The Xbox 360 has had quite a poor record when it comes to build quality. My experience with Microsoft's wonder console does little to change what so many people already know: The Xbox 360 is more fragile than paper-mâché in a rain storm. It's almost as though simply glancing at the console in the wrong way can send it into cardiac arrest. It's just so easy to hate it.I've already complained about my excruciatingly frustrating experience with Xbox support, so we can all rejoice in the fact that this tale does not include any dealings with them. Working for a major retailer, I've had the extended warranty, from the store, since day one. It was probably the best investment I made in a long time. How so? Well, after owning an Xbox 360 for two years, I am now on my fifth console. No, you didn't misread that. The sun didn't hit the monitor slowly blinding you into a stupor making you believe that just read that I'm on my fifth console. I'm really on my fifth Xbox 360 and never once have I experienced a red ring of death.
My first Xbox 360 unit was only three months old when it decided to take its own life. On a glorious day, when I was off from work, I decided to play some MLB 2k7. Maybe my Xbox knew how bad the game was and decided to give me a hand; I couldn't tell you. Whatever it was, though, the console decided to stop reading any and all media. Neither games nor movies would work anymore. Back to the store I went and home came a replacement.
Xbox number two didn't fare much better. In fact, it decided that not only should I not play Project Gotham Racing 3, but I also should not get my disc back. The DVD drive simply lost all power. I have no idea how this happened, but there I was, with a screw driver, prying open the tray to get my darn disc back. Another trip to the store was in order and I was already feeling the pain and anguish of knowing I was going to be stuck in this relationship, continually coming back for more abuse.
If the third time is usually the charm, then the complete opposite is true of the Xbox 360. Maybe Microsoft decided that the third time should be so amazing that you can't help but cry tears of sadness while laughing at the same time. In this case, after putting a game into my Xbox 360, I received a message from the Xbox 360 telling me that I should put the disc into an Xbox 360 if I wanted to access it (hopefully, that reads as insanely as it sounds). Every game rendered the same result. My head almost imploded and, I would swear, the earth's rotation was reversed and the universe caved in on itself, if only for a brief moment. I'm a glutton for abuse, though, so I ran off to get a replacement as quickly as possible.
All of this brings us to yesterday. After watching The Punisher: War Zone on DVD in my 360, the unit must have decided that no game could ever match the levels of awesomeness that the movie captured. Upon putting in my copy of Call of Duty: World at War, I was presented with a black screen and a clicking sound. I ejected the disc to find that the console had created an inch long crack stemming outwards from the center of the disc. This wasn't a scratch; this was an actual crack in my game. Why? How? What the hell? How could this be? I didn't even know what to think. All I knew is that I needed to get it replaced, yet again.
Now I have my fifth Xbox 360 and a new copy of CoD: WaW (discounted by a manager to make up for the lost disc) sitting in my room just waiting to figure out a new way to fail. This one is a Jasper model, the latest build of the Xbox 360 promised to solve the red ring of death issues, but that doesn't do much for me. All I can do is sit and wait for this thing to decide it's time to join its predecessors and commit suicide.
When it works, I love the Xbox 360. It's a great device and, combined with Netflix, has become my main source of entertainment at home. The problem is, though, no matter how much I love the experience of a working console, I hate the Xbox 360 because the joy never lasts. In two years' time, I have gone through four Xbox 360 consoles and now wait on a fifth to die like the rest. Get your act together, Microsoft. It's bad enough that your support system is designed to make me homicidal, but can't you, at least, make a decent piece of hardware? I think I'm going with another company for the next generation. It's just too easy to hate the Xbox 360.
Last edited by GreyWolfSC on 24 Mar 2009 - 15:57
Just like with software on PC's not everyone has the same smooth experience.
The more of this kind of stuff we have the better. Neowin will be a far duller place if no-one speaks their mind in articles like this simply because a minority have a fanboy mentality.
You for president!
The more of this kind of stuff we have the better. Neowin will be a far duller place if no-one speaks their mind in articles like this simply because a minority have a fanboy mentality.
The more of this kind of stuff we have the better. Neowin will be a far duller place if no-one speaks their mind in articles like this simply because a minority have a fanboy mentality.
Thank you, Chicane. Your posts continue to impress me.
The more of this kind of stuff we have the better. Neowin will be a far duller place if no-one speaks their mind in articles like this simply because a minority have a fanboy mentality.
+1
Console
NES
Genesis Followed by Super Nintendo
Nintendo64 Followed by Playstation 1 Followed by Sega Saturn
Gamecube Followed by Playstation 2
Xbox 360
Handheld
Game Boy Followed by Game Gear
Game Boy Color
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo DS Followed by PSP
Notice the pattern? When I get shat on by a company's poor game library, or lack of a better word.. Foobarness, I switch companies next generation, or even current gen and stick with what works. Xbox 360, I've had it for about a few months, and I suffer constant freezing in some games (Fable 2, GTA 4) while playing from the DVD, doesn't happen when it's installed. Microsoft by far reminds me a lot of the old NES (1st Gen NES) days. Insert cart, it works, enjoys, next day, insert cart, blinking screen, blow on cart connector, works, next day, doesn't work, buy cleaning kit, clean console and cart.
The simple fact that I can compare Xbox 360 to NES in stability comparison tells tenfold of the lack of build quality for the console, this generation has been rough for me too, I didn't want to spend so much for a console, then I got scared off from buying the 360 due to it's incredible ability to screw up. So I wait, PS3 comes rolling around for !SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS! so I don't buy that. Finally bought a 360 and low and behold, technical issues, although they could be MUCH worse. As for the Wii, no, I'm a hardcore gamer, and my Gamecube collected dust, I don't want to buy a new Gamecube model with the added ability to flail my arms about with motion sensor remote controls..
I'm waiting to see what happens next gen, If OnLive is successful I might just do that..
I have the same issue here with various games (even new ones). Thank God I have the option to install to the HDD. Glad to hear it's not just me.
i love the xbox 360, i think its an amazing console. i only use my ps3 for bluray
You know what is worse than Microsoft for making a product with such poor build quality? All the forum rats that read statements like that and say: ZOMG what the heck are you doing to your console! You must be abusing them somehow. The console won't just break... mine won't because I take care of it.
Nothing has infuriated me more than morons posting such arrogance in these vary forums.
Am I saying he's a liar? Am I a Microsoft fanboy? No, I'm not, but I'm saying I trust me and the 15 people who I know personally more than one incredibly unlucky journalist with a chip on his shoulder.
Not saying it isn't just ****ty hardware, it probably is. But that's just...weird.
I don't know him, but I'm guessing after the third console he explored these options already.
Interesting. I suspect that some of my 'freezing' issues could be due to my console sitting vertically.
Mine sits vertically and has for the past couple years. No freezing and no issues. Not CD scratches or cracks at all.
Since you have DVD drive related problems on not RROD it just seems that a specific batch of drives that went into them have problems. The 360 does ship with 3 different DVD drive models (or maybe they're set on one now with the new revision).
Anyways, as far as DVD drive problems go, my bad experiences in that area all fall on the PS2.
I've got a cousin who's went through 4 PS2s himself, it's like the same story but with a different console. =P
Did you look at the possibility of possible bad electricity in your house/apt? That was the cause of a lot of my computer woes (kept wrecking my video cards) voltage fluctuations or something kept making my videocard crash my computer
I have never experienced the RROD or any xbox issue. I still have my original launch issue XBox 360. No problems yet. Actually, I don't know anyone who did have a problem with a 360. I guess must be the power of the internet that inflates the actual problem. If 2 out of 10 people have a problem, those 2 will be the only ones talking about it on the internet. the other 8 wont mention a single word. So for those reading about the 360 on the internet will only hear information from those 2 creating an impression that ALL 360's have a problem.
One thing I wish I had with my 360 though is Netflix. Not offered in Canada.
I have never experienced the RROD or any xbox issue. I still have my original launch issue XBox 360. No problems yet. Actually, I don't know anyone who did have a problem with a 360. I guess must be the power of the internet that inflates the actual problem. If 2 out of 10 people have a problem, those 2 will be the only ones talking about it on the internet. the other 8 wont mention a single word. So for those reading about the 360 on the internet will only hear information from those 2 creating an impression that ALL 360's have a problem.
One thing I wish I had with my 360 though is Netflix. Not offered in Canada.
A 20% failure rate more than justifies a good amount of forum bitching. People shouldn't be buying a product with a failure rate that high. Hell, a 1% failure rate is unacceptable. People talk in failure rates for MOST products in the .01 and .001% area...and even those will generate law suits.
Electronics do fail, and MS covers you for free when it comes to the RRoD. I can't say much about the newer model, but It seems the talk has indeed died down quite a bit.
I see what you are saying with your OP... people who are sore at MS because their XBox 360 failed are going to be more vocal in forums and make people think that the failure rates are higher than they actually are. But I'm sorry, your own statistics that you have found bring more credence to my argument that the issue has not been blown out of proportion. 16% is a HELL of a failure rate.
That's like comparing Apples to Tigers. Totally different things all together, and people don't expect to replace a console when every generation before they had consoles that worked, save for the NES days.
Xboxes have a fan, a disk drive, and a hard drive. Maybe a few more moving parts, but not much. They stay stationary for the most part. And if Nintendo and Sony can build consoles that last longer, there's a problem at Microsoft.
He is not trolling...look up what a troll is before you accuse someone of doing it.
LMFAO!!! He is definitely trolling. Stating that the reason the PS3 and the Wii don't ever get turned on by people, so of course will never fail is at least flame bait. (Although I tend to agree
Last edited by techbeck on 24 Mar 2009 - 15:53
I don't play a lot of games on it..mostly just stream movies and tv shows. I found a temporary "fix" for mine. Most of the failures seem to be caused by stress-flexing of the motherboard so if figured that I would relieve some of that stress by flipping the 360 upside down. I haven't have a RROD since (almost 2 weeks now of very heavy usage).
If you try this, make sure there is no disk in the drive or it will be screwed (I remember to take out my GH3 disk before flipping it).
I don't play a lot of games on it..mostly just stream movies and tv shows. I found a temporary "fix" for mine. Most of the failures seem to be caused by stress-flexing of the motherboard so if figured that I would relieve some of that stress by flipping the 360 upside down. I haven't have a RROD since (almost 2 weeks now of very heavy usage).
If you try this, make sure there is no disk in the drive or it will be screwed (I remember to take out my GH3 disk before flipping it).
Do you have an external cooling fan attached to the back? I had one and it was causing RRODs and after removing it, never had them again.
Yea, that would do it. I keep mine out of my TV stand and make sure nothing is up against it and air can flow around it.
FWIW, my wife's old NES still works!
33MHz 486 CPU, 4MB RAM, 180MB HDD
Windows 3.1!
I am playing bomberman, volfied, supaplex and mario. My Vista x64 can't run them
It never had any issues...
Bump.
either way, maybe rant when MS doesn't supply you with a brand new console if it breaks within a month of a buy or something
The Xbox has really seen nothing but problems PR-wise since launch, game announcements, etc. aside.
SNES and PS1 never had a problem with. I got a PS3 over xmas and so far no probs what so ever.
I do share the authors pain, as even though the console is flaky, it is a great machine with some great titles and a good online service to go with it. I love playing on the thing. It's what persuaded me to mostly move from PC Gaming to console gaming.
Microsoft have however blamed the users not the console although Watchdog had some test done and it seems that some consoles can't handle day to day vibrations which is causing these circular rings to form.
Well, then you must not have very many friends with X360's. But thats some good statistics you have gathered there... 1 out of 1 elite hasn't died... 0% failure rate. You should consider going into marketing.
Oddly enough a mate of mine sold me his cod4 about aweek after launch it was so scratched the game worked but the multiplayer was a no no. Anyway brought and it used me works tie to try a clean it and it did! weird as there was quite circle formed.
And i have and early built 360 ,rrod last year xbox help line is a nightmare always india always a script they read from.
Ups picked it up 4 days later it came back from germany with a broken usb flap on the faceplate,spring wedged in the usb port and it was coverered in what looked like coke as if a can of the stuff exploded over it and the dvd drive was broke. phoned, give em sum grief , Ups picked it back up except it took them two weeks to fix it.
No offence to em but the indian call centre really p*ss me off as i feel they just cant think for themselves...
my other 360 touch wood aint since i stuck a cooler on the back has been ok and that and early 2006 unit aswell...
I completely stopped using my 360. It's been over a year now since I have used it. It got the RROD 2 times, after being fixed once. It's just sitting there collecting dust now. I refuse to waste money on purchasing a new one.
Either way, I like playing games on the Xbox and I've invested a lot of money into a game library for it. I'm not switching consoles now. I'm trapped, in a way.
i'm actually a little suprised at the number of people who mentioned that theirs died so they just bought a new one. is there a reason you guys don't just fix them yourself?
I guess I got lucky with buying RROD units off of ebay for $50-75 dollars.
Then do the xclamp fix with the $7 in screws/washers from Lowes.
I got one in each bedroom and livingroom with no problems (knock on wood)
From what I can tell it was the x-clamp used to mount the heatsink that caused it. (done some research and it seems the most common)
MS email me a delivery note so I boxed it up and phoned up UPS and got them to pick it up the same day. Tracked it via the website and after 1 week got it back and good as new.
To be fair, I work in IT and hardware failure on kit is something that is more common than most people realise. On my 2nd Juniper firewall (which cost nearly £4000) in under a year and one of the NIC's failed on it so I nearly ended up sending it back AGAIN meaning I'd be on my 3rd. In under 11 months!! This is an enterprise product costing thousands...!
But these things happen. MS have a good warranty in place now for RROD (3 years) and the turnaround on my unit was 1 week - which is pretty amazing when you think it took 6 days to get it from the UK to Germany and back again...!
sorry for your bad luck.
but after i get bored with the consoles i get back to my PC.
At least Microsoft admitted failed attempt on this console and fixed peoples problems. At the moment I don't see Sony fixing screwed PS3s that have been floating around lately.
My NES, SNES, Dreamcast, and PS2 all still function flawlessly. (My PS1, not so well.)
1. They are ill informed.
2. They had a bad experience(think of how many people haven't)
or 3. They complain because they think it makes them look 'cool', "OMG i have this product that millions of other people have as well (without failure), but I'm cooler because mine broke!"
The sun didn't hit the monitor slowly blinding you into a stupor making you believe that just read that I'm on my fifth console.
[...]it decided to take its own life. On a glorious day,[...]
Maybe my Xbox knew how bad the game was and decided to give me a hand; I couldn't tell you.
Maybe Microsoft decided that the third time should be so amazing that you can't help but cry tears of sadness while laughing at the same time.
My head almost imploded and, I would swear, the earth's rotation was reversed and the universe caved in on itself, if only for a brief moment. I'm a glutton for abuse, though[...]
[...]no game could ever match the levels of awesomeness that the movie captured.
It's bad enough that your support system is designed to make me homicidal, but can't you, at least, make a decent piece of hardware?
Sorry but who are you writing for? An elementary school? I can live without the childishness inside of you exploding like the suns of a thousand different elephants goading the typhoon into a stormy mess of incoherent personifications.
I can even live without this article in general because the idea of it is so one-sided. Here you have a tech site read by many different visitors every day and you have an esteemed journalist with an article on why Xbox's suck. It doesn't matter to all the people Xbox has worked for, or for all the people PS3 has not worked for, or for all the people that have the Wii still working but don't play it at all, because you have decided that it's not bias to write only one side of the entire thing because, oh dear, it actually happened.
Well good. Hate me and down my criticism because I really don't care about the knee-jerk reaction to that ****. This is too bias even for an unprofessional journalism site because showing one side from one journalist and having it be the only side on the entire front page is ridiculous. Plain and simple.
B) And if your generalization was true anyway it's not a huge leap of faith to assume you state your own experiences as fact, because if they were not fact it wouldn't be an experience that you had at all it would be fiction.
C) I know well that you aren't insisting that everyone's experience is identical, but you're on the god damned front page of this website saying that "It's easy to hate the 360". If you were just talking about you, why isn't it titled "It's easy for me to hate the 360"? And why isn't it on your blog?
D) Seriously, way too many people like to use completely unrelated metaphors and pretend the end result is the same. This isn't a camping article with your son bangbang, this is a Tech News site and you're writing about why it's easy to hate an Xbox 360 to everyone who reads the entire site.
Also, as said below, it's flamebait. It's the definition of flamebait because it's one side of an entire argument, and if you want to accept that the argument is valid, childish, or even stupid, I don't care because the argument still exists and you're still provoking anyone who is on the other side, not to mention isolating them when you say they should just shut the hell up because they're dumb for liking a company more than another company.
Flamebaits are not allowed in Neowin, and it is a so evident flamebait, no matter if it is true or not.
period.
No, i agree with the content of this news but nobody is so naive to think it is not a flamebait, example:
-xbox360 and RROD.
-ps3 and lack of games.
-wii is for brats and is underpowered.
When I talk about Firefox, I'm a fanboy. When I talk about Apple, I'm a fanboy. When I talk about the Xbox, I'm a fanboy or flamebaiting. I design my articles to express my opinion while stirring up discussion and avoiding the pitfalls of normal flamebait topics. I specifically left out any other console options for the exact reason of avoiding flame wars over who's better.
Is this to inform people on how to avoid problems?
Is this to offer insight on something unknown?
Is this to get MS's attention because they aren't smart enough to read the fail numbers?
If I lost five XBox360s, I would be a bit angry and want to vent in a public forum, but it would be more effective to have a purpose beyond expressing my own strife.
I wish the author would have taken some action and provided users with some solid tips either in avoid failure, or in dealing with returning the unit to MS or other actual useful information.
Instead, this does tend to read more of another pile on the 360 because I killed another unit post.
Consider how much punishment 360s get subjected to by average users, the numbers are not quite as bad as the myth of 'my personal experience' pieces create.
The 360 is a strange device in that its owners are not always 'fanbois', as many people are halo fans, use it for live service, use it as a media player/extender and don't have a 'love' for the MS brand. Where a PS3 owner will tend to be a PS3 'fan' and 'fanboi' and also by proxy less likely to complain of the numerous problems they have had with the unit in a public forum.
Hardware isn't perfect and there are good case examples of high fail rates in many products that just don't get the 'newiness' that MS hardware does, as most people love to rip on MS any time they can. And you can find these anywhere including 'beloved' Macbooks that don't fair as well as many other brands; however, their users usually don't complain publically and still give the product good ratings for reliability when it is more of their appreciation for the concept rather than 'their actual Macbook' experience.
My spouse was a regional manager for two different game retail outlets, and the 360 was nothing in terms of actual problems compared to many other consoles they were selling, but it made more news because the owners were not MS fans and didn't have any psychological investment in the 360. A true 360 or PS3 fanboi wouldn't say too much about their problems, but for example a Mac owner with a 360 would scream to anyone willing to listen about their problems, and still at the end of the day go home and turn on their 360 and play Halo.
As for reliability, if I was to go on my 'personal experience' I would run from anything Sony, as my spouse not only has numbers showing the PS3 being worse than the 360 from the store return numbers, but also really scary stories of PS2 units customers had catch on fire, with literal piles of melted PS2s sent back to the regional warehouse.
However, I tend to be a bit more rational, and realize hardware isn't perfect, especially with these high end of processors and would buy another PS2 or PS3 or 360 or Wii, because I like what the product does for me and don't really care about the politics or investing into a 'fanboi' psychology. I also know a lot of gamers that have shoved them in cabinets with no air flow or did really stupid crap by accident or ignorance, and there is a larger number of all brands returned because of this rather than inherent design defects.
As for your responses, welcome to the console realm! The amount of knee-jerk reactions attacking other companies from replies is expected, even when you mentioned nothing to do with anyone else apart from MS in your first post
I think "everyone" can agree the Xbox is awesome on the software front, but on the reliability front leaves a lot to be desired.
But on a serious note and has been mentioned countless times before electronics fail from time to time but the fact we're still talking about hardware failures after 3+ years of being on the market is extremely disappointing. Even though I do not own a 360 or ever plan on purchasing one I truly feel bad for people who go through 4-5 consoles (no matter what company). No one deserves that kind of abuse from a well established company earning billions of dollars , whether it were the DRE issues with the PS2 around 8-9 years ago or the 360 (countless hw issues, pick one) of today. Why there isn't more anger/lawsuits demanding better products baffles me.
Wake up people, we deserve better.
I guess if I had 5-7 machines RROD on me I would have a bitter taste about them - but I, personally, have not. I dont think "if you buy an 360, you are guaranteed a failure" these days. Why would they keep same design, keep 3 year warranty and expect returns on their dime?. Then again, I bought broken ones off ebay for next to nothing and got them working.
So, like this article, this is my opinion.
Want to see people come out of the woodwork? Put an article on "easy to hate a mac" here...
Well, my 7th 360 is an Elite and other than the disc drive being noisy it has been reliable so far. PS3 > 360. Hardware at least.
As a computer engineer the first time i powered on my 360 i knew this would last at most 3 years. This thing gets so hot even on the outer side far from vent holes. An hot video card in a PC (my x800 was getting as hot as 90 celsius) is not a big deal there's plenty of rooms and fans to get parts cool.
I'm lucky my 360 stands on cement in a basement. It's cold even in summer. But for people living south of united state and having their console on a 3rd floor and up the heat can definately becomes a problem in summer time.
I did once a test for fun i obstructed the vent holes on the side right side of my 360 (the vent holes on the opposite side of the HD). After not even 10 minutes i got corrupted graphics while playing Halo 3. I was really stunned. I mean i wont get such result if i obstruct some vent holes of my PC case. As long as the fans are non obstructed the 360 should be okay specially when standing on cement in a basement.
I went through 12 xboxes to date, yes twelve, and still have more than you ever owned here busted as I couldn't handle continually calling customer support -so I just pick up a new one and part everything else but the working box out and eat any additional cost... plus family were impatient with a 3 month wait to watch TV again.
all are 3rlod units, all without HDMI, all fail. Most never even seen a disc as they were media center extenders for my home, and setup to be well ventilated in all aspects.. I have others that belonged to relatives that have failed on their own regard to the error - and I have now started seeing the E74 fiasco kicking off with a few friends getting that with their falcons.
least they are popular.
lol
Is it me or did Microsoft (and sony with the PS3) drop the ball a bit on this one... Regardless it will always be good old fashioned PC gaming for me
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