1/3 of X360s fail supposedly....

[scandisk]

So the user manual for the 360 does contain instructions regarding keeping the system cool and ventilated, I had no problems with overheating/crashes/game freeze until recently, it had scratching issues. (and yes it's sitting perfectly still)

and btw, Microsoft confirms Xbox 360 problems

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7052.cfm

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=technology&storyID=nNBN112236&from=business

 

[Tenacious D]

So, how are we supposed to prevent our 360s from blowing up? Blow some compressed air in the little holes? Only play for ten minutes, then let it rest for an hour to get back to ambient temperature?

I think this sticker should be on every XBox360.

WARNING! In order to prevent damage to your Microsoft product, you should observe the following usage guidelines:

• DO NOT plug your unit into any audio-video devices.
• DO NOT insert any media into the unit's disc drive.
• DO NOT plug your unit into a power outlet.

If you observe these usage guidelines, you should experience no problems whatsoever with your Microsoft product for the life of the unit.

 

[Eric.]

According to this December 2005 article, only 3% of the launch consoles may be defective.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7111.cfm

And Joey, when you said that if somebody would just sue MS this would all be straightened out...?

 

[Tornado]

Hey Joey, is THIS the consumers fault?

More interesting than the tires thing, the Brilliance or whatever it is linked in the article raises a question: Do all Chinese cars suffer from a comically exaggerated Isuzu Rodeo effect?

 

[V1P3R]

I find it ****ing hilarious how I can leave the 360 on overnight and it's ok but the minute I scroll through my cars too fast or too slow it freezes...

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

More interesting than the tires thing, the Brilliance or whatever it is linked in the article raises a question: Do all Chinese cars suffer from a comically exaggerated Isuzu Rodeo effect?

Which sprung a question in my mind: Where is the Xbox360 made and assembled?

 

[DuckRacer]

In other news!

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603

A guy is now on his twelfth 360. 12. OneTwo. Is that because of negligence on his part?

Oh, and the Havant repair center in the UK is possibly getting 1500-2500 dead 360s daily.

http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-47912.aspx

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programs.

 

[McLaren]

Which sprung a question in my mind: Where is the Xbox360 made and assembled?

Various places. I'm pretty sure one place in Asia was closed down.
I know Japan has or had a plant.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

In other news!

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603

A guy is now on his twelfth 360. 12. OneTwo. Is that because of negligence on his part?

Oh, and the Havant repair center in the UK is possibly getting 1500-2500 dead 360s daily.

http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-47912.aspx

Nice find Duck... but alarming news.

1UP: Microsoft won't comment on these second heat sinks showing up in refurbished Xbox 360s -- which, as far as we know so far, are not in the retail units -- so how does customer service determine whether someone should receive a "new" machine and an internally "refurbished" one?

Microsoft: In either an in-warranty or out-of-warranty situation, most customers will now receive their original console back from Microsoft so there is no need for customers to reload profiles, games or other content previously stored on their hard drive. This is part of our ongoing-effort to improve our repair warranty program and enhance our customer service operations.

Similar dodging occurred a few weeks ago, when asked about the heat sinks. Despite the visual evidence, Microsoft refused to confirm their existence.

1UP: Reports are surfacing of users getting refurbished Xbox 360s with additional heat sinks installed in them...can Microsoft confirm?

Microsoft: In response to your inquiry, regularly updating console components is commonplace within the industry and is a standard aspect of the business for a variety of reasons including cost reduction, improved manufacturability and improved performance. We do not provide details on these updates.

1UP: But, will they appear in on-shelf Xbox 360s?

Microsoft: Again, regularly updating console components is commonplace within the industry and is a standard aspect of the business for a variety of reasons including cost reduction, improved manufacturability and improved performance. We do not provide details on these updates.

What a mess. I guess the only way to know is if you take your X360 apart, and keep returning it untill they give you one with the extra heat sink?


What makes all of this so surprising is that while the PS3's 240v power supply is built-in, the X360's 120v is external!

 

[McLaren]

What a bunch of crap from MS.

I guess if my new one dies, I'll open it up. What is the heat sink supposed to look like?

 

[DuckRacer]

What makes all of this so strange is that while the PS3's 240v power supply in built-in, the X360's 120v power supply is external!

I'm not all that well versed in computer parts, but a higher powered power supply = larger physical size, right?

 

[Dave A]

Generally speaking, yes.

 

[Azuremen]

Not necessarily. And I think DN means watts instead of volts, not sure though.

You have amps and watts, and those things do relate in part to the physical size of the PSU, but not as much as you would think. Standardized form factors and such generally mean a 200 watt PSU and a 500 watt PSU for a computer are similar in size.

I'm also not sure if the coil used to the packing can change the size, as a transformer for a PSU is mostly just coiled wire... me thinks.

 

[DuckRacer]

Oh boy:

http://www.micromartltd.co.uk/

XBOX 360 - Micromart has now withdrawn from offering a Repair Service for the dreaded 3 Red Lights fault.

This problem is endemic on the XBox 360 console and the volume has made this repair non-viable.

Other repairs to the XBox 360 are still being supported.

 

[Kent]

I hate to say it but this sort of thing is really a major problem.
How much will the consumers take before they switch products?
Personally, I'm not going to buy a 360 until I know for sure that these problems have been fixed.

I'm not saying this will ruin the 360's chances of winning in a console war... Bad reliability didn't ruin the PS1's sales.
However, we are in a new age and the 360 cost about 500 dollars with a wireless adapter, that's just too much money to dish-out for a console that is quickly becoming known for poor reliability.

Basically, the chances of me getting to play FM2 are slowly getting worse and worse.

Needless to say, I'm disappointed with the situation.

 

[DuckRacer]

How much will the consumers take before they switch products?

When there's a good alternative. If my 360 broke down today and I didn't have any other console, where would I go? Sure as hell not to the Wii and its non-games. With the PS3, multiplatform games are almost always worse on it (and some games are even delayed on it like with DiRT, Rainbow Six, Half-Life 2, etc), the PS Store content stream is barely a trickle, the online service in general is definitely worse (no single friends list, no ease of joining your friends in a game), and there's some compelling PS3 exclusives that would make you rather play them instead of Crackdown, Forza 2, Gears of War, etc etc. This fall this will change some with Home and the quality of PS3 exclusives coming out, but right now people are tolerating the shoddy 360 hardware because it's the best experience to be had right now.

 

[V1P3R]

When there's a good alternative. If my 360 broke down today and I didn't have any other console, where would I go?

So true... I'd be **** up a creek. Sadly, it wouldn't even be because I couldn't use my console. It'd be more because I couldn't get my FM2 fix. Which I NEED A LOT!

 

[TopHat]

The 360 seems to have alot of troble playing FM2 anyway, It freezes constantly, and if you don't connect to the internet while you are still in the dashboard, something will not load correctly, be it the auction house, or just freezing while waiting in lobby. Also when scrolling through cars, my game regularly freezes


Woo! This system is SO well designed. They beat everyone to market by a year, but at what cost?

 

[V1P3R]

Oh you too? Cool!

 

[Azuremen]

When there's a good alternative.

Its called a PC, and it is wonderful.

That aside, I think the Wii has several good games and such, just more for social group play than sit in basement in the dark play.

 

[DuckRacer]

Its called a PC, and it is wonderful.

Any chances of PC gaming for me were shot down when EA announced a BF2142 port to Mac.

 

[G.T]

Oh, and the Havant repair center in the UK is possibly getting 1500-2500 dead 360s daily.

http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-47912.aspx

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programs.

WOW. No wonder they're taking so long to replace mine. The more 360s people buy, the longer it'll take, I suppose...

The sad thing is, is if you ring support to ask for a status on getting your console back, all they say is "we don't know", and that "there's no way of finding out". This just annoys me to hell...

 

[Sprite]

Whats totally outstanding is that people are still buying them, talk about suckers for punishment. Ive been thinking about a 360 buy for some time, for mainly forza, but im still holding off. 1500 to 2500 a day is really bad, surly this cant be correct, that would mean that nearly half of the UK population have probably sent in a 360. ha ha ha thats not true... is it?

 

[DuckRacer]

Whats totally outstanding is that people are still buying them, talk about suckers for punishment. Ive been thinking about a 360 buy for some time, for mainly forza, but im still holding off. 1500 to 2500 a day is really bad, surly this cant be correct, that would mean that nearly half of the UK population have probably sent in a 360. ha ha ha thats not true... is it?

You have to consider that these 1500-2500 units per day thing probably got to that point a couple months ago, and that a good amount of those units are people's 2nd, 3rd, or maybe even 4th 360s.

 

[Kent]

I didn't know all of the multi-platform games were worse on the PS3 than on the 360. That's interesting to know... Should I ever decide to risk buying a 360 I'll be proud of the fact that the multi-platform games are best on the 360.

Of course, that said... What's the point of having great games if you can't play them?

 

[Race Idiot]

I didn't know all of the multi-platform games were worse on the PS3 than on the 360. That's interesting to know... Should I ever decide to risk buying a 360 I'll be proud of the fact that the multi-platform games are best on the 360.

Of course, that said... What's the point of having great games if you can't play them?

I dunno would you rather have a console that works with no games you want? Or an unreliable one that has a few that you do?

I'm not saying this is everyone but for me, pretty much GT looks like the only thing I want on the PS3 and it doesn't seem worth it at £400 at the moment.

 

[DuckRacer]

I didn't know all of the multi-platform games were worse on the PS3 than on the 360. That's interesting to know... Should I ever decide to risk buying a 360 I'll be proud of the fact that the multi-platform games are best on the 360.

Well, not all, but the vast majority. I think Oblivion is one of the few games that actually look and play better. Everything else is either more drab (Rainbow Six Vegas), lacks online features (voice chat in CoD3 and Armored Core 4), online altogether (Virtua Tennis 3), worse framerate (various games), less special graphical touches (anti-aliasing and motion blur in The Darkness), etc etc.

This could all change by fall when developers know how to develop on the PS3 better, but who knows.

 

[Race Idiot]

Well, not all, but the vast majority. I think Oblivion is one of the few games that actually look and play better. Everything else is either more drab (Rainbow Six Vegas), lacks online features (voice chat in CoD3 and Armored Core 4), online altogether (Virtua Tennis 3), worse framerate (various games), less special graphical touches (anti-aliasing and motion blur in The Darkness), etc etc.

This could all change by fall when developers know how to develop on the PS3 better, but who knows.

Eh it sounds like the PS2 in its early days as well, I remember allot of the Dreamcast games that got ported to the PS2 ended up looking worse (Crazy Taxi, F355 Challenge) or had stupid amounts of slowdown in places (grandia 2).

Like you said once the developers get going i'm sure it wont be so bad, it's just early in the systems lifetime.

 

[Kent]

Well, being that we are talking about multi-platform games, I would assume that every game in that category is on both systems.
So right there the whole "no games" thing is out of the question. That said, I'd rather have an unreliable system with games than a reliable system with games... That's like asking if you would rather drive an unreliable car with gas or a reliable car without gas.

That said, I don't think GT is the only thing the PS3 will offer. In fact, I'm sure there is more to offer and it's really just a matter of taste (regarding which games have appeal).

None the less, I understand the point being made (although I don't think it's a valid point to make).

Right now there are two games on the 360 (exclusive) that really interest me... Halo 3 and FM2. 👍
FM2 I'm not sure about so a trial is in order and Halo 3 I'm sure will be good.

In any case, I'm still glad to know the 360 owns the PS3 on the multi-platform games. Hearing an honest view of it helps me decide which system to buy much more than the fanboy biases seen in other places.
Thanks for the heads up fellas. This is going to help me a great deal when it comes time to get that system since RE5 is going to be one of the most important games to me (and now I know it will be better on the 360).

It's sad really, I mean, all the hype about the PS3 being a technically strong system and yet it actually sucks!

Btw, good points about the quality of games in relation to the time of development. 👍

Edit:
One question... Do you have to pay to play online with Armored Core on the Xbox360 (same question for the PS3) and does "silver" support voice chat on any game? (I was told it didn't but I'd rather hear it from you all than the fanboys who just want to knock the 360)

 

[Race Idiot]

Well, being that we are talking about multi-platform games, I would assume that every game in that category is on both systems.
So right there the whole "no games" thing is out of the question. That said, I'd rather have an unreliable system with games than a reliable system with games... That's like asking if you would rather drive an unreliable car with gas or a reliable car without gas.

That said, I don't think GT is the only thing the PS3 will offer. In fact, I'm sure there is more to offer and it's really just a matter of taste (regarding which games have appeal).

None the less, I understand the point being made (although I don't think it's a valid point to make).

Right now there are two games on the 360 (exclusive) that really interest me... Halo 3 and FM2. 👍
FM2 I'm not sure about so a trial is in order and Halo 3 I'm sure will be good.

Yeah to be honest as i've grown older my tastes have narrowed mainly due to my suckyness at anything that isn't a racing game. It took me 5 years to finish MGS2, pretty much the only other game I kinda want is Ace Combat 6 and I was kinda dissapointed that they ditched the PS3 for 360 exclusive just for online play.

And to be honest xbox live is only good when playing with people you know, it seems the pubbies are much like pubbies everywhere. They just wanna do the same thing or constantly use the best stuff all the time and it's kinda boring. The only time i've had fun online is with people I know.

And yeah gold ya gots to pay for to play online i'm pretty sure.