Shocking statistic - 68 out of every 100 Xbox 360's not working properly at start

[Zeus]

We already reported a few days ago about Dean Takahashi's secret insider information regarding the defective Xbox 360 saga. But re-reading the article once more, a further bit of information stuck out like a sore thumb - 68 out of EVERY 100 Xbox 360's made by MS's Chinese Partners were defective. As reportedly previously, MS did not act upon this as they were desperate to launch the console quickly and thought the problems would just resolve over time.

[zbox]

no surprise,

why should microsoft handle consoles any different from operating systems?

sell it first - fix it later is standard operating procedure for microsoft - always was.

[Trashcat]

no surprise,
why should microsoft handle consoles any different from operating systems?
sell it first - fix it later is standard operating procedure for microsoft - always was.
Modern operating systems are not something that can be tested completely especially in a lab, hence EVERY big operating system is getting patched and updated after launch including macos and all varieties of linux.

[mashti]

When his fourth Xbox 360 video game console died in April, Chris Szarek wasn’t surprised.

The Chicopee, Mass. gamer was accustomed to the hardware failures that became known throughout the Internet as RROD, or the “red rings of death” which flash when the console becomes inoperable.

A 40-year-old photographer, Szarek was a hardcore Microsoft fan who spent more than $1,000 on his games. But each time one of his Xbox 360 consoles failed, he had to spend time convincing Microsoft’s tech support that they should send him a new console. Each time he got a refurbished console as a replacement (a machine that had been returned to a repair center in Texas, fixed as much as possible, and then shipped back out). When he complained on the Internet and to the media about the shoddy product and poor customer service, people branded him a cry baby and wrote him off as a statistical anomaly. But by the spring of 2008, Szarek was vindicated. There were at least a million or two other people like him.

Szarek’s fourth machine lasted almost two years, experiencing the same short life that many other Xbox 360s suffered. Microsoft replaced these machines for free under the warranty that it announced on July 5, 2007, for defective Xbox 360s exhibiting what it more politely called the “three flashing red lights.” That warranty program cost Microsoft up to $1.15 billion, but the loss of face and loyalty among gamers in the fierce console war with Nintendo and Sony has been immeasurable. Szarek, who became a spokesman for dispossessed defective Xbox 360 owners, played a part in making Microsoft acknowledge its console quality problem.



This is the unauthorized tale of how Microsoft lost its chance to become the leader in the biggest market it has attacked beyond its twin monopolies in Office and Windows software. Rival game console maker Nintendo out-thought the larger players Microsoft and Sony by designing the Wii game console with a clever, intuitive game controller. Even so, Microsoft could have captured more gamers during this product generation, yet the RROD problem held it back. The Xbox 360’s defect problem will go down as one of the worst snafus in consumer electronics history.

Its own worst enemy

Microsoft knew it had flawed machines, but it did not delay its launch because it believed the quality problems would subside over time. With each new machine, the company figured it would ride the “learning curve,” or continuously improve its production. Even though Microsoft’s leaders knew their quality wasn’t top notch, they did not ensure that resources were in place to handle returns and quickly debug bad consoles. There were plenty of warning signs, but the company chose to ignore them. The different parts of the business weren’t aligned.

It reminds me of the German war machine just before World War I, as chronicled by Barbara Tuchman in the classic history book, “The Guns of August.” The German generals were intent on keeping their trains on time; but the leaders overlooked their chances for stopping the war altogether. The Schlieffen plan called for them to strike first. Once the Russians and French mobilized, the Germans had to move into action. They marched off blindly into tragedy.

Likewise, Microsoft’s strategy depended on beating its rivals to market. It couldn’t afford to stop and delay the launch in order to solve its quality problems, or so upper management believed. What Microsoft’s leaders didn’t realize was that getting to market first with a flawed machine would only win them a battle; and it risked the loss of the war.

“They got enamored with the idea of the Microsoft army rolling everything out at the same time,” said one knowledgeable source who asked not to be identified.

The quality problem negated much of the advantage of going first, and it has delayed the company’s plan to aggressively market the console and slash its prices. (Microsoft disputes this point; it cut the price of all three versions of its Xbox consoles by $50 to $79 on Wednesday. And the company believes it will sell more boxes than Sony will. But prices ought to be lower still during this stage of the console life cycle). That has stopped the company from reaching the broader market of consumers that Nintendo has won over. It has lowered its ambitions, hoping instead just to get a clear edge on third-placed Sony. The future profits that the company once hoped for are now likely to wind up in Nintendo’s pockets.

Microsoft’s top game executive, Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices group, said at a dinner in July that Microsoft’s own research shows that gamers have largely forgiven the company for defective Xbox 360s. Microsoft has still sold more Xbox 360 consoles than Sony to date. But there is no doubt that the company has lost considerable good will among gamers. Before Microsoft offered free replacements, connsumers grumbled that they had to turn to forums, such as those on Ars Technica, to vent and to find solutions to problems that the company didn’t openly discuss. And for a couple of months now, Sony’s PlayStation 3 has been outselling the Xbox 360 in the U.S. for the first time.

“Fundamentally, their thinking shows that they are a software company at heart,” said one veteran manufacturing executive. “They put something out and figure they can fix it with the next patch or come up with a bug fix.”

The terrifying part of the story is that this kind of problem — where technology fails and no one knows what to do about it — can happen to any company.

About this story

I asked Microsoft to confirm or deny 35 different facts contained in this story. Instead, I received a formal statement from a Microsoft spokesperson, saying the company had already acknowledged an “unacceptable number of repairs” to Xbox 360 consoles and responded to the hardware failures with a free replacement program. The statement also said, “This topic has already been covered extensively in the media. This new story repeats old information, and contains rumors and innuendo from anonymous sources, attempting to create a new sensational angle, and is highly irresponsible.”

I don’t think this story is sensational. I have tried to verify the facts over several years. I view this story as the last chapter for my book on the making of the Xbox 360, “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft’s Next-Generation Video Game Console.”

The facts revealed themselves slowly, emerging from the day-to-day stories that I wrote about the game business. Some people might consider this post mortem to be ancient history. But the reverberations are still playing out today. They help explain why Microsoft isn’t being aggressive with its price cuts and why gamers aren’t getting bargains on hardware as they did the last generation. While I talked to many people for this story, few were willing to let me use their names. As you will see, not every source is anonymous, and we have included the viewpoint of Microsoft executives from past interviews.

The details are interesting because they offer a deeper look into how the console business runs than is otherwise available. Microsoft, for instance, still hasn’t perfected its Xbox 360 manufacturing process. In the absence of a precise chronology from Microsoft, some anonymous sources have tried to describe what happened. But the history of the decision making and inside story of what happened on the RROD has never been told, until now.

2.)


Microsoft’s mea culpa


In many ways, the Xbox 360 was a big achievement. Microsoft had beaten
its rivals Sony and Nintendo to market by a year. Sony had outsold
Microsoft five-to-one in the previous generation of consoles, but
Microsoft has outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 with the Xbox 360.
Microsoft’s to game executive Bach (left) had repeatedly promised that
Microsoft would be profitable in his Entertainment & Devices group in
the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008. The company met that target. Big
losses have turned into profits.


But when the company launched its Xbox 360 video game console in
November, 2005, it didn’t have a handle on product quality and it was
not prepared to systematically analyze its product returns and debug
bad consoles.


Microsoft has admitted those mistakes. On July 5, 2007, the company
said it would take a billion-dollar write-off to pay for free
replacement of Xbox 360s by up to three years from the date of
purchase. Peter Moore, who at the time was head of the games business
at Microsoft, said in an interview the decision to take the write-off
was due to an “unacceptable number” of returns. The company made
improvements to the console’s quality, but Moore said it was unclear
how many units would fail in the field. Microsoft then followed up its
new policy with numerous public apologies, including a statement from
Bach, (pictured above).


Microsoft never disclosed its actual return rates. But according to
data obtained by VentureBeat, the total number climbed above 1.2
million consoles in early 2007. That is a huge amount, considering
Microsoft had only shipped 11.6 million into stores by the time of the
announcement in mid-2007.


The company was dragged kicking and screaming to its admission of
widespread defects — with gamers and the press doing the dragging. In
interviews in April and May of 2007, Microsoft executives denied that
quality problems were haunting them. Todd Holmdahl, (pictured left)
general manager in charge of the Xbox platform for Microsoft in
Redmond, Wash., said in an interview with me on May 9, 2007, while I
was at the San Jose Mercury News, that the “vast majority” of
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 customers were having a great experience with
their consoles. He declined, however, to say what percentage of
consoles were being returned for defect reasons. In doing so, he was
as coy as any of the console makers are about such sensitive data. But
everyone wanted an answer to that question.


It’s not clear why it took Microsoft so long to announce its warranty
extension last year, almost 19 months from the time when the first
complaints arose at the outset of the launch. As it was investigating
the cause of the problems, the company stayed quiet, acknowledging
problems only little by little. The company delayed its free-
replacement announcement until it understood the scope of the problem.


In July, game executive Bach said that the number of returns was not
measurably big until a year after the launch. It was a problem that
became evident only over time, he said.


“It wasn’t related to things we were seeing in testing or some
judgment call we had to make about whether the product was ready,”
Bach said at the dinner. “We were confident the product was ready. We
did a lot of testing. The problem that shows up with the three red
lights on the console is a complex interaction with some very complex
parts.”


Ignoring warnings


But the evidence for the quality debacle was there to see even before
Microsoft shipped any machines. In August, 2005, as Microsoft was
gearing up production, an engineer raised a hand and said, “Stop. You
have to shut down the line.” This wasn’t just a brief moment. The
engineer spoke up repeatedly.


That engineer, who asked not to be identified, had deep experience in
manufacturing. When production results were really off kilter,
stopping a line and tracing a problem back to its roots was the
answer. But the higher-ranking engineers, managers and executives
chose to risk going forward. There wasn’t a universal backlash from
the engineering ranks, according to one engineering source.


Nobody listened to that engineer — who spoke on condition of anonymity
— apparently because console launches are always hurried affairs.
Yields — the percentage of working products in a given batch of total
products produced — generally start low. As the manufacturers conduct
statistical analysis and tight controls on every step in assembly,
they learn how to drive the yields up.


Still, the picture wasn’t pretty. The defect rate for the machines was an abysmal 68 percent at that point, according to several sources.
That meant for every 100 machines that Microsoft’s contract
manufacturers, Flextronics and Wistron, made at their factories in
China, 68 didn’t work. At the recent dinner, Bach denied that there
was a big concern about defects at that point in time.


At that point, it is likely true that the engineers weren’t raising
enough red flags for the executives to pay attention. Early yields on
electronic goods are almost always lousy. Those veteran engineers
figured that they would be able to debug the problems and bring the
yields up quickly. But the expected rapid improvement in quality just
didn’t happen. The communication between upper management and the
engineers wasn’t clear. Nor was the strategy aligned between marketing
and customer support.


There were plenty of warning signs. Early reports on the problems were
myriad. In an Aug. 30, 2005 memo, the team reported overheating graphics chip, cracking heat sinks, cosmetic issues with the hard disk drive and the front of the box, under-performing graphics memory chips
from Infineon (now Qimonda), a problem with the DVD drive, and other
things. At that point, the contract manufacturers were behind schedule
and had only built hundreds of units. They were supposed to have been
in high gear, making thousands every week.


The illusion of a well-oiled machine


Yet around that same time, in mid-August 2005, Microsoft gave me a
tour of the hardware test center in Mountain View, Calif. Hundreds of
boxes were being tested in heat chambers and test labs. Leslie Leland,
an engineering manager, said all was on schedule. Microsoft wanted to
convey its own confidence to its partners, game developers, and
gamers. To my untrained eye, it looked like a smooth operation.


But on the inside, it was a frenetic time. The initial yield on the
most critical chip, the three-core microprocessor designed and
manufactured by IBM, was only 16 percent. For every 100 produced, only
16 worked. This low yield was surprising because a plaque on the wall in Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View proclaimed that IBM had “taped
out,” or completed the design, of its first microprocessor prototype
on Dec. 8, 2004. The timing of the tape out was right on schedule,
which was good because it is normal for six months to a year of
debugging to follow a tape out. IBM had an easier time than the maker
of the graphics chip.


ATI Technologies (a graphics chip maker that has since been acquired
by Advanced Micro Devices) was late to deliver working graphics chips,
or GPUs. Like IBM, it had promised to deliver one of the most complex
chips it had ever made in about half the time it usually took to
create such chips. But ATI only had half the number of the 400
engineers IBM had on the project.


The fact that both companies had designs done at all was the result of
a Herculean effort. Microsoft’s engineers started working on the Xbox
360 at least a year after Sony’s engineers began work on the
PlayStation 3, yet Microsoft wound up shipping a year ahead of Sony.
Everything Microsoft did was under time pressure, including the
creation of the IBM microprocessor and the ATI graphics chip. The only
way to pull it all off was through a virtual organization, where
Microsoft outsourced many of the tasks to companies that specialized
in particular tasks. Microsoft’s hardware engineers in Redmond, Wash.
and Mountain View, Calif. were the master integrators of all of the
suppliers. The Microsoft chip designers in Mountain View also designed
an important video processing chip themselves.


Considering all of the work, Microsoft had too few hardware people.
Some of the designers of the Xbox 360, including engineering chief
Greg Gibson, were stretched thin. Gibson and J Allard (pictured left),
who led the console design effort, had begun work on Zune, Microsoft’s
portable media player. Top brass had approved the project to dethrone
Apple’s iPod, but Microsoft kept Zune secret from the outside world
until much later. Some engineers were pulled of the Xbox 360 at a
critical moment to join Allard’s effort to create a music player.
Those who were left to work on the test team worked around the clock,
traveling to China to work in the factory.


3.)


Seasoned hardware team executed well on the original Xbox


Outsiders frequently slam Microsoft’s hardware engineers as having a
software (fix it later) mentality. But Microsoft’s engineers had been
trained to put quality first. Most of them had years of training.
Holmdahl, for instance, had been with Microsoft in the early days of
its hardware division. By the time he joined the Xbox project, he was
a veteran, having worked with contractors such as Flextronics to make
20 million mice per year. Making consoles was an altogether different
task, but the team had expert help through its Web TV acquisition,
which brought veteran console hardware engineers aboard in 1998. One
of the best at debugging was Nick Baker, one of the architects of the
Xbox 360’s chips.


In 2001, the team went through the paces making sure that the original
Xbox had good quality. On that launch, Microsoft was 20 months behind
Sony’s launch of the PlayStation2. Microsoft’s original Xbox team
moved as fast as they could, but they took a long time defining the
box and picking vendors.


By the time they hired Nvidia in March 2000 to make the graphics chip,
they were hopelessly behind. Nvidia combined two different chips into
one in half the time it took to design a chip, but it fell behind
schedule in part because of a bug. Someone else had specified a sub-
par power supply for the Xbox, and that made the graphics chip hiccup
now and then. Once the team fixed the problem, they raced ahead.


But Flextronics, the contract manufacturer, wasn’t ready. It had to
build a bigger manufacturing database to accommodate the design.
Microsoft had to postpone its launch by a week. It also decided to
launch only in the U.S. market and would wait until the next spring to
launch in Europe and Japan. No console maker had ever pulled off a
worldwide launch before, and now Microsoft understood why. The delays
in other territories put it even further behind Sony. Sony eventually
outsold Microsoft by more than five to one — scarring into memory a
tough lesson about market timing.


But the Microsoft hardware team had come out shining. Aside from a
problem with a supplier’s DVD drive, the number of defective Xboxes
was low. After the DVD drive issue was fixed, yields rose above 90
percent and stayed there for the duration of the manufacturing.
Microsoft thus had a seasoned team to work on the Xbox 360.


Lessons of round one drove grand strategy for the Xbox 360 business


Despite the good quality manufacturing, Microsoft’s game business was
deeply flawed in the Xbox generation. In the second round, Microsoft
vowed to learn from its mistakes.


In the first generation, the company lost $3.7 billion over four years. Most of that was because the costs of the box — particularly its hard disk drive — were too high. Microsoft’s planners thought the hard drive would give them an edge over Sony’s PS 2. It didn’t.


Bill Gates didn’t really care about the losses in the first
generation. That was simply the ante for getting into an exciting new
business. Microsoft has always viewed its ambitions in the game
business as strategic. It isn’t in the business just to dominate video
games, but to own the living room. The game console is a kind of
gateway to the Internet and all of the future entertainment services
that can be piped into the living room.


But Steve Ballmer, who took over from Gates as CEO during the first
generation, really wanted the Xbox business to be profitable second
time around. He wanted to keep the foothold in the living room, but
not at the expense of draining Microsoft’s cash, which was needed to
fight Google and other rivals.


This time, Gates said he felt that Microsoft would have a fundamental
cost advantage over Sony. One of the key ways Bach hoped to outwit his
rivals was with speed: getting a machine to market in four years
instead of five. Secretly, Microsoft had planned on selling 50 million
Xbox 360s at that point.


The Xbox team met for a series of retreats. One such retreat took
place in early 2004 at the elegant Salish Lodge beside the Snoqualmie
Falls made famous in the Twin Peaks TV show. After that meeting, Bach,
who had headed the Xbox business as its senior executive from the time
of its inception, decided that company would aim for profitability
with the Xbox 360. As much as possible, the machines would not be sold
for a loss.


Bach believed the hardware itself should be profitable over the life
cycle of the system. His planners counted on good revenues from
accessories and games to ensure profits the second time around. And,
in the three-page paper that outlined the grand strategy, he said that
Microsoft wanted to hit the market at the same time as its rivals.


Microsoft’s best guess was that Sony would launch the PS 3 in 2005.
That turned out to be a year off, since Sony ran into its own
development problems related to its decision to put Blu-ray drives
instead of DVD drives into the PS 3.


Microsoft had more preparation for Xbox 360


There was more time to design the box than the first-generation team
had, but it was still a race. Different teams sped into planning. The
different groups included chip designers, hardware planners, game
designers, software operating system engineers, marketers and
industrial designers.


With the Xbox 360, Microsoft was guilty of packing a little too much
into its box. The company sent out its scouts in late 2002 to ask
gamers what they wanted. The first Xbox came off as “The Incredible
Hulk.” The second Xbox, Microsoft had mandated, had to be smaller, if
only to fit in the smaller homes in Japan, a key target market. The
designers thought it had to be more like Bruce Lee. Microsoft’s own
user-experience team ran the show, while outside industrial design
firms competed in a bake-off to define the soul of the machine.


Hers Experimental Laboratory of Japan and Astro Studios in San
Francisco won the bake-off. They wanted to create something that
looked elegant and iconic, qualities that were sometimes at odds with
the computer that it was. Those firms gave the box its signature look
— curved sides that looked as if the box were inhaling air and was
about to explode with energy (that was the marketing image, anyway).
There was a constant tug of war between the industrial designers, who
wanted something small, and the engineers, who wanted to pack a lot of
performance into the box. The more powerful the system was, the bigger
the box had to be to provide air flow for heat-sensitive components.


Microsoft decided late to add a hard disk drive to most of the
machines. It also came up late with a plan to add wireless
controllers; all of the previous consoles shipped with wired
controllers. The hard drive blocked a lot of the air flow on one side
of the machine. And the wireless modules had to have enough of their
own space to ensure that there was no electrical interference. In the
end, the machine was a series of compromises. The gigantic power
supply needed to run the machine sat outside in the power cord, while
the console shell was poked full of holes on the sides to ensure air
flow.


“It turned out in the end that this was all going too far, too fast,”
said one source. “They were adding too many features after things were
locked down. That incremental feature adding just made it fragile.”


The marketers also decided the box had to be backward compatible with
the older games, including “Halo” and “Halo 2.” And they also felt the
box had to have enough horsepower to make games look beautiful on high-
definition TVs.


Those parameters, in turn, gave direction to the chip and hardware
designers. This time, hardware chief Todd Holmdahl wanted Microsoft to
have much more control over its fate. And he believed he had built up
a team that could act as the “system integrator.”


Microsoft had a team of 100 chip engineers and 100 more hardware
engineers between Redmond and Mountain View. They were the overseers
of the integration of the parts into a working console. It was a
relatively small team for such a large project compared to a hardware
company such as Sony, but Microsoft had plenty of help from its
partners.


In contracts with IBM and ATI, Microsoft set early deadlines for
delivery of the first working chips. It also decided that it wanted to
own the chip designs. That way, if it wanted to, it could take the
designs and have them made by a factory of its choosing and wasn’t
locked into using IBM and ATI (or ATI’s chosen partner) chip
factories. The reason for this change was that Microsoft wanted to
avoid dependence on its chip partners. It had learned the hard way
after getting into a bad dispute with Nvidia over the prices charged
for the graphics chip in the original Xbox. The case had to go to
arbitration and Microsoft ultimately lost that battle. However, this
was a mistake: it was now responsible for failures related to the
chip.


In Microsoft’s favor this time was the fact that it had credibility
among game developers thanks to hits such as “Halo,” (pictured right)
which sold over 10 million units. Microsoft believed it could charge
more for each machine and more for its games; and not every machine
would have an expensive hard drive. In the second generation,
Microsoft planned on reducing the cost of the hardware over time.


Contract manufacturing had matured since the last generation.
Flextronics was willing to make each console for just $10 each, while
another manufacturer, Wistron, would do the same for $7, according to
sources. They hoped to make profits on large volumes of machines sold.
They were also practiced in the art of reducing the costs of the
components they put into their machines. Overall, Microsoft had a much
more formidable hardware operation, when you consider all of its
virtual resources, on the second time around. But it still wasn’t
enough to do a perfect job.




http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.video.xbox/browse_thread/thread/d6e4588f2c3d165d/99978770177041ca?#99978770177041ca

[yusky03]

^Thanks^

My 360 Elite seems to work great but I don't really play it that much anymore... I mostly play my PSN games right now... until I get my hands on Fable 2 and Gears of War 2:cool:

[QrafTee]

no surprise,

why should microsoft handle consoles any different from operating systems?

sell it first - fix it later is standard operating procedure for microsoft - always was.

Yeah, but fixing hardware and fixing software are different. Patches can be distributed widely and patched within minutes to hours. Fixing hardware takes call centers full of outsourced folks and long turnaround times. I guess that part didn't get through to Microsoft when they thought it was okay.

[wpc]

Wheres Trashcat and Illness? lol what say you mofo:D

[arashb]

Yeah and as good as MS's warranty service is, chances are your 360 will be swapped with someone elses. The 360 you bought a month ago may be switched with someone elses ebay'd 360 that was in a smokers house :(.

[NewBeginning]

We already reported a few days ago about Dean Takahashi's secret insider information regarding the defective Xbox 360 saga. But re-reading the article once more, a further bit of information stuck out like a sore thumb - 68 out of EVERY 100 Xbox 360's made by MS's Chinese Partners were defective. As reportedly previously, MS did not act upon this as they were desperate to launch the console quickly and thought the problems would just resolve over time.

Looks like Microsoft was right. The RROD is all but gone on new 360's.

[grayjo]

Looks like Microsoft was right. The RROD is all but gone on new 360's.

The damage done to the 360's reputation is irreversible. Unless they gave a new 100% working 360 to every customer with one. Even then...

Reputation isn't something you can patch.

[Dreadnort]

Makes you wonder if the original 33% failure rate was in actual fact the number of working units. (Only joking guys)

I've had my own 360 now since about April 2006, so it's an original Xenon unit. I know this is openly tempting fate, but It seems to be indestructible too. Every RROD inducing game has played with no problems, (I even had to leave it running overnight once, in order to get the 7 Day Survivor achievement for Dead Rising).

It's in a room that can get quite dusty, but the machine itself never seems to get that dirty, there is rarely any dust on it at all and it's on a wooden desk with plenty of space on all sides. In that respect my maintenance of it is always just a quick wipe with a damp cloth over the top occasionally, all of which may help to explain why it has worked perfectly so far.

To cap it all, It's been running since day 1 with Nyko Intercooler attached too. It also does get played alot, typically 5+ hours a day. A mate bought one about a year and a quarter ago and his got the dreaded RROD courtesy of Halo 3, (yes, I couldn't stop laughing at him). He got it fixed of course and it's been OK since, however whenever I go and see him I always notice the film of dust collecting on top of it. Perhaps if He looked into maintaining it a bit better it MIGHT not have RROD'd on him in the first place.

[Attitude]

The damage done to the 360's reputation is irreversible. Unless they gave a new 100% working 360 to every customer with one. Even then...

Reputation isn't something you can patch.


True, the RROD/Defective 360 story is something that will haunt M$ for a very long time. I don't think there would be many 360 owners who don't have that nagging doubt in the back of their minds that something could go wrong with their console at anytime. One thing in M$ favour though is they have a hardcore user base who despite the 360 problems will still buy the next Gen console they design ( i know i will ), i just keep my fingers crossed they have learnt from their mistakes in regards to the 360 manufacturing and design.

[DaveKap]

I had a first gen 360 and knew it would fail eventually, even after owning it for almost 2 years... yet right this very moment it's at a repair station and I'm awaiting its return. I hope I don't end up with something that'll just break again...

[fanps]

The ridiculous thing is that there are people who buy xbox360.

The worst console in history.

[KainXS]

I think this is 100% true, I have an Elite and a Premium and GUESS WHAT, The Xbox 360 Elite I have makes circular scratches on games and Its still in the process of RMA, the Xbox 360 Premium I have freezes on most games, especially forza 2, microsoft won't fix it until it RRODS, now the sad thing is that the premium I have has been sent back to MS twice so far and replaced.:(

The first 360 they sent me had scratches all over it also so I had to do it again:(

[DEDDOA]

I think I have been lucky, ive had 4 360 and only 1 got RRoD, but then that was my fault as i had it on the table and dropped the PSU which then yanked it out of the power socket, then voila, 3 red lights. Got replaced tho even tho it did take 3-4 weeks, but then i had another there at the time, so i wasn't as pissed as I wouldhave otherwise been.

Personally while I know the problem is really bad with the 3 red lights, i somehow don't think it's as bad as some of the PS3 fanatics want people to believe, as in every console would RRoD at some point.

I admit this is a big image problem for MS but it doesn't seem to effect sales as the consoles sold gap between the 360 and PS3 has been pretty much unchanged since the PS3 launch, as in around 5-6mill (tho PS3 fanatics will say that becuae people have to go buy another console when theirs breaks, but that would only be if it was hacked).

Seems to me both sony and ms both have gotten themselves a negative rep this gen, MS with RRoD and Sony with OTT pricing and faliure to deliver on practically all their claims combined with the fact that many peple are a bt put off buy a console because they expect a new SKU a few weeks after they buy. Both are having problems from this negative rep, as the sales show (games tho is another matter as the 360 is even with piracy having no real problems there)

[Snaileater]

The ridiculous thing is that there are people who buy xbox360.

The worst console in history.

u are my new friend

[cafevincent]

I have a hard time believing that 32% never needed repairs. I suspect those 32% just ran out of warranty or something.

[Oner]

I just reposted this somewhere else here it is for those here....

Maybe I'm different but after my 360 had 2 RROD's (that I fixed myself) why would I buy a second one only to have that one fail? The old adage applies....Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, only thing is they didn't fool me the first time as I got my 360 from a friend when it RROD'ed on him and I got it afterward...for free! ;)

And to those who will say "The RROD is not a problem anymore"...BS, I have addressed that many times before and will do so again now (the below was about the PS2's DRE vs 360's RROD, but it still hold true here in this example)

"Funny how some fail to mention the %'s where still within an acceptable industry standard. The only reason why it "seemed" like a lot is because

2-3% of 125 Million is 2.5-3.75 Million ~ PS2

33+% of 20 Million is 6.6 Million+ ~ 360

Now that 33% is also a false number as even MS admitted ALL 360's ARE PRONE TO FAILURE AND ARE DEFECTIVE. Then later they said with the revised MB (twice since then) they would not RROD but they continue to do so! Which means AGAIN that ALL 360's ARE PRONE TO FAILURE AND ARE DEFECTIVE...

http://www.fastsilicon.com/latest-news/microsoft-admits-all-xbox360s-are-defective.html

http://digg.com/gaming_news/Microsoft_Admits_ALL_Xbox360_s_Are_Defective

See, when it's put into PROPER perspective and context others points are totally invalidated. As for Sony charging while MS doesn't, what do you think that Sony charged EVERYONE? Nope. Only those who where outside of their warranty, just like EVERY other company in the world does...unlike MS as they HAD to do it or there would have been a worse class action lawsuit than what Sony had."

[agantai]

here is the RROD Article Posted By GameSpot:

Xbox 360 failure fiasco explained in-depth
Posted Sep 6, 2008 12:45 am GMT By Polybren

If there's one thing former San Jose Mercury-News writer Dean Takahashi knows, it's Microsoft's gaming hardware. In 2002, his book Opening the Xbox recapped the making of the software giant's first entry into the console game industry. Shortly after Microsoft launched its follow-up, Takahashi followed suit with The Xbox 360 Uncloaked.


It's little surprise then that Takahashi, currently a writer for Silicon Valley blog VentureBeat, would be the guy to go whole-hog into the saga of the Xbox 360 hardware's ongoing reliability issues. In a newly published feature that Takahashi considers the final chapter of his Xbox 360 book, the reporter meticulously recounts how Microsoft launched a gaming system with unacceptably high failure rates and its attempts to address the problem.

In July of 2007, Microsoft publicly acknowledged the so-called "Red Ring of Death" issue and took a corresponding financial hit of more than $1 billion to fix it. Prior to that acknowledgement, Takahashi reports that Microsoft had taken returns on 1.2 million of the roughly 11.6 million shipped Xbox 360s. However, the problems responsible for that return rate had been around since before the console hit shelves.

Takahashi quotes a Microsoft engineer who raised the issue of hardware reliability in August of 2005, months before the system's November launch. At the time, 68 of every 100 Xbox 360s made by Microsoft's Chinese manufacturing partners were coming off the line nonfunctional. Worse still, when the first batch of the system's three-core CPUs rolled off the line, only 16 percent worked.

On top of that, Microsoft reportedly altered the design of the system repeatedly in the latter stages of development. The company added hard drives to most machines and made wireless controllers standard, further blocking cooling airflow inside the console. There were even issues with the QA machines that supposedly ensured the 360's system reliability. Takahashi reports that the machines would approve faulty units and were not properly debugged because Microsoft wanted to save $2 million on a $25 million contract with its third-party manufacturer.

"It turned out in the end that this was all going too far, too fast," an unnamed source told Takahashi. "They were adding too many features after things were locked down. That incremental feature adding just made it fragile."

The article goes on to say the post-launch shortage of Xbox 360 systems was due partly to Microsoft's inability to make enough functioning units to satisfy demand. In the spring of 2006, Microsoft had half a million returned or defective units sitting in warehouses, all while publicly stating that returns were within normal rates for consumer electronics.

Problems with quality control continued to plague the system, so much so that Microsoft actually ceased production of the Xbox 360 in 2007 between January and June to find and address the issue, according to the report. The production stoppage was also due to a surplus of systems at retailers from the prior holiday season, a fact which led to accusations of channel-stuffing on Microsoft's part.

As for what the ultimate culprit for the faulty console was, Takahashi reports it was a combination of factors. The ATI graphics chip had overheating issues, solder joints were prone to failure, and assembly and memory issues were widespread.

"The video game industry has never seen a consumer problem as bad as the 'red rings of death' and the size of the $1.15 billion charge stands as one of the biggest liability glitches in consumer electronics history," Takahashi wrote. "How Microsoft handled the flaw may provide a lesson for all modern electronics companies; that is, if you are going to promote the hell out of something, it better work the way you say it does, and you better have a strong customer support and engineering debugging team to back it up."



GameSpot (http://uk.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26580495&tag=;title;1)

[razuraw]

microshit had 3 years to get thge shitbox 360 fixed and quess what my second 360 just got the red light bullshit and got it brand new 6 months ago:mad: never again will i ever buy a microshit product ever again.

[cinten99]

Now can you fan Fags stop calling me a fanboy cuz I won't purchase a piece of sh1t that has a 68% defect rate... ROFL!

Where are all the loyal 360 fan fags now? Over and over they get focked in the azz by their precious M$... but they are too brain washed by their loyalty that they bend over and spread their butt cheeks with PRIDE! NoW THAT IS TRULY SAD!

Wow i thought that you would have died of Aids now after circle jerking with super fanboy fag mashti all day long and swallowing each others loads, (in addition to all the other pole you fags suck). Most people like good games while fags like you and mashti would rather suck on crap games and lick sony pole. Anyways go die of Aids you sad pathetic little sony fanboy fag.

[KainXS]

Wow i thought that you would have died of Aids now after circle jerking with super fanboy fag mashti all day long and swallowing each others loads, (in addition to all the other pole you fags suck). Most people like good games while fags like you and mashti would rather suck on crap games and lick sony pole. Anyways go die of Aids you sad pathetic little sony fanboy fag.


damn man thats crazy, you might get banned for that one, you better edit it

. . . im not joking

[sirxlaughs]

Sounds like every other disgruntled employee who wants to sell books. It happens in all walks of life. Politicians, government officials, and even former Gamestop employees it seems. They lose a job, and decide to "reveal all" by telling people what they already know. Thanks for rehashing old news to make your pockets a little fatter. Even Britney's mom is selling her out for some pocket change.

[mashti]

Wow i thought that you would have died of Aids now after circle jerking with super fanboy fag mashti all day long and swallowing each others loads, (in addition to all the other pole you fags suck). Most people like good games while fags like you and mashti would rather suck on crap games and lick sony pole. Anyways go die of Aids you sad pathetic little sony fanboy fag.

wtf:mad: i know this thread is too much to handle for defective hardware die hard fanboy like you but that doesn't mean you can take it out on others.:confused:

[Attitude]

In response to L33T_HaX0rZ.

Probably reason why most 360 owners on the site see no point in posting is due to the amount of idiotic ps3 fanboys like yourself. Wouldnt have taken anyone two seconds to realise any sensible discussion on this thread would soon be lost by the mundane posts from yourself and your low level IQ friends. Defend your decision as much as possible but try not to do it while frothing at the mouth would be a good start for you and your m8's.

And reading through some of the more intelligent responses you would have seen a few 360 owners actually posting their views, and all actually agreeing that the mistakes M$ have made this gen have not been ones they will be able to get over in any reasonable amount of time.

[mashti]

In response to L33T_HaX0rZ.

Probably reason why most 360 owners on the site see no point in posting is due to the amount of idiotic ps3 fanboys like yourself. Wouldnt have taken anyone two seconds to realise any sensible discussion on this thread would soon be lost by the mundane posts from yourself and your low level IQ friends. Defend your decision as much as possible but try not to do it while frothing at the mouth would be a good start for you and your m8's.

And reading through some of the more intelligent responses you would have seen a few 360 owners actually posting their views, and all actually agreeing that the mistakes M$ have made this gen have not been ones they will be able to get over in any reasonable amount of time.

here we go another xbox idiot,dude seriously you are full of sh!t hypocrite,your extremely low IQ (like you) xbox fanboy friends always post utter crap on every single ps3 thread why dont you start crying at them instead.

[Attitude]

here we go another xbox idiot,dude seriously you are full of sh!t hypocrite,your extremely low IQ (like you) xbox fanboy friends always post utter crap on every single ps3 thread why dont you start crying at them instead.


Proves my point :) you are really pretty dumb my friend

[chyottone]

damn man thats crazy, you might get banned for that one, you better edit it

. . . im not jokingYeah, banned like all the people selling stolen CC details and laptops. </sarcasm>

So 68% were defective, ok, how many defective units left the plant? I'm sure those 68% were the ones they found defective when they rolled down the assembly line. How long did the 68% defective unit rate last? If it's batch 1 from assembly line X, then woop-de-doo. This is just fuel for Sony fanboys. :)

[grayjo]

here we go another xbox idiot,dude seriously you are full of sh!t hypocrite,your extremely low IQ (like you) xbox fanboy friends always post utter crap on every single ps3 thread why dont you start crying at them instead.

Seriously. If you guys hate the 360 so much (or the PS3 for that matter) why do you give it the attention of posting at all?

Is it just an excuse to belittle one another? "I am right, nah na nah na nah na!"

There are good and bad points about each console. If you own one, you will eventually find out for yourself what they are. What does pointing at them and saying "mine hasn't done that yet, so there!" actually achieve?

This is a serious question, I really want to know.

[mashti]

Proves my point :) you are really pretty dumb my friend

& you must think by keeping on calling others "dumb" it makes you look "smart".

retard :rolleyes:

[Attitude]

& you must think by keeping on calling others "dumb" it makes you look "smart".

retard :rolleyes:


lol IQ straining now is it :)

[danight]

wow look at all the ps3 fanboys gathering... amazing :rolleyes:

[mashti]

Seriously. If you guys hate the 360 so much (or the PS3 for that matter) why do you give it the attention of posting at all?

Is it just an excuse to belittle one another? "I am right, nah na nah na nah na!"

There are good and bad points about each console. If you own one, you will eventually find out for yourself what they are. What does pointing at them and saying "mine hasn't done that yet, so there!" actually achieve?

This is a serious question, I really want to know.

i'm 100% sure everyone is entitled to give their own opinion about the "news" posted on maxconsole as long as they dont break the rules like insulting other members,we can still argue but no need for insults.

[mashti]

wow look at all the ps3 fanboys gathering... amazing :rolleyes:

its easy to say the xbots are gathering again (because they are) but why didn't make your comment about the main news instead ?? 68 out of 100 xbots i mean xbox360's failed must be hard news to take.:rolleyes:

[pezjono]

In response to L33T_HaX0rZ.

Probably reason why most 360 owners on the site see no point in posting is due to the amount of idiotic ps3 fanboys like yourself. Wouldnt have taken anyone two seconds to realise any sensible discussion on this thread would soon be lost by the mundane posts from yourself and your low level IQ friends. Defend your decision as much as possible but try not to do it while frothing at the mouth would be a good start for you and your m8's.

And reading through some of the more intelligent responses you would have seen a few 360 owners actually posting their views, and all actually agreeing that the mistakes M$ have made this gen have not been ones they will be able to get over in any reasonable amount of time.

It's funny when you hit PS3 fanboys square in the balls with a post like this. I bet they can't understand half of what you just called them, so that is why people like Mashti feel the need to reply with "LOLz, xbotzers take shaft!! HAHA!" because he can't possibly think of something that would actually make you feel unintelligent.

Thank you Mashti, thank you for your sheer dumb witted stupidity. Feel free to reply and call me an xbot or something that you have called everyone else who disagrees with you a hundred times already. You won't hurt my feelings :D

its easy to say the xbots are gathering again (because they are) but why didn't make your comment about the main news instead ?? 68 out of 100 xbots i mean xbox360's failed must be hard news to take.:rolleyes:

Oh give me a fuckin break... You are one to talk about staying on topic!! This thread (and site) has already gone downhill from you and your multiple accounts that you feel necessary to post with so you don't feel alone in a forum where the majority of people despise you.

[DEDDOA]

It's funny when you hit PS3 fanboys square in the balls with a post like this. I bet they can't understand half of what you just called them, so that is why people like Mashti feel the need to reply with "LOLz, xbotzers take shaft!! HAHA!" because he can't possibly think of something that would actually make you feel unintelligent.

Thank you Mashti, thank you for your sheer dumb witted stupidity. Feel free to reply and call me an xbot or something that you have called everyone else who disagrees with you a hundred times already. You won't hurt my feelings :D



Oh give me a fuckin break... You are one to talk about staying on topic!! This thread (and site) has already gone downhill from you and your multiple accounts that you feel necessary to post with so you don't feel alone in a forum where the majority of people despise you.


Now come on don't be mean, he needs to come on here to boost his low self esteem, how can you deny him and the other sad little creatures that one respite for their insecurity about their toys. just do like the rest of us, add em to the ignore list and let them rant in peace :D

[pezjono]

Now come on don't be mean, he needs to come on here to boost his low self esteem, how can you deny him and the other sad little creatures that one respite for their insecurity about their toys. just do like the rest of us, add em to the ignore list and let them rant in peace :D

But... but it is just so much fun! :D

[mashti]

Oh give me a fuckin break... You are one to talk about staying on topic!! This thread (and site) has already gone downhill from you and your multiple accounts that you feel necessary to post with so you don't feel alone in a forum where the majority of people despise you.

another crying bot :confused:,ok i have a simple solution to put you out of your misery: add me to your ignore list or stfu.the choice is yours & the same goes for your xbox fanboys.

[mashti]

But... but it is just so much fun! :D

hahaha you cry first then you pretend its much fun when another bot joins you hahaha xbox fanboys are the biggest hypocrites :p

[DEDDOA]

But... but it is just so much fun! :D

lol very true, and now that I am thinking about it it does help expand their vocabulary, as they need to try and think of somthing a bit better thought out than spamming Xbotz, sukz and RRoD etc, if they don't want to look even more idiotic than they did beforehand.

I stand corrected, carry on the good work :D

[AceMilo]

I've never seen a thread go so far off topic and so insulting so fast. You guys should go back and read some of the crap you said, it's disgusting. Seriously, you guys sound like 2 year olds, you should be ashamed of yourselves.