sarcasm detector (a real useful invention) at all. Please tell us you were being sarcastic ?

Re:FWIW

[javacowboy]

Please tell us you were being sarcastic ?

No, I'm serious. I'm quite pleased with my XBox.

Having said that, I'm not denying that other people have had problems, or that Microsoft made serious mistakes in designing the device. From my perspective, they seem to have resolved these issues.

Re:FWIW

[sznupi]

It freezed several times, corrupted save file and shown you once red ring of death and...issues are resolved?

O...K...

PS. And you do use Windows atm...

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet.. still by far the best candidate we could have voted for.

Also, most of your fair decent troll is composed of obvious distortions that lessen the credibility of anyone parroting them.

Honestly...

[kellyb9]

... with all the so-called problems reported with the 360, I have to admit, they haven't affected me one bit. Maybe count me among the lucky, but I've had my console since they were released, and it hasn't "red-ringed" or overheated frequently. I can't speak on other user's problems since I've had none, I couldn't be happier with my 360, and quite frankly, I'm glad I haven't forked out 500 dollars for a PS3 when it's pretty clear that those prices are going to be cut drastically. I might get one eventually, but that has more to do with the blu-ray player than anything else.

I repair video games for a living

[flamingdog]

I repair all generations of video game consoles for a living, and have repaired several thousand consoles. Allow me to touch several bases quickly:

E74 is not "on the rise", it has stayed as steady as ever. 3 red rings of death are declining with the new designs (they were pushing close to 100% failure rate within 3 years for the first generation), so other problems are finally allowed to surface since the consoles actually stay running long enough now.

New generation consoles are ALL going to have MANY more problems than old consoles. It's because of 3 things. They all run hotter since they have behemoth (comparatively) processors. Second, they have TONS more moving parts. Finally, components are smaller and made to less stringent standards (and there are tons more on each board).

The most complicated repair that really ever needs done to cartridge based systems is replacing a fuse. Almost all "broken" systems just need the game connectors cleaned. The processors usually don't even have a heat sink on them because they don't even get warm. The only heat sinks in the things would be on the 7805's. Also, they didn't use custom processors. Older machines had chips like Z80's or 68000's for brains. Obviously established architectures. Then we start adding moving parts, and you actually introduce wear in to the equation where there was no wear before. That was the problem with the NES blinking. The game connector actually had to move around, so it wore out. That's why the SNES and N64 are so much more reliable. They have no moving parts, robust components, and more cooling power than they need. Exactly the opposite of today's designs. New console designs are inherently recipes for disaster. Cheaper components, tons of moving parts, and not enough cooling.

MS could add more cooling. A better fan, or added fans, and a better designed interior for airflow would completely solve the heat issues that kill these things. However, it would require almost completely redesigning case and laying out a new board with different locations of all the parts, both on the board and around the board (meaning even the faceplate, plastic buttons, and drive size would need dealt with). Good luck presenting that to your boss when your product is turning profits just fine right now.

And to anyone saying they never have their disc drives in their computers go bad, try running a program from the CD for EVERY SINGLE SECOND your computer is on, and it probably won't make it to the end of the year. And open and close the drive a dozen times a day.

Re:I repair video games for a living

[acohen1]

Your last point is very good. I was going to reply to another comment about someone replaced his optical drive every 18-24 months because I have been using the same dvd-rom for over 6 years and other optical drives for long periods. Then you reminded me that I can probably go for weeks without ejecting a disc or even reading from it. Similarly all 3 modern consoles sport downloadable games now. I personally own a PS3 and after the initial install of disc games it doesn't seem to read the disc all that much and you can tell when its thrashing. So, I think they get quite a bit more wear than PC optical drives, but not "EVERY SINGLE SECOND" as you said.

Re:I repair video games for a living

[OpenBoxPC]

>>E74 is not "on the rise", it has stayed as steady as ever. 3 red rings of death are declining with >>the new designs (they were pushing close to 100% failure rate within 3 years for the first >>generation), so other problems are finally allowed to surface since the consoles actually stay >>running long enough now. Just don't know about this. I got an E74 on a non HDMI one recently. It was the GPU. Microsoft definitely changed something in xbox error reporting recently. The newer HDMI consoles seem harder to keep fixed vs the older ones, whether RROD or E74. I think they actually went DOWN in quality.

Re:I repair video games for a living

[ion.simon.c]

...try running a program from the CD for EVERY SINGLE SECOND your computer is on...

The XBOX2 DVD drive behaviour boggles my mind. Why the hell don't any game programmers ever spin or slow that fucker down? It's loud at full speed! Try playing Burnout Paradise, or Beautiful Katamari. Pause the game and walk away for a few minutes. Notice that the drive is still spinning away. Moreover, start up a game. Let it sit at the game's main menu. Why is that disk spinning at full speed (or at all)? [0]

<offtopic rant>

[0] I can guess why they don't slow down the drive... the devs probably want "minimum response time to user input". I'd rather have a quieter living room, thankyouverymuch.

Re:I repair video games for a living

[ion.simon.c]

OT:
Did "Preview" show you a sanely formatted post? I ask 'cause all of your post displays on a single line on my system. (Firefox 3.0.7, Gentoo Linux)

Re:I repair video games for a living

[flamingdog]

I don't think that's the case. If you are doing the x-clamp replacement thing and heating it up and all that, and the repair seems to not be working or holding, I think it is because the heatsink is bigger. It's harder to force the console to overheat to the point of melting solder. If you are actually reballing the GPU, then I don't know what to tell you.

UPS

[br00n]

After fixing the DVD Drive myself... Magnet had to be glued back in place... We got the red ring of death... Even after the home repair Microsoft took it back on their extended warranty for this problem... They instructed us to send it in a plain box and to make sure X-Box was not on the box... To avoid theft... Ok did that... To Microsoft's credit and my sons delight we had in back in less than 10 days... Went to pick it up at the UPS hub next to the airport where they asked me "Is this for you or your son?". I asked them how they new what it was... As it was in a plain white box... and the two clerks behind the counter actually laughed and said... "You would be amazed at how many of these come through here!!!"... These things are junk unfortunately the games my son likes are on it... I guess I will continue to try and keep it going until there are games for the PS3 that he likes...

MS is a victim of the cost-cutting bug...

[cplusplus]

I think Microsoft is a victim of their own attempts at cost cutting. Cost cutting, as far as I've observed, has diminishing returns to the point where it can actually be detrimental to the bottom line and cost more in the long run. The more you try to squeeze out of initial cost, the more risk you inject in to the equation in terms of quality. The red ring of death is a good example - savings of a few million IIRC ended up costing a billion.

The funny thing is...

[otomoton]

I just got this error the other day. Fixed it exactly the same was as you fix the 3 red light error, with the x-clamp mod. So error 74 is possibly a much more broad error than the scalar chip or video cable being bad. It would be so easy for them to fix the actual problem that's plaguing the 360. The extra heatsink didn't do it, the smaller chip didn't do it, the lower power power supply didn't do it. Instead 8 bolts, 16 washers, and 16 nylon spacers fix it every time, and appear to prevent it from happening in the first place (though I don't know how that can be absolutely proven).

my 360 died last week...

[Wornstrom]

I turned mine on last week, and the graphics went all "watercolor", like it was running in a color mode below that of the norm. The sound still works, but now when I turn it on it just goes to a sort of 'pink snow'. It sounds like it is running fine, but unaware of its video output problems. I think it is just past the extra warranty I bought at Best Buy (knowing it was a Microsoft product, I opted for the extra insurance) so I don't know if I am on my own as of yet or not. The only reason I would consider buying a new console is because I got suckered into buying the HD-DVD drive for 200 bucks before the war was "won" by blu-ray and I have a decent collection of discs for it.

E74 happened to me.

[The Analog Kid]

Back in Decemeber, I got the E74 error. My warranty had already expired, so I'd have to spend $100 for Microsoft to fix it. Rather than give them 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a new 360, I figured I'd try and fix it myself.

There are numerous guides out there for the X-clamp fix. This requires opening the console drilling bigger holes in the metal casing where the GPU sit, and using bolts rather than flimsy x-clamp that Microsoft uses, to attach the heatsink to the board, and then running the console for about 10-15 minutes with no cooling on the GPU to heat it up so the GPU reconnects to the board. Overall, it cost me about $10 for the fix.

I don't know how long my console will continue to work, but I know Microsoft sends you back a refurbished console which had problems before it would get to me, and from what I've read, many times, that console will fail eventually too, perhaps the same day it's received.

Re:E74 happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine did this in November, a full 3 weeks out of warranty.

Rather than pay $100 to have Microsoft fix it, I threw a blanket on top of my xBox and played some UT2k3 until it overheated and showed three lights, and then sent it in for a free repair.

Re:E74 happened to me.

[The Analog Kid]

My extended RROD warranty was also gone, as it was only good for 3 years.

After I opened it up, I put a bit of pressure on the heatsink, and it did RROD. I had to "bake" it twice to get it back in working order. So it went
E74->RROD->E74->Working.

I Survived

[Anonymous Coward]

Are You a Survivor?

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[ravenshrike]

By far? The dumbass doesn't even know that Chirac is no longer the president of France.

ANA/HANA != Scaler

[Fireye]

Minor correction, the ANA/HANA chip does not do scaling for the x360. The Xbox360 does all scaling in software. Purportedly the ANA/HANA chip handles transferring the framebuffer to the output format (composite, hdmi, component, s-video, SCART, etc).

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

Best candidate? Obama is completely destroying our economy. McCain at least had plans to reduce our deficit and bloated government. Don't forget that it was Democrats who pushed banks into making loans to poor people that couldn't be paid back, crashing our economy. Both Bush and McCain warned about this in 2003, only to be dismissed by a Democrat, and several top Democrats served at Fannie Mae. Obama was the biggest recipient of donations from Fannie Mae! How dumb do you have to be to still support Obama?

You know a Democrat is in trouble when even ultra-liberal Krugman of the New York Times is ranting about him.

Re:Afro-Leninst Obama Bankrupting the USA Tsarkon

[Anonymous Coward]

good lordy, I would have assumed there was a word limit on posts just to prevent this level of trolling on a massive scale

what do you do after 360 is last gen?

[Anonymous Coward]

do people think MS is going to replace these consoles forever? no, after their next console is out you are going to be screwed with a 360 that will become a doorstop.
which sucks, its the one thing that is keeping me from buying one because its paying out this money for something i wont be able to play in 10 years. yet i can still fire up my ps1, snes, genesis and nes.
i do like to play my old systems, but the 360 that option will be gone. and by the time everyone realizes that it will to late.

I'll be glad when they don't need all this cooling

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean my NES, SNES, and Genesis all ran with AC adapters that put out I think under 10 watts. I wish they could get the systems back to that level of power usage so all these over-heating issues would go away.

Consles

[Commander Jesus]

Consles are a waste anyway, PCs are cheaper and they can do so so so much more than any consle.

This is Microsoft here

[khchung]

Things have pretty much changed over the last 30 odd years if people genuinely believe a 1 in 6 failure rate is acceptable.

The same company that made people think rebooting a few times a day is normal.

all i am reading...

[space_jake]

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.

Re:I'll be glad when they don't need all this cool

[Theoboley]

bigger processors need bigger cooling units, requiring bigger AC Power.