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PlayStation (Games) Sony Entertainment Games

Demo PS3 Units freeze on Purpose 363

AbsoluteZero writes "A Sony rep has claimed to Destructoid that demo PS3 units in kiosks across the country were built to freeze up on purpose. From the article: "We do that so that people won't play it all day long," he explained. "Specifically during Motorstorm, we made it freeze up a lot.""
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Demo PS3 Units freeze on Purpose

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  • by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:24AM (#17376680) Journal
    No, no I infact won't. Changed my mind.

    That's what the short 5 minute demos are for. Actually making the console freeze up is just stupid, it screams unstable. This sounds more like backpedaling to cover up design flaws.
    • by garcia ( 6573 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:31AM (#17376796)
      For me it never froze (granted I didn't play it "all day long") but it took forever to load. I really wasn't interested in wasting my time standing at the machine waiting 5 minutes for a shitty demo to load.

      There were other game systems to play and my wife was tugging at my arm telling me to get going ;)
      • by aplusjimages ( 939458 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:39PM (#17378564) Journal

        For me it never froze


        Then you got a defective system. You may want to send it back so they can add the freeze software in.
    • by ZachPruckowski ( 918562 ) <zachary.pruckowski@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:40AM (#17376886)
      No one in their right mind would design a kiosk that needs employee attention every 5-10 minutes. I mean, if the WalMart or BestBuy guy has to run over there to restart it constantly, then it's either a massive waste of his time or else there's the serious risk that the game will stay frozen for a long period of time. I did a little test last time I was in Best Buy. We saw that the PS3 was frozen when we walked in. 90 minutes later, we ambled out, and the PS3 was frozen at exactly the same screen.

      A kiosk is supposed to be hands-off for employees. Requiring a employee-managed kiosk is a bad idea.
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I did a little test last time I was in Best Buy....90 minutes later, we ambled out

        90 minutes at Best Buy? I wish I was on your Christmas list. I got an oven mitt and a polo shirt that was too big for me :(
      • Somebody is definitely going to lose their job over this decision.
        • by hexix ( 9514 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:29PM (#17378414) Homepage
          This decision? Don't tell me you actually believe that they designed it to freeze.

          They've had demos that automatically return to the main menu back in the PlayStation 1 days.
      • The kiosks for the last generation consoles all had "reset" buttons. That way there's nothing the normal employees need to do.
      • by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:19AM (#17377378) Journal
        Requiring a employee-managed kiosk is a bad idea.

        Oh, you're quite wrong here. Employee-managed (and operated, with the employee being the subject of display) kiosks are quite important and successful branch of the sexual entertainment industry.
      • by Thuktun ( 221615 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:22AM (#17377434) Journal
        Requiring a employee-managed kiosk is a bad idea.
        Sony coming up with a bad idea? [slashdot.org] Preposterous...
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by The-Bus ( 138060 )
        There's far more elegant ways than to make the machine freeze up. One would be to have the Motorstorm demo running for X minutes, then the machine switches to showing HD footage for Y minutes. Repeat.

        If they truly wanted it to freeze they would have a reset button outside of the case. I believe the Xbox 360 kiosks came with that.

        I have no doubt the PS3s freeze. To date, there are only two unfrozen units that I've seen since launch, out of maybe 20 total. One has actually had the same screen for over two wee
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:05AM (#17377178)
      I asked this question on Digg and I am the one with the -22 Diggs. That's Digg for you. Well, here's my question:

      Who is the guy that wrote this piece? Is it even true? The story just sounds made up.

      Or is it just that people want to justify their hate for the PS3 so much that facts and logic goes out the window?

      Seriously, who is Mr. Nick Brutal?
      • actually, that's a very relevant/insightful question. I asked that myself when looking at the article, it wasn't the most professional thing in the world. But I've also know people who handle those kiosks...

        They aren't getting PS3s.
      • by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:16AM (#17377328)
        Being that it was a "Sony Rep" rather than a well known Sony executive means that the story could very well be true ...

        A retail level representative is essentially just a sales person with little or no technical understanding of what they're selling. When a representative is asked a question they're always supposed to spout the company line when they can, and always make every answer positive for Sony. Being that Sony probably hasn't come up with a company line for why the PS3 keeps freezing a (dumb) representative spouted that "They were designed to do that."

        Developer/Publisher level representatives are (usually) far better informed and far more honest.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:41AM (#17377698)
          Actually that was not my question at all. I am asking whether anyone can verify the "truthiness" of the story. I mean I could write a blurb about how a Wii rep killed my dog and ate its entrails in a "The Aristocrats" inspired fit, but that would not be true.

          These days work is a bit slow and I spend a lot of time on /., Digg, Lxer etc. What I have seen consistently is a ton of these blurbs coming up and saying something without any references. This is ok for Digg, but for such a story to be on the frontpage of /. is something I find hard to swallow.

          Say what you will about the PS3, I had high hopes for it to at least open people up to Linux in a small way, if not by way of an alternate OS, then by way of running MythTV etc.
          • by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:01PM (#17377978)
            I understand what you're asking, all I am saying is that there is nothing about this story which could be verified (regardless of whether it is true) and there is very little about this story which would make me doubt that it is true; I have personally seen a frozen PS3 unit on display and I have seen in store Company Representative make remarkably stupid statements.

            Now, as for why this is on Slashdot ...

            The fact is that over the past 18 months Sony has alienated a large portion of their loyal userbase and their potential userbase; personally, Sony lost me before that but that is another story. A year and a half ago the PS3 was the system everyone wanted, the XBox 360 was an overly expensive console produced by an evil coporation, and the Revolution was exciting to Nintendo fans with massive disinterest for everyone else; today the PS3 is an overly expensive console produced by an evil coporation, the XBox 360 is exciting to XBox fans with massive disinterest for everyone else, and the Wii is the system everyone wants.

            Basically, Sony burned a lot of bridges and people want to hear negative stories about the PS3 because they hate Sony.
          • by nicksthings ( 678040 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:30PM (#17378428)
            I wrote the story based on a conversation I had with a Sony PlayStation retail field rep. I have no reason to make up a story like this. I write content for Destructoid (mostly news related) and thought it was a) funny and b) informative enough to share.

            It's not a bash on Sony or their hardware. The crux of the story is: PS3 retail kiosks lock/freeze/whatever up, a Sony rep played it off as something that happens on purpose, it's been confirmed by a few people that they were told the same thing. That is fact. Question my credibility if you'd like, but I think you'll find Destructoid (as a whole) to be both informative and reliable -- I wouldn't intentionally write and post a tall tale for the sake of hits (or anything else for that matter).

        • by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:45PM (#17378646)
          I think the problem is less whether the story is true or not than whether one conversation with a low-level Sony employee counts as any kind of news whatsoever.

          It would be like me talking to a clerk at the Best Buy who says he's pretty sure Sony is going to ship a million PS3s on New Years day. Then I go ahead and write a story saying that "Best Buy says" a million units will show up and people should start camping out in line.

          Why would this guy know? Why should I trust him? Why don't I confirm with a more authoritative source? Why on earth would I report it as the position of the company rather than random gossip from "some dude".

          HELLO, he's just a sales rep! He's not a spokesman, an engineer, and he doesn't work in shipping. At best, he heard something from someone else and at worst he's making it up. If you believe the latter is not the case, then you should at least have the sense to check with the guy he heard if from before reporting it as the actual policy of the company.

          TW

          Oh, BTW, some guy who was giving away free Linux disks told me that Linux doesn't have good open source ATI drivers on purpose, because they want people writing code instead of playing video games. Do you think I should submit that to /. so they can put a story on the front page about this important news? I know it's the real policy of the Linux kernel project because the guy is an active participant in the Linux community.
        • by geobeck ( 924637 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @03:29PM (#17380574) Homepage

          Being that Sony probably hasn't come up with a company line for why the PS3 keeps freezing a (dumb) representative spouted that "They were designed to do that."

          I could imagine sales drones for other companies making the same excuse:

          Wiimote: "It's a boomerang; throw it a little harder and it will return."

          X-Box 360 power supply: "That's the integrated space heater."

          Laptop batteries: "That's part of the force feedback system."

          Pentium floating-point error: "That's to make sure you check your calculations by hand, like you're supposed to."

          The Titanic: "In the event of a collision, the water cooling system kicks in."

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        I been to Best Buy a few times to see the PS3 frozen. The clerks don't even bother to reset it since they have too many customers asking about the other consoles.
    • by Mage Powers ( 607708 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:18AM (#17377362) Homepage
      One employee gives out bullshit reasoning and it gets treated everywhere as an official statement? Sony has screwed up enough already, theres no need to scrape the barrel guys.
    • by meldroc ( 21783 )

      Console kiosks have had a solution to the "hog-the-machine" problem for ages - there's a timer inside the kiosk that power-cycles the console every 20 minutes or so.

      I fail to see why Sony would pass up that solution for this "solution." Resetting the kiosk every few minutes requires no human intervention - the brat's trying to get to level 42 while other people are waiting, and the system restarts like clockwork after 20 minutes. You don't have to have a clerk there to reset the machine, you don't make

    • by Ephemeriis ( 315124 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:49AM (#17377810)
      I'd say his statement is complete BS.

      I used to work at EB. We had display kiosks of all the major consoles. The various vendors each had their own method to keep people from playing on the kiosks all day... I remember the XBox demo discs we ran in the kiosk all re-set back to the main menu every 10 minutes or so. The PlayStation 2 kiosk had some sort of timer that would interrupt the power and force the console to hard reset every 20 minutes or so. The GameCube demo discs generally just had very small snippets of gameplay...less than a single full level... The GameCube kiosk never forced a re-set of any kind, but there just wasn't that much to occupy your time on it.

      If Sony was, in fact, concerned about people playing on the kiosk all day long there are plenty of ways they could have re-set or rebooted the system that didn't require employee intervention. These machines aren't rebooting, they're locking up, and it requires an employee to physically re-set the system. That, to me, screams of poor design. Either it's a poorly designed re-set system that doesn't work as it should...or it's broken software that isn't actually supposed to be locking up. It isn't terribly encouraging either way.
  • Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tehshen ( 794722 ) <tehshen@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:25AM (#17376688)
    "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" Where have I heard that before
  • FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joshetc ( 955226 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:25AM (#17376700)
    Couldn't they just uh, like make a popup that says it is the person-behind-you's tutrn to play?
  • by j00r0m4nc3r ( 959816 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:26AM (#17376716)
    Sony's batting 1000 this year. Going for MVP it looks like.
  • by JayTech ( 935793 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:27AM (#17376718)
    Sure, just like Microsoft made Windows crash so we would be able to take a break from using the PC...
  • Fixed link (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:27AM (#17376720)
  • by tarun713 ( 782737 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:29AM (#17376758)
    It's a rep that visits game stores. Bottom of the food chain. One rep saying something stupid in the heat of christmas shopping with a shopper pestering him for conversation while he's trying to set up a demo kiosk isn't really that big a deal.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      It would have been less of a deal if the rep said "Really? Thanks for telling me. I'll look into swapping out this unit." It probably wouldn't even have made the front page of /. then. And wouldn't that have been easier than coming up with some whack job story about "it's on purpose?" roflcopter. Seems to me that the only reason this rep would go with a nutsack story instead of a "I'll look into it" is because that morning he got an e-mail telling him that that was the direction they'd be going with f
    • That's a good point. The rep could have just been messing with him because he was annoyed.

      What's interesting is that the store clerk decided to just turn off the system rather than deal with repeated freeze ups all day long. I'd be more interested in an article about how often something like that happens. Is it just a bum unit or demo disk or is it a more widespread problem?
    • by Thansal ( 999464 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:45AM (#17376960)
      Thank you for pointing this out as no one is gona RTFA ;)

      Seriously, it was a random rep, in a random EB games. Reps lie, that is all they do. Anythign a rep says is a lie. Remember this and you will be much better off. (I will admit, this is all simply personal experiance in working in retail, and I am including sales staff ofr retail stores as reps. They all lie also.)
      • by RESPAWN ( 153636 ) <respawn_76@@@hotmail...com> on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:00AM (#17377126) Journal
        I think the real story anyway is that the demo consoles are freezing up on the customers in the stores. They shouldn't be doing that and it makes for a poor selling point if the customers always see a PS3 hard locked. (Also, what happened to putting a user-enabled reset switch on the front of the kiosks.) We all know the rep lied, but why was the console freezing up in the first place?

        So far, I have been to three different stores and seen the demo console frozen at each one of those stores with nobody bothering to reset them. (Meanwhile, I was able to try out the Wii at my local EB with them letting customers check out the Wiimote with their driver's license.)
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Thraxen ( 455388 )
          Meh... the freezing isn't that big of an issue. The 360 was doing the same thing when it first appeared in kiosks. Sure, ideally you wouldn't want you kiosks to be freezing, but the systems aren't designed to be operated in a plastic bubble that traps all the exhaust heat. FWIW, the PS3 kiosks at our local Best Buy and Gamestop haven't been locked up any time I've been buy. Neither has the Wii at BB, but you can't even play that. It just runs some demo video all day. IMO, this is more a problem with k
      • I am including sales staff ofr retail stores as reps. They all lie also.

        And we all love you for saying so.

        Now THAT was a lie.
      • Seriously, it was a random rep, in a random EB games. Reps lie, that is all they do. Anythign a rep says is a lie. Remember this and you will be much better off. (I will admit, this is all simply personal experiance in working in retail, and I am including sales staff ofr retail stores as reps. They all lie also.)

        I think it was a random Best Buy, but yeah. It seems that Slashdot needs to bash Sony so much they're reporting on a bloggers word of mouth with a sales rep. at a some random Best Buy as front pag

      • "Um, yes sir, the PS3 will lockup cus the blueray gigaram streams get crossed. But you can get a service plan from us that will prevent that I think. You can get one for the Wii too, to prevent the radation from the remote from burning a hole in your tv. I seen that happen, man."
    • by Krilomir ( 29904 )
      Well actually, he was later told by a "Best Buy employee that they were told the same thing -- the locking up and freezing was intentional." It probably still came from somewhere near the bottom of the food chain, so I agree it's not a big deal.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Schnapple ( 262314 )

        Well actually, he was later told by a "Best Buy employee that they were told the same thing -- the locking up and freezing was intentional." It probably still came from somewhere near the bottom of the food chain, so I agree it's not a big deal.

        More to the point, the author probably got the quote from his local Best Buy, in the same area as the EB Games. So I'd bet they were serviced by the same representative for the area.

        Plus, let's be honest - most people who aren't knowledgeable in a certain area do

  • 20 minutes of Playstation 3 should be enough for anybody!
    • 20 minutes of Playstation 3 should be enough for anybody!
      Enough to realize it's not worth the price?
  • by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:31AM (#17376790) Journal
    Oh! Eureka!

    As a comparison: Windows crashes on us all the time as to not let us be too productive! I get it now! What the hell do I need a *nix clone for!
    </sarcasm>

    Natch. Sounds more like a save-my-ass excuse. Way to go Sony!

  • "I meant to do that"
  • by freg ( 859413 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:36AM (#17376862)
    I asked a Best Buy sales rep how he like the PS3. He said "well I wouldn't buy one just yet, the demo unit freezes up all the time..." Needless to say he didn't sell me a unit that day. Maybe Sony should send a memo to their retailers explaining this "feature" if they want to sell it
  • Poor Sony (Score:2, Interesting)

    They're just pathetic and desperate now. It's kind of sad to watch.

    My brother had two new toys over Christmas. The first was a PS3 which he bought so he could resell it on eBay, with a couple of rented games. The second was one of those $5 Burger King games for the original XBox. Guess which one we played all weekend? It's hard to exaggerate just how much Sony is screwed.
  • OTOH (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:41AM (#17376908)
    it could be that the booth is a PS3 in a nearly airtight clear plastic box...

    I assumed it was a case of overheat

    Also this weekend, I brought my Wii to my brother's place to show it off, only to discover he'd just scored a PS3

    After a couple of hours of side by side comparison, his wife asked him why he didn't get a Wii instead.

    Ouch.

    (I also regret not having videotaped our gaming session, as my bro's wife lost her balance and dove headfirst during a bowling throw, almost going through the widescreen tv)
    • Re:OTOH (Score:4, Funny)

      by The_Abortionist ( 930834 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:49AM (#17377002) Homepage
      > (I also regret not having videotaped our gaming session, as my bro's wife lost her balance and dove headfirst during a bowling throw, almost going through the widescreen tv)

      Had she gone through the TV screen, she could sue Nintendo for not including bungie cords with the game!
      • Had she gone through the TV screen, she could sue Nintendo for not including bungie cords with the game!
        They can't, Microsoft bought that six years ago.
    • Re:OTOH (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Sarcastic Assassin ( 788575 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @02:03PM (#17379564) Journal
      Interesting story about that.

      On the night of the Wii launch, I walked into my local gaming store about 10 minutes before midnight to pick up my pre-ordered console. As I stood in line, the manager (who was busy preparing people's Wii bundles so they would be ready when the clock struck midnight) asked one of the employees to reset the PS3, which was in the middle of a demo movie, annoyingly blaring music. The employee walked over to the kiosk, and opened a latch, and the front of the kiosk swung open to reveal a second PS3 sitting in a metal housing below the plastic display case. He pressed a button on the PS3 in the metal housing, and the screen returned to the PS3 menu. The manager explained that the PS3 you see in the plastic case is just an empty shell, in case someone tries to steal it. The real PS3 is in that metal housing.

      I don't remember if the metal housing had vents, but I doubt the PS3 is overheating. So far, there have been no reports of PS3's overheating (which may be due to the massive shortage), and it wouldn't surprise me that Sony expects employees to babysit their precious PS3 kiosks.
  • Zap! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:42AM (#17376916) Homepage Journal
    As anyone who went to Toys R Us back in the "World of Nintendo" NES/SNES days knows, that's why they make displays that simply reset themselves every so often, via a timer switch on the power outlet. My friends and I used to hang out in the store, annoy the staff, play the demo consoles, and base Tetris/Sonic/Mario/whatever battles on how far one could get before the automatic reset. Why would they suddenly build specially-crippled consoles now? It doesn't really make much sense fom any standpoint I can see.
    • by AVee ( 557523 )
      I'd fully expect Sony to cripple demo units of there PS3, they will also invent various 'noble' reasons for doing so and fail to mention it's just to make sure the units are not sold, not ever. I might even believe Sony is dumb enough to just make it freeze in stead of finding a nicer way...
  • by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:44AM (#17376952)
    ... as it might elicit some sympathy every time your box does a BSOD
  • by NeoSkandranon ( 515696 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:45AM (#17376958)
    I distinctly recall demo SNES and N64 units having the same behavior "back in the day" --you'd play for about five-ten minutes and the thing would reset on you.

    I had always figured that there was an extra mechanism built into the demo console for just that purpose: keeping someone from monopolizing the thing. Doesn't seem like THAT much of a stretch that the PS3s would perhaps do the same?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thansal ( 999464 )
      There is a difference between rebooting and freezing and needing to be manualy reset.

      Auto rebooting after 5 mins is an ok idea. Ok, not great.

      Locking up so that a clerk has to come over, unlock the disply, reset it, and fire it up for the next customer, is bloody stupid.

      An actual idea?
      DEMOS!

      You want to showcase your nifty new games on your nifty new console? Have one of your pogramers make you a friken demo, containing one level (or what ever, we KNOW how to make demos now, don't we?) of the actual retail
    • No, but it seems odd that it'd require a store clerk to manually reset it to get it working again.
  • What a load of crap.

    It's a matter of time before there is a tech note, and a kiosk upgrade kit designed to ventilate the kiosk.

    One of the Best Buys in town has not had their PS3 kiosk (According to a friend that works at that location) freeze at all, and he was told the other location froze randomly from 6 to 12 times a day. That isn't a designed in effect. A designed in effect occurs every x minutes, and does not require employee intervention.

  • PS3 runs real hot (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrJynxx ( 902913 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @10:58AM (#17377096)
    Considering how small the space is in the demo units enclosures (using bestbuy as an example) I'm pretty sure it's because of overheating. The first thing my friend said about the PS3 was the heat it created when it was on (significantly hotter than my xbox360).. So yea, purposely freezing demos? That's complete bullshit, and if it's true that's a terribly bad practice and doesn't make the customer feel as though they're buying a quality product.

    My PS3 froze during the system setup phase (kinda scared the shit out of me). But it hasn't froze since (even with yellow dog linux 5.0 on it) ..

    MrJynx
  • Maybe the ps3 costs more than the rest of the consoles, and maybe Sony has sold less than its competitors, and maybe alot of game developers aren't producing games for the system... But just because the demo model ps3's are crashing doesn't mean that this isn't part of Sony's long term strategy. When they say "next generation" console. They really mean it.
  • I do the same thing with my, uh... unit.
  • by xdxfp ( 992259 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:06AM (#17377190)
    This idea isn't new. Trojan designed a condom in the 90's that broke on purpose so people wouldn't have sex all day.
  • The Future (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DanCentury ( 110562 )
    I'm glimpsing into the future and seeing Sony finally collapsing under the weight of hubris and abysmal business decisions, probably before the price ever gets down to the $200 mark and I become moderately interested.

  • And I wonder just how hard it was to implement this feature on first production run units. I really do wonder...
  • I call BS. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dannycim ( 442761 )
    From TFA: ...and in the middle of it all I spotted a Sony PlayStation retail rep frantically cleaning off the very same kiosk...

    You think that a Sony Representative is going to go to your local EB store and vacuum your local kiosk? Don't make me laugh!

    This is rabid fanboyism, and a further proof of Slashdot's slant.

    News for nerds? BS too. This is news reporting on par with Fox's.
  • I was caught up in the hype and would have bought a PS3 at launch if I could have. Then I played one at Target for about 10 minutes and it reset twice so I figured it was unstable and if was going to get one I should wait a good long while. Then the lack of games for the PS3 struck me, then I went home and watched a DVD and realized that it looks good enough so why am I excited about BluRay? I fell out of love with the PS3 really fast. I think Sony is going to cause a lot of people to buy Wiis.
  • Sony Lies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bryansix ( 761547 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @11:37AM (#17377642) Homepage
    I used to be on the Sony Bandwagon. I loved my PS2. I liked what they where saying about the PS3 with free multiplayer etc. Then this whole rootkit crap happened. Sony refused to respond to consumers and only caved once the lawsuits flooded in. Then Sony pushed back the PS3 launch and pushed up the price. Then Sony pushed a company out of business just because they sold games and hardware out of region. What a racket that is anyways. Now Sony has reliability problems and they just lie some more to cover themselves. All of this pushed me to buy an XBox 360. I really didn't want to but I'm glad I did. So what if I have to pay to play online? At least my console works. At least it was hundreds of dollars less expensive. I'm tired of Sony's crap. Even if it means I have to buy MS crap; I'm never buying Sony crap again. Death to Sony!
  • Pretend for a minute that this is true, and they really modified these to be unstable.
    What happens when demo units end up getting sold to customers? It happens eventually.
    Then all those defective units will be out there, and customers will want support for them.
    I can't imagine pushing a firmware fix if the unit is unstable through the fault of software, either. It might freeze during load, and brick.

    Really, though, I think the guy just lied or was being sarcastic.

  • by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:19PM (#17378270)
    ...to play clown music in my mind. It all makes sense then.
  • by loconet ( 415875 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @12:25PM (#17378366) Homepage
    I think Microsoft already patented that technique. They'll be hearing from MS lawyers.
  • by Paradox ( 13555 ) on Wednesday December 27, 2006 @03:41PM (#17380702) Homepage Journal
    Look... when you're at a store-even if you're at a Sony Playstation Store-and a clerk tells you some technical detail that sounds absurd? Ignore it.

    This is a story about a dumb retail clerk spouting off garbage to sound smart. If I had a nickel for every time this happened to me, I'd be wearing an italian-designed suit made of Euros anddriving a SUV made from US dollars.

    The PS3 has some manufacturing defects. Holy crap, shock, and fear. New hardware has defects. This has happened before, it has happened again. If you're concerned about the PS3's future stability, look to updated and replaced Xbox 360s, which are now quite stable.

    One thing I have noticed though. Lots of people tell me their PS3 "locks up a lot". But examining the physical location of their unit, it's in an entertainment center with no airflow. Both the PS3 manual and the Xbox 360 manual clearly said you needed some space around the machines and to make sure there is airflow. The machine heats up, it breaks. Same as any other computer. Once they move it out, they generally experience fewer problems. I'm 3/3 on this. Not that it's an excuse or something you can generally extrapolate from, but it's something to consider.

Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none. -- Doug Larson

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