back to article MS showcases Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 at expo

Microsoft executives will be a little red-faced today after an Xbox 360 on display at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco contracted the infamous ‘Red Ring of Death’ disease. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com The console was set-up as a demo unit in an area dedicated to …

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  1. Register Reader
    Thumb Up

    Another reason to feel smug

    For avoiding any MS product like the plague (where possible.. stupid work..)

  2. Vernon Lloyd
    Gates Horns

    M$oft should really stick to what they know....

    .....making top quality Operating Systems..

    .....with top easy to figure out STOP (or RROD) error messages .......

    Wait one sec typing this has caused an illegal operation....

    I stand seriously corrected

    /Just get my coat

  3. dervheid
    Thumb Up

    Oh Sweet Irony!

    Sweet Swet Irony!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What is The Registers problem?

    Whilst the 360 has had RROD problems in the past, how do we know this console isn't an old V1 console that was prone to the problem? We need a camera shot of the back of the failed system if this is really to be newsworthy.

    The Register as always is dressing this up as something it's not. The RROD problem is long resolved in the V2 consoles that have been out ages now and frankly with a high failure rate on the original consoles a mere 16% failure rate is nothing and goes to show how well the V2 version of the console has done to bring the error rate down, which given time it'll continue to do so.

    Whilst reporting on HD-DVD's death is appreciated, the extreme to which The Register is taking it to with multiple stories a week is getting a little tiresome.

    One has to ask the question, is The Reg. biased towards the PS3 or Wii? When you look at the facts the 360 is still well ahead of the PS3, it's got far more, higher quality online content (downloadable movies, games etc.) and far more games as well as having the best software sales pointing to a massively strong library of games.

    As the console, whilst not as much of a success as the Wii in terms of units shifted (but still as much of a success in terms of software shifted) is clearly still doing extremely well in the marketplace, why does The Reg. consistently only talk about it in a negative light? The staff here are supposed to be professional journalists, so surely they should be capable of pointing out basic points such as the fact the 16% failure rate is a good reflection on the quality of new systems in bringing the original much higher rate down!

  5. ScientologyIsACult
    Stop

    re: What is The Registers problem?

    thou shalt never use professional journalists and the reg in the same sentence.

    it's just not right

  6. Mark Ashworth
    Happy

    do i have to say anything

    Viva le PS3.....

    @anon coward.

    The story was first broken this morning by GamesIndustry.biz so The Reg isn't showing biased... face it the 360 is shit hardware, always was and always will be.

    Yes the 360 has more games, it was also released 18 months before the PS3...

    I have xb360 fanboi friends who are on their 5th console, due to failures... me i'm on still on my 1st PS3, bought on the day of release and played all the time by either myself, my wife or my kids..

  7. Mark
    Gates Horns

    Proof that ALL 360's are STILL prone to this..

    Whilst Microsoft will pretend the hardware issues are resolved, anyone that communicates with real people in the real world will know the 360 is still extremely unreliable, even on latest units.

    Whilst reliability of the falcon units is better, it's still nowhere near enough, as the root causes are caused by lack of airflow, and too much heat generation from the GPU. Neither of these issues have been resolved (the GPU is still 90nm and the case it unchanged).

    You will only see major improvements in 360 reliability when Microsoft move to a 65nm GPU (next year), or redesign the case. There was talk of fitting laptop drives, to improve airflow in the case, but Microsoft poo poo'd that because of the increased cost.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    re: What is The Registers problem?

    LOL, this guy is seriously deluded. Has he had a knock on the head recently?

    The PS3 has far better content, and the 360 really is a bag of crap.

  9. dervheid
    Happy

    16% failure rate is nothing?

    What? Come on A.C. You don't really believe that a failure rate of almost 1 in 6 is acceptable, surely? (100/16=6.25) You're beginning to sound like a FANBOY!!

  10. Shaun
    Happy

    @ Anonymous Coward

    I guess we now know what Billy G is doing with all his free time :)

    Seriously though - This is the Register - They post pics of giant BSOD's and we laugh because it's funny. If M$ decided to use a V1 console to demo their hardware, then they're clearly more stupid than we think.

    Seriously - this is funny - either laugh, or go get a sense of humour transplant.

  11. Sam

    Microtoss staffer alert (AC)

    "Whilst the 360 has had RROD problems in the past, how do we know this console isn't an old V1 console that was prone to the problem?"

    Why would anyone with half a brain risk exhibiting an older version of something known to be prone to these errors?

    Oh, wait...

  12. Magnus

    16% is a problem when the competition is at 3%

    The problem is that having a 16% when your competitors are hovering around 3% is bad PR and shows inherent design issues compared to the competition.

  13. Matt

    PS3 too

    The PS3 gets regular slaggings from El Reg too, so I don't think you can say they pick on the XBox.

    The number of failures also seems pretty high.

    I am a PS3 owner but I have to say in general what I've seen of the XBox looks OK. My choice was more down to avoiding anything else MS after spending a lot of my working life fighting with it's OS on the desktop. I think it's fair to say that the XBox is a lot better than XP or Vista though.

    On the other hand to say that the XBox has got better on-line content is a bit out of date.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Anonymous Coward = Microsoft Executive

    Thanks for that, I'm sure that Microsoft Executives sit out in their offices preparing statements like this to post Anonymously. Sheesh!

  15. Dabooka
    Happy

    That's FUNNY!

    Not the article, the quote "a mere 16% failure rate".

    I'm glad Boeing and Airbus don't find that level of fault acceptable!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    RRoD not fixed

    I'm a member of a very large forum of 360 owners and I can assue you that the RRoD issue has NOT been fixed. The newer Elite and Falcon models fail just like the old ones.

    However, the 360 and LIVE is like crack. People who cannot get repairs are just buying a new 360 and carrying on playing. Members on their 3rd or 4th console are not uncommon, the worst I know of is 11!

    Evil Bill pic because I'm addicted.

  17. Tom

    AC needs A.C

    Chill your boots fanboi! Think you'll need an extended H3 session tonight to lose some of that agro! And BTW, company expos normaly role out new kit per demo to avoid this problem (you know, the point of an expo is to impress and show off, so old kit would be misdenomer) this will not be a V1 console, idiot.

  18. Tim Spence

    Embarrassing

    Wow, Microsoft *really* have eggs on their face now. They should hang their heads in shame, get out of the market like yesterday, and kiss the PS3's ass. All because - hahahahahagetthisit'ssofunnyican'tstoplaughing - one of their own demo machines broke down and someone saw it. </sarcasmwhichamericanswontget>

    Shit happens. Although yes I will concede it's slightly amusing.

    Get over it.

  19. Highlander

    Et tu Falcon?

    Ya know, Microsoft is unlikely to place anything other than their latest and greatest on display at the GDC, so this was likely a Falcon system at least. The red ring of death shows no partiality, it is an equal opportunity system failure.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @What is The Registers problem?

    "with a high failure rate on the original consoles a mere 16% failure rate is nothing"

    A "mere" 16% == Nothing.

    Total Bollocks!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's funny because...

    It's not as if the PS3 doesn't keel over in the display cases at Best Buy and the likes also, there are plenty of PS3s that just can't handle the heat inside those display cases.

    What's also ironic is that some are suggesting the new hardware iteration hasn't resolved the issue. No doubt they were the same people suggesting the 33% failure rate months ago was true.

    If they agree to both these points, they're failing to account for the 17% increase in reliability that has occurred in that period. Either one of those points is true, or none are true, whichever you choose it's clear that Microsoft has resolved the issue, 33% down to 16% is a big increase in reliability. As the old V1 consoles prone to the RROD problem die off reliability will continue to improve on the track it has now, in fact in another 6months, following current trends in reliability improvements it would suggest that the 360 is going to be at the industry average.

    I'm not sure why Mark is spouting the usual lies, oh wait yes I am sure it's because he works for Sony or similar and that's what he always does every time The Reg post a 360/HD-DVD article. But anyhow, let's correct his lies anyway. The 360's GPU actually went 65nm in the Elite, it wasn't until the proper v2 consoles that the CPU went 65nm as well, so it's 65nm through and through, it now runs cooler and quieter than the PS3. Unlike a fanboy I will happily accept that the 360 has had major faults in it's past, but to suggest it has faults now? That's just outright lying. It's as baseless as saying the PS3 has a 40% failure rate or something equally unfounded. The fact is the V2 360s are at least as reliable as the PS3s and are certainly running cooler and quieter, you only have to put them side by side to see the proof of that. This isn't to say the new version of the Cell that's coming wont also become cooler and quieter to match the 360 when it eventually comes out of course.

  22. Jason The Saj
    Heart

    I got my Xbox 360 for Christmas...

    I love it...

    I don't mind failure rate as long as Microsoft will stand by and make accomodations.

    - Jason

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    cable not connected?

    I think that its the wrong segments lit up on that machine for the RRoD. I belive that set of segments might indicate the video or power cable are not plugged in correctly.

  25. Mark
    Gates Horns

    MUCH higher than 16%

    Turns out the higher figure is true.

    SquareTrade only handle a proportion of warranties, yet the percentage number was calculated from ENTIRE Xbox sales.

    See what they did there?

    If SquareTrade handle 50% of Xbox warranties, then it doubles the number they quote.

    Sounds like someone has been caught manipulating figures.

  26. Mad Hacker
    Unhappy

    16% failure rate... more like 130%

    I have about 10 friends I can think of that own XBOXs 360s including me. All of us have had to send it back at least once, and three of us have had to send it in twice.

    I'd kill for only a 16% failure rate on my 360.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    16% is rubbish

    I post annonymously only because I will potentially get someone into trouble if my name appears... A good friend of mine works for one of the returns handling centres for the 360 and MS only count the first console from any user that fails as a failure.

    The fact that there are 1000's and 1000's of people in the UK alone who have had to return the replacement of the replacement (with some owners onto their fifth machine!), is completely discounted from that 16%. It is the same all across Europe.

    MS won't comment on how they calculate the failure rate. This is why.

  28. Morely Dotes
    Jobs Horns

    @ AC

    "Whilst the 360 has had RROD problems in the past, how do we know this console isn't an old V1 console that was prone to the problem?"

    OK, let's look at this from a PR standpoint: We're going to a game developers' conference, and our hardware is going to be showcased in front of developers who are critical to our business success; developers from all over the world; so we want all of our gear to be QAed six ways from Sunday. No screwups, because this is the place where the Press is going to be. Remember Windows 95 and the Bill Gates demonstration of the BSOD? *None* *of* *that*! You got it?

    Now, let's assume that it is, in fact, an old V1 console. That says quite a lot about the QA process at Microsoft, doesn't it? And not a single word of what it has to say is good.

  29. mark carlisle
    Pirate

    don't be a silly anon

    @anon

    cable not connected...

    clutching at straws?? wise up!!

  30. Morely Dotes

    Oh, and @ Oliver Jones

    "several computer companies were driven out of business by the Commodore 64, although that was largely due to Jack Tramiel's aggressive pricing regime"

    Yes, and when the Amiga came along, they continued that practice, selling the Amiga at a loss - apparently they thought they could make it up on volume.

    That worked well, didn't it?

    Microsoft can afford to stand behind their hardware, and replace the failed machines (they did the "right thing" by extending warranties when the V1 consoles starting dropping like flies). What MS *can't* afford is alienation of game developers.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "The PS3 has far better content, and the 360 really is a bag of crap."

    Wow, fanboy alert. That's the trouble with Sony-land (Europe), too many blind fanboys who can't see beyond the ends of their SIXAXIS to what other platforms have to offer.

  32. Chris

    @Morely Dotes

    "Yes, and when the Amiga came along, they continued that practice, selling the Amiga at a loss - apparently they thought they could make it up on volume.

    That worked well, didn't it?"

    Yeah- it did, for quite a long time. Practically everyone I know had an Amiga, Mac or Archimedies long before they had a PC, because PC's were just useless. Most of them (probably 70%) had an Amiga. You couldn't do anything with the PC with just DOS, and Windows 3.1 really didn't help all that much.

    The mistake Commodore made with Amiga (after being really quite sucessful for over 5 years) was placing them firmly as a games machine. As computers started finding there way into offices Commodore desperatly tried to rebrand some of their machines as buisness models, but the damage was done. The public saw the Amiga, with all it's pretty graphics, as a games machine, and the boring display of a PC as a buisness machine.

    Who knows where we'd be now if the Amiga had given itself a more buisness based market position? All I know is that my Amiga 1200 with the 030 50MHz accelerator including the FPU and all the other nice little bits FAR outperformed a Pentium II at 10 times the clock speed.

  33. Chris

    @AC

    "The PS3 has far better content, and the 360 really is a bag of crap."

    That's maybe a little strong admitedly.

    However I just looked now, and the prices add up as such:

    XBOX 360 Elite : £279.99

    PS3 40GB : £279.99

    To be completley fair, considering they are the same price:

    The PS3 has a Bluray drive builtin, the XBOX has a optional £130 add on USB, now defunct HD-DVD drive.

    The PS3 easily accepts twin HDMI ports, straight in the back of the machine. The XBOX has recently come up with a HDMI cable, but thats with the XBOX end as a non HDMI plug, so you have to use Microsofts cable.

    The PS3 is about twice the processing power of the 360 (They might not have laerned exactly how to use it all at the same time yet, but they will)

    The XBox 360 has a slightly better online service, available for £40 a year (ish). The PS3 has a very nearly as good online service for free.

    Most of the modern games that anyone cares about are on both platforms. If you want Halo 3 get a 360, if you want Gran Turismo 5 get a PS3.

    When I weigh it all up, the PS3 is just better value. Even when it was £100 more expensive, it was still better value. It's really rather up to each person to decide. It seems to be more of a social statement than a hardware choice these days.

  34. evilbobthebob
    Coat

    Clearly AC above

    That makes the US Microsoft-Land.

    I'll get my EU-made Sony (TM) coat.

  35. George
    Paris Hilton

    Great strategy

    It's always been microsoft's strategy to sell a quickly put-together piece of entertainment and sell it as quickly as possible and then make another one (which is what the first one should have been) and boast on the improvements over the first.

    No!! lol .. the new xbox shouldn't be about how it doesn't crash and burn like the old one! It's supposed to be about having newer and cooler things.

    It's the difference between saying "Hey I got the new xbox.. it's supposed to have a lower rate of failure than the old one" and "hey the new PS3 has this new feature that the PS2 never had"

    Get the idea there... plus the sega megadrive never had these problems :)

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    RRoD?

    any minute now some predictable eejit is going to make a really obvious "red ring of death? - i've had that after a dodgy chicken vindaloo.." remark.

    ... but thankfully it ain't gonna be me.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Xbox 360 or PS3

    Amazing. Just the other day I was chatting with my brother about which console to buy, Xbox 360 or PS3. My brother suggested the PS3, but I was thinking of switching despite the rocky past of the last model. I've been a play station user so far. This just made my mind up. PS3 it is.

  38. Ed

    Heh

    "me i'm on still on my 1st PS3, bought on the day of release and played all the time by either myself, my wife or my kids.."

    Yeah, how's it going playing those same three games over and over?

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Re: It's funny because...

    .Either one of those points is true, or none are true, whichever you choose it's clear that Microsoft has resolved the issue, 33% down to 16% is a big increase in reliability.'

    Oh thats alright then Microsoft has fixed the reliability problems then as its now down from 1 in 3 to 1 in 6 failure rate...

    What a load of twaddle, do you actually read what you write before posting such garbage. If I spend 300 ukp on a console is fair that I am expected get a 1 in 6 failure rate ????

    Why should a console be any different from a TV, DVD player etc..

    Microsoft should be prosecuted for selling substandard equipment however the problem is Fanbois people like you who continue to find these acceptable figures

  40. Daniel B.
    Thumb Up

    RRoD

    Hm... why does this look so ... familiar?? Except 10 years ago it was Win95 (or 98?) and a BSoD. And with Billy G up there!

    I'm still saving my dosh for the PS3...

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    It's already commented, but...

    "a mere 16% failure rate is nothing"

    I'm still laughing, I really, really am. Thanks for cheering me up with that one!

  42. Maksim Rukov
    Unhappy

    arguments over consoles

    Stop it! I hate it when you fight! Aren't we all supposed to all be gamers here? Can't we just get along?

    * runs crying to bedroom, slams door *

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Ok so the point of

    not fixing it is to get people with a mental problem to buy another makes sense to me.

  44. Highlander
    Alert

    Failure rates and multi-purchasers.

    I wonder what the real re-purchase rate among 360 owners is? I mean we've all read blog posts from folks who have had multiple RROD failures, and probably almost as many posts from people who claim they have purchase a second, or even third, system just to have a spare in case of failure.

    Really and truly, I wonder just how many of all those 360s sold are in the hands of owners who have already purchased one and are on a second or third due to failures.

    For those who think that 16% failure isn't so bad, try this on for size. If you take a 6 chamber revolver and load a single cartridge into it and spin the chambers around to randomize the location of the cartridge. Now, who wants to put that gun to their head and pull that trigger? I mean, 16% isn't that bad, right? Riiiiiiggghhhtt......!

  45. Andy Worth

    I love the way.....

    .....that some people open up their mouth and swallow any figures or "facts" that are spurted out to them by company press releases, rather like a cheap hooker would swallow your load. (I refer to one of the AC's mainly)

    A couple seem to insist that the RROD issue is fixed, because Microsoft said so!. Sure, it may have improved, but a failure rate of 16% is still around FIVE TIMES that of their competition.

    Shame, as I would have bought one if everyone I knew who had one hadn't already had theirs fail at least once.

  46. dervheid
    Paris Hilton

    Off to bed?

    Based on the post timings, it looks like some of you guys really need to get to sleep earlier. All this late night gaming (well, I presume it's gaming, or is it just 'joystick' abuse?) is making you all grumpy!

    Paris, cos she'd (probably) be able to 'cure' you of your "LIVE" addiction.

  47. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Don't these people know the first rule of computer demos?

    Never EVER leave a machine unattended where the public can see it. It doesn't matter HOW reliable the hardware or software is, or whether its a PC, console or DVD recorder. If you leave an abacus out unattended at a trade show, the beads will fall off. You should always have a PFY there to "accidentally" trip over the cables.

  48. Ryan Greenaway
    Coat

    Lucky One

    It seems I am one of th luckiest people on earth. Bought an Xbox360, on day of release, it sits in a cabinet with all my other Hi-fi equipment and has never gone wrong.

    Is it that I am really that lucky, or is it that I don't spend FAR too much time on it that I become anti-social and forget how to communicate with people.

    There's a whole wide world out there folks, go and experience it, and then your xbox will continue working when you only use it for 2 hours a day instead of 10 (and then leaving it on overnight to prove a point)!!!!

    I'll get my coat...and go outside with the real people!

  49. Mark Ashworth
    Happy

    @ed

    3 games...... fraid not, currently 10 and rising...

  50. MarmiteToast

    Summary

    I own both a Xbox360 and PS3 so feel fairly confident I can present a view not biased by fanboy principles. Here's my quick overview:

    1. I don't know anyone who owns a Xbox360 that hasn't broken.

    2. They repair them very promptly and recompense you for the inconvenience.

    3. They tell you what went wrong and what they've done.

    4. They wont tell you why it went wrong and don't want to know. If you tell them it occurred when you tried to use Halo 3 they will not record the information.

    5. Repairs are made with refurbished parts which can lead to multiple repairs (friend now on console number 5!)

    Overall good performance and I'm very happy with my experiences so far even though I've had to send it off for repairs.

  51. Alistair MacRae
    Unhappy

    Thats not a red ring of death :P

    Thats had just its powercord knocked. Theres no error message on screen.

    I own two xbox 360s. One from launch and its never had a read ring of death but i have had to send it back twice now.

    Once for a some weird fan probem and the other was the CD drive broke.

    I'm going to get a ps3 as a Blu-ray player. There arn't really any games i want to play on it. Not yet anyway.

    The 360 controller is sooooo much easier to use over a long period of time.

    Media sharing on the PC to the 360 is terrible. It hardly ever works. I have to run the install everytime i restart the pc almost.

    All it is, is a simple x-over lead from my pc to it. How can that go wrong. Microsoft cant tell me, but if i go on the forums loads of people get it.

    This is even on a clean install of Win XP.

    Hopefully the PS3 media sharing is better

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: arguments over consoles

    Yeah I've never got arguments over consoles either. I guarantee in 5 or 10 years time gamers will be quite happily playing 360, PS3 and Wii games on their PCs via emulators and judging each game they play on it's own merits regardless of which system it was originally designed for.

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    The 16% numbers are totally bogus.

    Myself, I got to my 3rd 360, before I sold it and bought a PS3. Out of the people I know with 360 (about 12 or so), I know of only 2 people who have yet to had it fail on them, and 4 of those people are on at least their second replacement, either scratching discs or RROD.

    I think most peoples numbers will be similar. Whilst there will be lucky people around, who have never had it go wrong, the chances of having your 360 fail in the short term VASTLY outweigh the chances of it lasting.

    I consider the 30% figure to be more accurate. I suspect the 16% Squaretrade stat is somehow flawed, or funded by Microsoft to hide the actual number.

    If, as Microsoft claim, all initial 11 million consoles are indeed faulty, and will all fail prematurely, then the failed percentage number will continue to climb, until Microsoft can get 10 million WORKING consoles into the market to stop than number climbing. That is not going to happen over night.

    30% today, 60% next year, and then it might slow and eventually start to drop.

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Don't forget...

    ...that 78% of statistics are made-up....like this one.

    Never had a problem with my 360, not got a PS3 (yet) but last time I checked my 3 PS2sand their discs were absolute shite. Pot, kettle, Sony, Microsoft. End of discussion...

  55. Iain

    @various

    Highlander: Don't be ludicrous. The solution to a game of Russian Roulette going wrong is not "Switch back to playing Rez on the Dreamcast for a week or two while Microsoft put your brain back together". Yes, the failure rate is bad. Yes, I considered it worth the risk when it's the platform currently offering me the most things I want to play, at least until Proper GT5 comes out at some point in the future (I've never found the Prologue releases worth the money).

    Chris: Current XBox 360s have one proper HDMI socket on the back, just like the PS3. There is a dongle to give HDMI output for people who have an old model without the port, but that's not the worry of people who don't already have one. Re: Processing power, there is one particular benchmark that gives the PS3 a peak rate of twice the 360, but in reality the difference is much smaller. The 360 also has a faster GPU than the PS3, so overall it's a wash - both machines have bottlenecks in different places. Finally, as mentioned to Highlander, what you actually should be saying is "If you want to play Halo 3 buy a 360, if you want to play GT5, sit on your hands until it comes out; there's bound to be a price cut in the meantime".

  56. Paul Isaac's
    Alien

    RROD Twice! Halo3

    Anyone experienced RROD like me? Play Halo3 in 2-player,same screen/console mode for about 45mins == RROD. Sent 360 way for repair. Came back2 weeks later, instantly wanted to play Halo 3 again...30mins of 2-player, same screen/console == RROD Again...so...when it came back... Halo3 has stayed firmly in its box...no RROD yet!

  57. Tim Donovan
    Flame

    Console/computer arguments

    Let me think here,

    It started with:

    Amstrad/Spectrum/Commodore

    Then went to:

    Amiga/Atari ST

    Then we had

    Master system/NES

    Also:

    Game Gear/Game Boy

    And throw in some:

    Mega Drive/SNES

    Is there a pattern here?

    Incidently, I stopped arguing about this sort of stuff when I left junior school so I suppose it;s a moot point, as stated above, you wnat sony exclusive games then get a PS3 you want Xbox exclusive games then buy a 360.

    I chose the 360 for convenience (had an xbox before) and I've had 1 issue with it but other than that (touch wood) it;s been perfectly fine.

    I'm also liking a lot of the games on it, oblivion, Bioshock, mass effect to name a few. If there were games on the PS 3 that i wanted I'd probably have held out for that.

    So everyone, get out of the playground, people pick a console that suits their needs, if you don't agree with them then stop whining

    Cheers

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    @MarmiteToast

    "I don't know anyone who owns a Xbox360 that hasn't broken. Repairs are made with refurbished parts which can lead to multiple repairs (friend now on console number 5!) Overall good performance and I'm very happy with my experiences so far even though I've had to send it off for repairs."

    I don't understand. If I spent several hundred pounds on some CE equipment which had these kinds of failures, I would be immensely annoyed. I would also demonstrate this by taking my money elsewhere. Especially when there's an alternative which is similarly priced, more feature complete, offers similar experiences and is bulletproof in comparison.

    Otherwise, what's to say that the xbox 720 doesn't suffer the same problems? "Well, they put up with it last time... suckers"

  59. George
    Linux

    Re: Console/computer arguments

    I remember those arguments, but they were never about console reliability. It was mainly over which had the better games.

    Nowdays it is over reliability, ever since microsoft joined the market mind you. At first it was the argument between PCs, Play Station, Nintendo, and Dreamcast, which ones had better games and the PC was always attacked for being unreliable cos it was prone ot crashing and viruses.

    Now dreamcast flew and xbox landed.... somehow PCs dissapeared from the argument and it's all about XBox needing be to be replaced most of the time. Also we all know what happened to the PS2s and their powercord problem but to me.. that's just a power cord. Here xbox just seems to be the problem.

    It's fun to blab about this. And funny when people can't take a sense of humor.

  60. Chris

    @Iain

    Point taken with some of that. But some of it is slightly misleading.

    "Current XBox 360s have one proper HDMI socket on the back, just like the PS3." Well the PS3 has 2, but I'm just being pedantic there.

    "Re: Processing power, there is one particular benchmark that gives the PS3 a peak rate of twice the 360"

    Yes - Floating Point Operations Per Second. The XBOX 360 performs 1 teraflop, the PS3 performs at 2. This one I think is really quite misleading, because thats the only real true measure of processing power.

    "The 360 also has a faster GPU than the PS3, so overall it's a wash"

    This one, true, but as bit of a cheat on Microsofts part. A small area of the GPU which can access 10mb of special memory has a speed nearly 10 times that of the PS3. When accessing the other 512mb the speed is about 2/3's that of the PS3.

    "both machines have bottlenecks in different places."

    Yeah, thats true. I still think the PS3 has less of a bottleneck, but with current games not really stretching either of them, it's very hard to say.

    "If you want to play Halo 3 buy a 360, if you want to play GT5, sit on your hands until it comes out; there's bound to be a price cut in the meantime"

    Completely true. My mistake, I keep thinking GT5 is out. Yeah you can get prologue, but you don't get much for your money with those half games.

    Mostly that was all fair, but some of it IS spin from Microsoft. Despite their terrible track record, I think some of the PS3 was underhyped. With the Bluray drive in, it really is a much better deal.

  61. Highlander

    @Iain

    I am talking quite specifically about the statistical chances of failure. Of course the failure of your 360 is not lethal, unless of course it shorts out and causes a fire.... However that's not the point, the point is that 1 in 6 odds are not good odds. I remember having an SLA discussion years and years ago with someone who was trying to persuade me that 99.9% was sufficiently reliable for a mission critical network system. I sat there and asked which working day he thought we would like to lose due to system failure. Imagine if he'd tried to suggest to me that 84% was sufficient!

    I used the Russian Roulette concept because it fits nicely due to the old 6 chamber revolver. You can't deny that it is a good fit to illustrate a point regarding 1 in 6 odds. And that is rather the point, isn't it? 1 in 6 Xboxes according to this report, 1 in 3 according to earlier reports and reported insider information from the Xbox team itself. Even just the 1 in 6 failure rate is ridiculous for any consumer product. I don't honestly know how you or anyone else can be so enamored with the 360 console that a 1 in 6 failure rate is deemed a price worth paying.

    As for the Prologue version of GT5, agreed. I don't like 'prologue' games. They seem pointless to me when the real game is coming soon.

  62. Tim Blair
    Happy

    johny giles anyone?

    i fixed my red ring of death with some cream from the chemist.. have to watch them hot curry's though...

  63. Andy Worth

    @Highlander

    True, true. If I had a 1 in 6 chance of dying in a fatal car accident within the year I might strongly consider finding an alternate mode of transport (or simply staying at home). Granted, a 360 failure isn't anywhere near that serious but the point stands.

    And I agree with most - "Prologue" versions are just pants. It's like having a woman tickle your balls only to say she won't go any further, for a while anyway.

    Jeez I seem to be on it with the sexual metaphors today :)

  64. OrsonX
    Unhappy

    RROD on very first power-up, SOB!

    ... not what you want to see after getting home an excitedly plugging in your new toy!!!

    [this was at start of Feb 08]

    Still, took it back to PC World where it obligingly did it again… and I got a replacement. But, this makes me wonder about those people who have to play Halo3 for 45 min before getting the RROD. What do PC World do then? Do they make you play for 45 min in shop until destruction, or do they just believe you???

    So far so GROJ on 360 II. [Green Ring Of Joy; first use - no hits on Google!] Still, not really pushed it heat wise yet as I am still playing the Boogie Bunnies two level demo!

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