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XBox (Games) Wireless Networking Hardware

MS On 360 Wireless Issues 40

Posted by Zonk from the warning-warning dept.
Gamasutra reports on an official release regarding the problems at Wal-Mart stores with the 360 console. From the article: "Wal-Mart's 'network-based inventory management systems can be impacted by products using modern wireless signals,' a claim borne out by some of the Wal-Mart employees noting that other wireless devices, such as wireless phones, would accomplish the same thing. Microsoft has already addressed the problem, and 'a solution to this issue was developed within 24 hours of identifying the issue and we are currently deploying the fix to the affected locations.'" We've reported on this issue previously. A quick call to my local store confirmed that they do have a kiosk installed, but it's still down because of the issue.
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MS On 360 Wireless Issues More

MS On 360 Wireless Issues

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  • FTA: "The problem is unlikely to affect any home technology in the way that it caused problems at Wal-Mart, since the Xbox 360 has been certified by the FCC/ETSI for operation in the 2.4GHz band. No other devices with the certification will react negatively to the system's wireless output, though non-certified devices could be at risk."

    So, Walmart is using wireless inventory systems in the 2.4GHz band that are not certified by the FCC/ETSI? Any implications of this?

    • Re:Cetification? (Score:3, Informative)

      by cpu_fusion ( 705735 )
      There are different requirements for business devices as compared to consumer devices.

      For example, at one time I had difficulty purchasing a workstation from Dell because they intended it for the office and hadn't bothered to get it FCC certified for home use.

    • Re:Cetification? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      No other devices with the certification will react negatively to the system's wireless output

      That's strange, because I've never had a 2.4ghz phone that didn't interfere with my 2.4ghz wireless network (as in, killing the network connections entirely). The only solution was to move up to a 5.8ghz phone. So let me guess - Uniden, Panasonic and all the other phone manufacturers are manufacturing products completely out of spec and authorization of the FCC?
    • Actually the systems we use at Walmart are in the 900MHz range. At least that is what the antenaes say on our handheld terminals. However if that was the case I don't know why it was disrupting our sytems in the first place. All I know is that I had a bitch of a time yesterday when we got our system in and they hooked it up. It really sucks when you spend all day trying to figure out why you the printer doesn't want to make a label for the 1hour photos you are trying to get to the customer impatiently stand
      • Would you mind checking tomorrow to see what the 360 controllers are labeled as? I'm really curious now, and I dunno if TFA is totally incorrect, or if there is some other reason for the interference that I'm not aware of that would explain 2.4GHz interfering with 900MHz... when TFA implies Walmart uses non-compliant 2.4GHz.
      • (Actually I'm not all too suprised that our systems were shutdown like that. They take themselves out of commission all the time. They really are ancient relics that need replacing but I think the cost of rewriting/porting the software to a different platform is the reason Walmart tortures us with these pieces of crap.)
         
        They could also be secretly hating all their employers, and thus not bother to rewrite them at all. :D

  • $399 Xbox with Halo?? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Wyrmw00d ( 571980 )
    After spending an hour on a 360 at Wal-Mart, I was really unimpressed with the graphics. Only notable changes were how much action happening on the screen at once while still holding a good framerate. Other than that, I've seen some pretty tight games on Xbox that looked pretty much the same as the 360. So now Bungie throws a couple ports of Halo on it and you just bought yourself a $400 Xbox with Halo. Deja Vu? I'll wait to see what Sony and Nintendo dishes out. My Xbox will hold out for a good while long

    • Re:$399 Xbox with Halo?? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I mostly play pc games, but have following the 360 all year. I was pretty excited to hear about the 360 GPU and what it was supposed to be.

      So I stopped by a nearby Walmart to see in person after hearing so many conflicting stories about the 360 graphics.

      Oh My Fucking God Is It Bad.

      Microsoft has to be passing out insanely large amounts of payola to the gaming press to cover up this mess of console. It wasn't just one game, it was all of them. Jags all over the screen and tons of texture filtering problems.

      39
    • The thing I'm looking forward to with the 360 is HDTV 1080i support in all games. 640x480 games look like crap on a 57" TV.


    • That's kindof a bummer. I hadn't heard much about the kiosks until I heard Major Nelson's podcast, and the first bad sign was that -- right out of the gate -- he starts trying to talk down the criticisms by claiming that the kiosks were "unoptimized". Unoptimized? Huh??

      This is the same line that some of the Microsoft reps are giving. They aren't saying whether it's the games or the hardware that is supposedly unoptimized, but I call BS on either excuse. It seems doubtful that Microsoft's marketing
  • Somthing gives me a feeling that this 'fix' is for Wal-mart's inventory system and has nothing to with with the kiosk.

  • I saw what "the fix" was at my local wal-mart! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Turken ( 139591 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2005 @04:19PM (#13884267)
    So my local wal-mart has a new 360 kiosk installed. From what I can tell, "the fix" is simply replacing the offending wireless controller with a wired one. No wireless controller = no interference problem.

    As for the system... I only had a few minutes to play. It looks nice, but I can't see a remarkable increase in quality over the current systems. Certainly not like there was from PS1 -> PS2.

    Given these things, I think I'm going to wait until after the launch to decide if I want to buy one.

    • Re:I saw what "the fix" was at my local wal-mart! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Saige ( 53303 ) <evil...angela@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday October 26, 2005 @05:34PM (#13884856) Journal
      I wonder if the kiosk you played on was set correctly or not. Apparently there's a significant problem with Wal-Mart know-it-all employees tampering with the 360 kiosks and screwing up the video modes. I guess there are a number of kiosks that have been played around with resulting in the 360 outputting a 480i signal to the 720p native displays - resulting in blocky and stretched video signals that look HORRIBLE.
      • I played the 360 at Wal-mart and posted a mini-review on the shack. The reason the X360 kiosks look like shit is mostly due to the fact that the "free" anti-aliasing was not enabled for the 3 demos. Microsoft got a little bit ahead of themselves and pushed their kiosks out the door with X05 builds which (most if not all?) were lacking the free anti-aliasing that we've all been hearing about. I can't really comment on what the final product will look like since I haven't seen it, but I can only assume tha
        • Well, at least one MS employee reports that they played on a 360 Kiosk that clearly was set up wrong, and as a result it was full of artifacts and pixelization.

          The Kameo demo I played at the company meeting sure didn't show any signs of looking bad in any way. So I'd be surprised if the kiosks weren't running the exact same thing I played on.

    • Re:I saw what "the fix" was at my local wal-mart! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Keeper ( 56691 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2005 @06:18PM (#13885183)
      They never had wireless controllers installed in the kiosks. If you think about it for a few minutes you'd realize why doing so would be a monumentially dumb idea.

      http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000870065068/ [joystiq.com]
      • from the article:

        "This was apparently due to problems arising from the Xbox 360's wireless controllers causing interference."

        • The article is wrong. As should be clearly obvious given the link to excerts of the kiosk assembly manual.

          That being said, I'm not saying that Walmart is making crap up, rather that it wasn't "wireless controllers" causing the issue -- rather, it is probably the result of the bits in the 360 that would communicate with a wireless controller if one were present... (which would also be why only a software 'fix' was needed)
          • Console setups in stores always secure the controllers in some way, with a harness or something. Likely these kiosks were using the wireless controllers, and they were just secured in a similar fasion.
            • Are you daft? The kiosk setup instructions show how to route wires for a wired controller. Walmart employees indicate that the controllers are wired. Anonymous retail reps indicate that the controllers are wired. Wireless controllers use batteries. Wires still have to be run outside of the cabinet for the memory card download unit. The gap to run wires from outside to inside the cabinet is large enough for only 3 wires (count 'em, 2 controllers + download unit). Wireless controllers are more expensiv
              • Okay. With the pictures from the Joystiq article you make a pretty good argument, and may be right. However, arguing for the sake of argument...

                The kiosk setup instructions show how to route wires for a wired controller. Walmart employees indicate that the controllers are wired. Anonymous retail reps indicate that the controllers are wired.

                The issues with wireless conflict (wherever they were arriving from) came up quickly, and were fixed quickly. However, there is no indication as to whether the instructi
                • The issues with wireless conflict (wherever they were arriving from) came up quickly, and were fixed quickly. However, there is no indication as to whether the instructions and anonymous walmart/retail reps quotes are pre- or post-fix. Can you get a date on the origin of these materials and accounts? All I see is that they are in response to the confusion of wired vs. wireless, and we can all agree that all kiosks are currently wired. As to whether there was wireless before microsoft fixed things is still u

  • I wonder why they were wireless to begin with. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BruceTheBruce ( 671080 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2005 @04:52PM (#13884528)
    Why were wireless controllers used in the kiosks if they just had to be chained or otherwise physically attached to the kiosk anyway?
    • Easy enough, they didn't think there would be a problem and they want to show off the tech. It's not like a wired controller had any less chance of being stolen.
      • It's hard to show off the wireless aspect of it while theres a huge metal security bracket holding the controller. Might this interference be caused by a wireless network adapter? I'm not sure if it was the real deal or a simulation, but the Walmart I checked had what appeared to be a gamertag that allowed me to log in.
    • why? Because it would be rather impressive to have them there, even if the controllers weren't mobile. The console was designed to "look sexy" and part of that look is the wireless nature. The wired controller I saw at walmart was plugged into the USB port (I think), which was well off center in the front face. Because the console wasn't intended to be primarily used this way, it made the cord even more obvious, and severely detracted from the "coolness" of seeing the console there.

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