Increase In Xbox 360 E74 Problems 346
Xbm360 writes "According to data collected by Joystiq as well as Google Trends, there's been a steady rise in reports and discussion of the so-called E74 error on Xbox 360 consoles since August of last year. The E74 error is related to video problems caused by either a faulty AV connector or, more often, a loosened ANA/HANA scaling chip. This is not the first time the Xbox 360 has experienced technical issues; in recent years many people have complained about scratched discs and over-heating consoles — the 'red ring of death.'"
Heh, figures. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not disappointed by the PS3, I actually have quite a lot of fun with it, but I'd have bought a 360 Elite instead a long time ago if it weren't for the litany of failures reported everyfuckinwhere.
The games are cool, but they managed to ruin this making the hardware a piece of crap. Mod me troll if you like, that's just how it is.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hosestly, I don't know if anyone has actually bothered looking for the real failure rate rather than jumping on the /. Bash Microsoft Bandwagon. What do you suppose it is? /. would probably have you believe it's anywhere upwards of 30 or 40%. If you went to the retailers they'd tell you it's between 15 and 20%. Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds. Especially when they now have a 3 fucking year warranty. (see I can emphasize phrases with cuss words too!)
Call me a fanboi if you must, I h
Re:Heh, figures. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I am on my third Xbox (I've only purchased one). The first one would sometimes freeze up on powerup, sometimes give an E74, and they wouldn't replace it till it RROD'd, it lasted two months. The second one lasted just over a year (long enough for the standard warranty to run out) it started randomly freezing up in the midst of games, the menus, etc and at completely random intervals. They refused to replace it. Flatly refused, the only thing the 3 year warranty is for is RROD's. Eventually (a few weeks later) it did RROD:
Advice for the unfortunate out there, don't pay $100 or so to ship your console to Microsoft if its freezing up, wait a bit and actually use it and put up with the freezing for a few weeks, it seems likely to result in a RROD.
Re:Heh, figures. (Score:5, Funny)
Or put a heat gun/hair dryer on the air intake.
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Re: (Score:2)
There is a high failure rate and then there is the stuff that doesn't show up in the statistics. I've owned two 360's. The first one got stolen. The first one also would randomly freeze up from overheating. Even though it was placed away from other electronics on it's own table. My new one doesn't overheat but the drive in there is shoddy and gets read errors from random reads. This is now sort of fixed since you can now install games to the hard drive. The point is that neither of these consoles
Re:Heh, figures. (Score:5, Informative)
So, lets make this very clear.
I bought an Xbox 360, which broke. It was replaced, and it broke. It was replaced, and that one broke. It was replaced, and it broke again. It was replaced, and it broke, just as the ones before. It was replaced, and it broke. It was, once again, replaced, and it broke. It was replaced, and it broke, as usual. It was replaced, and now I'm waiting for it to break.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are stationary, in a well ventilated space. No extreme temperatures or humidity. No pets, no kids. There are no known issues with the power company (no brown-/blackouts in over a decade).
So please tell me how I kill them. It would save me a trip to the post office every now and then.
It seems I'm not alone [avsforum.com] in this. Google is filled to the brim with people that are on their n'th replacement.
So maybe it isn't
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds
Things have pretty much changed over the last 30 odd years if people genuinely believe a 1 in 6 failure rate is acceptable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow I can't believe you get modded insightful for calling someone a "total fucking loser" while the GP gets modded troll for making a pretty reasonable defense of the 360. Just shows how biased Slashdot is against the 360.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To me the PS3 is t
Re: (Score:2)
So, you are - by your own admission - missing out on games you want to play on the small chance you might, at some point in the next few years, possibly have to send it in for repair under its extensive warranty? Is that supposed to make sense?
For what it's worth, launch day 360 here, never had the slightest glitch. Sees a fuck-ton of use, too, and does it while sitting in a cramped little stand. And, in the interest of fairness, it's sitting next to an equally functional launch ps3.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually 75% of the 'cool' games on the 360 are on the PS3 and PC as well, it's just that people associate them with the 360.
Just because SFIV, DMC4, COD4, Burnoute Paradise, Dead Space, Oblivion are on the 360, doesn't mean they aren't on the PS3 as well.
Love my PS3, best console I've ever owned (ok except my Xbox 1 but hey XBMC is amazing)
Re: (Score:2)
All that for $100 less then the PS3. In business the winner is rarely the most technological advanced but the one who finds the best balance between price and performance. These devices are strictly designed for entertainment, I know some grammes base their lives around this, but to be realistic these are designed to play games. Most of the population who buys these products want to play the games more then drool at the graphics, sound, analyses the story plot etc...
Sony not much better (Score:5, Informative)
There's a lot being said about the infamous red ring of death killing 360's but Sony are getting almost no coverage of their issues.
There's been a large scale problem of Blu Ray drives in PS3s dying from the Diode burning out. This recently happened to me when I wanted to dust off the console to play RE5. I've replaced drive heads in the PS2 before so I thought I'd save £60 and repair it myself. Turns out the drive head that is in 'all EU 40gb ps3s' with two lenses, isn't in mine and I have to fork out another £60 on top of what I've spent already to get the correct part...
There seems to be two main possible causes of this happening: a patch increased the voltage going to the drive in an attempt to speed up the slow load times, some models can't take this and fail (the way the drives take a while to fail completely and cases focus around big new releases that force you to patch make this seem possible).
Second is turning the power switch off when there's a disc in the drive, apparently the drive hates it and is very sensative to power fluctations. Seems incredibly crappy if this is the case. I hate leaving things in standby.
I just can't understand why modern games consoles have so many problems. I've never had any drive fail except in consoles, Not even the cheapest, nastiest generic drives I could get have ever failed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, there's a reason they aren't getting much coverage. Maybe because it isn't happening (on a large scale, anyway).
Re:Sony not much better (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes... Try thinking before you write.
How would me buying the wrong part for my already broken console be the cause of the breakage? As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.
Are you sure about that? The way Sony was talking just before the PS3 was released, I'm sure I remember them claiming it had psychic powers, and the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, too!
Re: (Score:2)
Erm yes? I would've been?
Even if the part had been the correct one, I'd still be out £40 and had to have spent an afternoon taking the console apart, not to mention the time spent restoring the console and backing up the save files. 'Most of my problem' is the console breaking in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
> Not even the cheapest, nastiest generic drives I could get have ever failed.
Really? I usually end up replacing my optical drives in my PC every 18-24 months or so as they get slowly worse and worse at reading discs (even after cleaning). At less then £20 each I'm not really surprised tho.
Re: (Score:2)
Sony was never a synonym of quality. They used to be the usual kind of cheap rip-off oriental electronics company and all their products were cloned crap. The current Sony image was obtained by a marketing campaign from the late 80's - early 90's.
They started to sell a few pr
Re: (Score:2)
put on standby FIRST, THEN turn of the switch. you know it's safe to turn off the switch when the power LED turns red.
simply cutting the power to any modern electronics is a recipe for disaster. stand-by firts, power off later. serves for consoles, TVs, computers, and the like.
Re: (Score:2)
Google: ps3 won't read discs. there are plenty of forums full of people with PS3s with dead drives.
There are lots of people recently having this problem, specifically from the end of feb. There are measures which seem to fix it for a week or so, but as soon as your PS3 starts struggling to read discs, it's on the verge of death.
Although the scale of it is hard to guess, the same thing is happening to a lot of people suddenly.
Sony have suggested there's nothing wrong with their patches it's just that lots of
After this long... (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me a troll, but I feel ripped off: Fucking FAIL
Re: (Score:2)
Call me a troll too, but I can't help feeling awesome for having waited all this time. But I have almost every TV console system released in North America from the PS2/GC/XBox era all the way back to Channel F, so it's not like I have a lack of things to play. And I even have a Wii but play my PS2 instead.
I'm still leery about a system that nobody has cracked yet (I love my two jukebox XBoxes and will do it to fat PS2s when I have the time), but mostly it's the RROD and disc-eating that I wanted to avoid.
Hardware Problems? (Score:3, Funny)
On my 360? I never thought I'd see the day!!!!
An Xbox 360 breaking... (Score:5, Funny)
This is news? Oh... it's breaking in an entirely new way? Now that's news.
E74OD (Score:3, Funny)
in recent years??? (Score:4, Informative)
This is not the first time the Xbox 360 has experienced technical issues; in recent years many people have complained about scratched discs and over-heating consoles â" the 'red ring of death.'"
I think the term "in recent years" is more than a little unnecessary in reference to a console that's only been available for a little over 3 years.
Wow, does that article suck. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't have a vested interest in this article. I don't measure my self-worth by what strangers think of my choice in consoles. I don't give a damn about the RROD, or about the E74 error.
However, I hate stupid articles like this one.
Everything you need to know about the worth of this article is contained in this chart [blogcdn.com]
Lovely, isn't it? And no, the numbers aren't "in thousands". They're talking about reports over the last year going from 3 per month to 15. That's not failures - that's "emails to joystiq.com". It's worse than useless.
Did the emails spike because owners are, in fact, seeing spiking numbers of failures? Did the spike occur because some other site mentioned it with a link to related materials on joystiq.com? Did the emails say if the failures occured this month, or if some people were reporting failures from a couple years ago?
Al Gore would most assuredly approve of that chart.
They point out that their "little study" isn't perfect [joystiq.com], and that it's unscientific, but then they say, "as we interpret the data...". Of course that data is statistically insignificant and hopelessly flawed.
If you're going to start beating the drum on something like this you should get your shit together in advance. Otherwise you're going to look like an idiot.
That was my first trip to joystiq.com. Probably my last, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait...you mean to tell me that 60 problem reports from folks like "hugmonstercok220@yahoo.com" in a year doesn't mean there's a problem waiting to sweep over everyone with a 360? But I read all those comments up there that said my 360 was going to die in new and creative ways and I should have built a bsd box instead to play console games...
WHO IS LYING TO ME?
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. As far as the google trends thing goes, I hadn't googled for E74 prior to early Dec 2008, but then I started reading about people saying the E74 was a growing problem. The result...I started googling for E74 to learn more about it, to see what data there was.
This would be no different than if I said there was an increased number of reports of people spotting 4 foot tall cyclops ducks***, a bunch of curious slashdotters read my post and go search google for "4 foot tall cyclops ducks", and then a fe
Google Trends doesn't work that wa (Score:2)
Honestly... (Score:2)
I repair video games for a living (Score:5, Insightful)
I repair all generations of video game consoles for a living, and have repaired several thousand consoles. Allow me to touch several bases quickly:
E74 is not "on the rise", it has stayed as steady as ever. 3 red rings of death are declining with the new designs (they were pushing close to 100% failure rate within 3 years for the first generation), so other problems are finally allowed to surface since the consoles actually stay running long enough now.
New generation consoles are ALL going to have MANY more problems than old consoles. It's because of 3 things. They all run hotter since they have behemoth (comparatively) processors. Second, they have TONS more moving parts. Finally, components are smaller and made to less stringent standards (and there are tons more on each board).
The most complicated repair that really ever needs done to cartridge based systems is replacing a fuse. Almost all "broken" systems just need the game connectors cleaned. The processors usually don't even have a heat sink on them because they don't even get warm. The only heat sinks in the things would be on the 7805's. Also, they didn't use custom processors. Older machines had chips like Z80's or 68000's for brains. Obviously established architectures. Then we start adding moving parts, and you actually introduce wear in to the equation where there was no wear before. That was the problem with the NES blinking. The game connector actually had to move around, so it wore out. That's why the SNES and N64 are so much more reliable. They have no moving parts, robust components, and more cooling power than they need. Exactly the opposite of today's designs. New console designs are inherently recipes for disaster. Cheaper components, tons of moving parts, and not enough cooling.
MS could add more cooling. A better fan, or added fans, and a better designed interior for airflow would completely solve the heat issues that kill these things. However, it would require almost completely redesigning case and laying out a new board with different locations of all the parts, both on the board and around the board (meaning even the faceplate, plastic buttons, and drive size would need dealt with). Good luck presenting that to your boss when your product is turning profits just fine right now.
And to anyone saying they never have their disc drives in their computers go bad, try running a program from the CD for EVERY SINGLE SECOND your computer is on, and it probably won't make it to the end of the year. And open and close the drive a dozen times a day.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
Of the two, I'd say the 1960 one was the more versatile. It's less likely to break if you do weird stuff with it, while doing the same basic job as the 2009 model.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Versatile" stopped meaning "an array of useful features" a long time ago. As long as you can sync your car to your bluetooth phone (firmware upgrades anyone?), have it tell you the quickest route to the nearest gyro stand, and pet your hand and tell you "everything's ok" when your favorite idol-wannabe gets booted, it's "versatile"
Thank you, marketroids.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Funny)
shatter harmlessly on impact with your significant other in the heat of game battle anger, or remain in one piece?
Depends if the bitch is screen-peeking or not
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Back when I was learning marketing 20 years ago, we were told the trade off was between performance and reliability. I guess features vs reliability makes sense too, but a few MHz and thus ÂF or C less would have made wonders.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess would be that it's mostly caused by Microsofts relative hardware inexperience. Sony and Nintendo have spent decades building consoles and similar home electronics, but Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards and using common off the shelf components to build a small computer that they called the X-box, and sold as a console. They grossly underestimated the difficulty and cost of building cutting edge, high quality hardware from scratch, and they keep paying the price for it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards
Not really. To the best of my knowledge, all Microsoft keyboards are essentially rebranded products of Philips and Razer.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. They have their own H/W design department. They do not manufacture themselves - that's fact. But they design themselves.
Another fact: keyboard/mice/etc H/W design team has ZILCH/ZERO/NADA in common with Xbox* design team. They belong to different business units.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Interesting)
Demonstrably false. Microsoft have a quality console under their belts. Despite it's ponderous bulk, the original Xbox was a reliable console. I've rarely heard of system failures or disc scratches, and the device stands up well to custom modding. In addition to this, it was the first mainstream console to have hard drive and an ethernet link. And that was all from a company which, to my knowledge, had never produced a single hardware product.
Now that same company comes out and produces the 360 with its notoriously high failure rate. And it's wasn't down to the complexity of the design. The red ring of death was due to parts and material failures. Scratched discs were again down to a substandard component. Now we have a loose video chip problem.
This is NOT down to design. These issues are trivial to fix if only Microsoft was willing to pay the money. The fact is, they're not. These errors all exist because Microsoft is cutting costs across the board on 360 manufacturing. For every error that is found, you can be sure that three more lurk beneath the surface as a result of substandard parts, components and assembly line procedures.
The reason is clear. Despite their deep pockets, Microsoft are not willing to make the kind of losses everyone assumes they can make with the 360. But they still want a lower price point. It's not just manufacturing. Look at Live. Microsoft are the only game service provider in the world who are charging people to play titles online. When everyone else; Nintendo, Sony and Valve, make playing online completely free, the Live gold membership fee required to play every single Xbox 360 title online stands out like a sore thumb. It's particularly egregious standing next to Microsoft's own Games for Windows: Live, which is also free.
Bad hardware and unnecessary online fees. Why would a company in Microsoft's position continue to hinder itself in these ways? The answer is that they want the 360 to succeed, but are not willing to shell out funds indefinitely to achieve this. The console needs to sell massively, but they are not willing to charge people for this, so production costs are cut instead. The console needs to make money off people during its lifetime, but they are not willing to do this through selling games, so they charge for services that should be free.
Everyone has assumed that Microsoft's funds are essentially unlimited when it comes to their goal of getting a Microsoft console into the living room. I don't think this is true anymore. Over time, it has become clear that a console in the living room is not going to serve as the hub of a digital household. I think Microsoft has realized this and is now simply treating the Xbox as another part of its home computer strategy, but not as an essentially one that must be maintained at any cost.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're saying it didn't fail because of poor design but because they designed it to be inexpensive to manufacture? That sounds to me like bad design. They didn't design it to stand up to normal use and instead designed it to save a few pennies here and there during the manufacturing and assembly process. Sounds like a classic example of a poorly chosen design trade-off where quality is sacrificed to save costs. Now it is coming back to bite them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I think that's an entirely different issue. Take the DVD, for example. The design department doesn't work out all the details of the DVD drive. It's an industry standard component, with an industry standard interface. They design the system to work with a standard DVD drive with certain basic specs, let some other department work out the pricing deals with various suppliers, and then do whatever custom firmware integration they need to with whoever the contract was made with. A lot of it is no more the
Re: (Score:2)
Over time, it has become clear that a console in the living room is not going to serve as the hub of a digital household.
Because the one offered by any company is a festering pile of crap. I have exposed MANY people to real media centers (Mediaportal, MythTV, XBMC on a linux box) and all of them freak out how great they are compared to the half-assed attempts that every other company throws at them. windows MCE = a windows box with a nice UI and a lot of DRM slapped in your face. klunky and not easy to
Re: (Score:2)
Total anecdote, but my original Xbox was broken out of the box. Plugged it in and the first screen I see is a message in about 10 languages telling me something is broken and I should call this number.
I was able to return it to Gamestop with no problem, but this was in 2005 I believe, the Halo green Xbox.
My second one is still working today, both my wife and I use it nearly everyday with XBMC installed on it. Great little machine.
Re: (Score:2)
The original Xbox was, indeed reliable, but it did also scratch DVDs, although less often than the Xbox360.
Still, I'd say it was an overall better quality machine.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
The OP's point was the original Xbox was designed using off the shelf components thus it suffers from fewer defects as MS did not have to design or spec out as much as they did with the 360.
In the red ring of death, failure has been blamed on the graphics chip overheating. MS chose not to use an ASIC vendor to save money and designed the chip and assembly themselves. The chip overheating has been attributed to how it was soldered onto the board using cold solder joints (a design choice). This probably may have been exacerbated by the lack of adequate airflow and the inadequate heat sink size (both design choices). After the initial problems, MS went to an ASIC vendor and redesigned the chip to dissipate less heat. I'd call that a design failure.
As for the scratched discs, the only that MS could have done differently was to watch their suppliers and components more closely.
That might be true if more problems occurred as the Xbox 360 got older but these problems occurred when the Xbox 360 was launched and MS was throwing lots of money into the program. The truth of the matter is that MS cared more about beating Sony out to market with a product than getting out a quality product. There were reports that the failure rate at the the factory was 68%. [gamedaily.com]
The lower point is because they now have to compete with Nintendo. If Sony and MS were the only two competitors, their consoles would still be priced pretty high. However, Nintendo coming in with their cheaper console has changed the market even though Sony and MS don't want to admit they are competing with Nintendo.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, you do know what cold solder joints are, don't you? They most certainly are not a design choice. They're a problem of quality control.
I agree with everything you say, otherwise.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it is definitely bad design.
The 360 GPU heatsink is tiny compared to the CPU heatsink, because they had to squeeze it directly under the DVD drive because of their layout. I have heard that originally that had more room - and a bigger heatsink - but it was shrunk when the case was redesigned to be smaller. The board is also under curve stress because of the case, so when the GPU gets so hot it starts to melt its own solder slightly, you get bad joints, and bing, it dies.
Many people have fixed their own RROD problem, at least temporarily, by disassembling the unit and heating the GPU heatsink with a hairdryer, while using something like the X-clamp replacement clamps to keep the heatsink clamped down tight, and effectively reheat and reflow the solder joints. Some people have used flux to fix more problematic consoles, and some repair specialists have even got their own reflow ovens.
Several of the console revisions have basically been an extra heatsink with a heatpipe to try and stop the GPU literally cooking itself off the board. The newest consoles, with the process shrink, have smaller power supplies and generate less heat in the first place, so should be more reliable.
The biggest problem with the 360 is overheating, even in normal use, and that's down to too small a case with consequential undersized heatsinks.
However, I'll grant you that the DVD scratching problem is simply down to them being cheap - they skipped putting bumpers in to stop it digging into the disc, because it saved them a couple of cents per console. The problem comes about because they're spinning the disc too fast, with insufficient magnetic grip. They could have redesigned the drive, but it would have made it too slow reading, or take longer to spinup/eject discs. Microsoft knew about the design problem, but went ahead anyway, because they were too cheap to fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I don't have time to watch a 1 hour video, but it sounds like you are trying to say their console wasn't quality because the security was poor and that people could pirate games on it. Yet, no matter how easy or difficult it might be to hack, I'm failing to think of a system that hasn't been hacked to allow pirating. If the xbox is low quality, what is the high quality example that they should be aspiring to be like, and how is that really any better if people still find a way to work around it and p
Re: (Score:2)
Chee. if they were inexperianced about hardware, what do u have to sway for thier software, what excuse do they have their.
Further, IMO, they would do it all over again considering the success of xbox 360.
Re: (Score:2)
...except that at least one of the (three?) models of DVD drive they used is total crap. The main value in a used XBox is whether its DVD drive works or not. And their DVD reader design is such that it is not possible to read a genuine XBox disc without a genuine XBox DVD drive. (or installing the official firmware on one of a very few compatible consumer models of drive that haven't been manufactured in years, but they used that funny plug so such a hacked drive will only work on a PC)
Out of the three uni
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, i still have an xbox with a broken DVD reader... I put a larger hard drive in and use it exclusively to run xbmc... MS seems to have completely dropped support for it now.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
>>>Microsoft knew about it but launched it anyway so it would be the first in its generation. There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.
Therefore it *must* be true because slashdot never posts inaccurate or biased stories! /end sarcasm. At least Microsoft was willing to admit the problems and exchange or repair failing consoles. Microsoft was willing to lose money to keep people happy; that's better than what Toyota did when their 2004 truck engines started sludging oil & seizing-up (th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>>>Microsoft knew about it but launched it anyway so it would be the first in its generation. There was a thread here in Slashdot about this.
Therefore it *must* be true because slashdot never posts inaccurate or biased stories! /end sarcasm.
No, it's true because it linked to documents and internal sources proving this...
At least Microsoft was willing to admit the problems and exchange or repair failing consoles. Microsoft was willing to lose money to keep people happy; that's better than what Toyota did when their 2004 truck engines started sludging oil & seizing-up (they blamed the customer). It's good to see a company stand behind their product for a change.
.
Hey fanboy, that's the least they could do after launching consoles they knew they were faulty! And you think they supported the product just because they were nice? Have you thought that it would be much worse for them if they didn't? There's no excuse to launch a product they knew it was going to give a lot of problems, when they could just have solved them by delaying the launch. Sure it was nice that they at least provided
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree it was nice of MS to add to the warranty for the RRoD, I don't have any faith they're standing behind their product. True, they didn't blame the user very loudly (though early on, they were blaming poor ventilation), but they never admitted there was/is a flaw. Now we've another flaw possibly in the making and MS is charactaristically silent.
Re: (Score:2)
They stood behind the products because the console market is competitive and not standing behind them would have severely damaged their market position.
I don't know about Toyota, but companies will always try to get out of providing costly repairs/replacements if they possibly can... On the other hand, i had a Jaguar engine replaced for free because it failed (google for jaguar v8 nikasil)..
Remember companies are out for profit... They will weigh up the cost of fixing the problems vs the cost of the bad pub
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
This is the attitude that's killing tech industries the world over.
There's a set of minimums to meet for a product to be fit for purpose. Okay you don't need the sturdy steel chassis of a 1960 Chevy truck to drive around town with occassional longer trips so as the technology has improved and parts could be made lighter and cheaper it made sense to do so. However if as a result the damn thing dies for no reason after a couple of months use, or touching it dents it, you bet people will be complaining.
So if someone's throwing around or stomping on their Xbox 360 and it dies, good and well, they're an idiot. If they're careful with it and it still lasts as long as a $2 item from the junk shop there's a problem.
Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward, that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?
>>>
That's an *excellent* question. I popped-in a 5-year-old DVD-R that was *supposed* to be my friend's wedding video, but instead all I got was a bunch of pixelated garbage. Meanwhile my VHS tapes are nearing a quarter-century age, and they still playback just fine. Even the one tape that developed a wrinkle is still watchable and enjoyable. Meanwhile my wedding DVD-R is now a drink coaster. Sad.
I'm an engineer but I'm not like my colleagues. They embrace every new tech that comes along. I ask the question, "Is this new thing better than the old technology?" Sadly the answer is often 'no' which is why I still use pen-and-paper, not an electronic PADD/PDA, and also why I still use a VHS camcorder not one of those DVD-Rs that self-erases itself after five years. ("Obsolescence and stupidity wrapped in the same package. How efficient of you.") I tried to explain that to my brother: Don't buy Vista; buy an XP PC. "But Vista is the newest and bestest!" Now he's unhappy because his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video, and it's pathetically slow, and he wishes he had listened to me.
Technology is only better if it *improves* on old technology, not simply because it's the newest thing.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Funny)
Now he's unhappy because his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video
Sounds like a nice feature to me. Where can I procure this Vista you speak of?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right about VHS tapes. My little sister's prized copy of some Disney movie was eaten by the VCR. I cut out the crushed part of the tape, scotch-taped it back together and it plays perfectly, minus one sentence of dialogue. Now that's reliability.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Vista did something intelligent!? Im shocked!
At least it has good enough taste to block out Goebel's Modern News
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:4, Interesting)
It is well known that writeable CD's and DVD's have a limited shelf life. They're not intended for archival purposes.
The point is that every X years, where X is sufficiently short to prevent data loss, you can make an EXACT COPY of the higher-quality video, with extremely little or no loss in quality.
Try that with a VHS tape.
Re: (Score:2)
My question, though, is where were all these complains when the PSX was the dominant system? After my 3rd PSX, I kindly resigned and quit playing PSX games until I finally got a PS2. I'm now on my 3rd PS2 and I've said the same thing. Unfortuantely PS3's aren't backwards compatible now, so I'm kinda stuck.
On the other hand (and I may be one of the lucky ones) I still have my launch 360. I'm a lighter gamer...I don't play FPS's for entire afternoon...which might explain why I don't have problems with my
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is that an Xbox360 is less sturdy than anything else on the market right now. Compared to Wii and PS3 its a pile of manure disguised as a gaming console.
Its just shitty hardware Q&A from the same company that excels in bad quality software.
Re: (Score:2)
Its just shitty hardware Q&A from the same company that excels in bad quality software.
You are - as most people on /. - are totally wrong about it.
Quality is a metric. Product has to balance quality vs. features vs. price.
N.B. Network people I'm sure can already recognize the famous "fast, cheap, secure: pick any two" pattern.
M$ as business has to balance all the three to make the product not too expensive (== cut features and quality); stable enough (== fewer better tested featured) and feature-full.
While feature set and price often are predefined (e.g. in case of Xbox360) quali
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that Microsoft sacrificed quality for price and features.
Yep.
Sony appears to have sacrificed price for quality and features. I'll take Sony.
What identifies you as niche buyer. And mass market companies do not care about niche buyers. (Even Sony.)
People see price first - but experience quality only later. That's why it is important to balance the both. If entry price is too high, provided there is competition, many wouldn't bother to even try. But once people bought a console, natural instinct of buyer to protect investments would actually smooth the negative perception of most quality problems.
In other words, in mass market, low quality is forgivable, high price isn't.
P.S. Just recall how Dell improved quality of their PCs. It's not that it improved anything, but they have people standing by with spare replacement parts. Quality is the same usual crap. But if it breaks, they simply replace it - real fast. And perception of Dell's quality really soared in past years.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
Actually, it's in the nature of /. to consider a random poll on joystiq (which could easily be hijacked by say, ps3 fanboys or MS haters) and unverifiable data from google trends as irrefutable proof of increased E74 errors.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Funny)
It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
Actually, it's in the nature of /. to consider a random poll on joystiq (which could easily be hijacked by say, ps3 fanboys or MS haters) and unverifiable data from google trends as irrefutable proof of increased E74 errors.
don't forget the ring of death and all those broken discs we made up... because microsoft always makes quality products!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
don't forget the ring of death and all those broken discs we made up... because microsoft always makes quality products!
Read my comment, and TFA again. I didn't claim the RRoD was made up. I've suffered one scratched disk myself. I'm saying, a joystiq poll, and google trends are insufficient data (extremely insufficient in fact) for coming to the conclusion that there is an increase in E74 errors.
360 Design Faults Were Known By MS In 2005 (Score:5, Informative)
Xbox 360 consoles were dying in store demo kiosks months before the console went on sale.
> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed it was incompetent store employees who didn't know how to hook up a console
Xbox 360 consoles were dying at game media offices months before the console went on sale.
> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed it was just pre-release hardware and the real consoles wouldn't have those problems
Xbox 360 consoles were dying when they went on sale to the general public
> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed that they were just the first batch and that once production got moving those 'kinks' would be worked out
Every new Xbox 360 model continued to have massive numbers of hardware failures
> Hardcore Xbox fans screamed the new models about to come out fix those problems
Microsoft knew about the problems before the console was released and they went right ahead and put the turd of console up for sale regardless. They knew they had a fundamentally botched hardware design and lied through their teeth about the defective hardware until they finally had to fork out 1.1 billion in repair bills.
There is ZERO incentive for Microsoft to ship working hardware. The niche Xbox fanbase of the console market has demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to buy 3,4,5 or more new consoles without hesitation. It has helped inflate the installed base for the 360 mostly in the US but done nothing in Japan and Europe where the number of fanatical Microsoft fans is tiny.
The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.
Either:
1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners
2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, that's not a completely unreasonable prospect. There's been more exclusives for the 360 in the past couple of years. (No, I'm [slashdot.org] not [slashdot.org] an [slashdot.org] xbot [slashdot.org], just being honest.) That being said, the 360's hardware issues seem likely to be the bigger contributor, at least IMHO. (Oh, and this year's looking pretty good for the PS3, game-wise. I'm pretty hopeful about inFamous [wikipedia.org].)
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but people who own both consoles might prefer to buy multiplatform games for PS3, since that platform has less problems and might be expected to have a longer future (Sony supports its old consoles, Microsoft drops them like hot potatoes).
But still... I have long wondered if Microsoft might be counting replacement sales as fresh sales. It would be interesting to know the real number of people actively using their consoles (for all three consoles).
Re: (Score:2)
Really? I didn't know any stores had them on display before they were available (I certainly never saw any), and stores are usually pretty reluctant to waste floor space on a product they can't actually sell yet.
Re: (Score:2)
I saw them, about a month or so before the 360 launch. They had an interesting looking demo disc in them....at least until the one in the local big box store died. And they keep dying, they can't keep the 360 demo station up. Reminds me of the later PS2 days when PS2 in-store demo stations began showing DRE's and since the PS3 was either out or soon to come out, they didn't replace the "fat" PS2's in them
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.
Either:
1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners
2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic
1 is the most likely - the owners of the more expensive console are freer with their money, and are more likely to buy a big stack of games.
It is also worth mentioning that the best selling games on PS3 are multiplatform games. GTA IV is the best selling ps3 game to date, and has sold 5.5 million copies worldwide. The top selling title on 360 is an exclusive (Halo 3), as are it's #4,#6,and #9 selling titles.
Actually, on reviewing the sales numbers, I'm beginning to doubt your statement that multiplat titl
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a common fallacy that versatile means "more fragile", propogated by exactly this sort of poor design and manufacture. Just because you've witnessed it, doesn't mean the opposite (i.e. stable, versatile and modern) isn't possible or available. The problem is that almost EVERYTHING modern is rushed out the door to sell it, especially games consoles - build it cheap, stack it high. "Fix it in firmware" are words that you DO NOT want to hear - it means someone isn't doing their job. Even the ability of upgrading firmware should be rarely used, hard to do and positively discouraged.
It's like the people who say "Well, Vista should crash more, it's newer!". No, it shouldn't - it should be learning by the mistakes of the past few decades and be virtually uncrashable (this is NOT impossible - and yet in two trials of Vista I've crashed machines within literally hours of building them for my workplace without even doing anything "fancy" like installing drivers or applications, or installing new hardware, or using unsupported or broken hardware, etc.). In fact, the exact opposite should be true and it should be more reliable, faster on the same machine, and do more, because it's based on decades-old technology with a new sheen. System requirements should not be going up as quickly as they are (almost damn exponential!) - and now that we're hitting limits (CPU speed, etc.), some OS and programs are showing their limitations and actually getting SLOWER on the top-end hardware because they rely on things just getting faster every year. There was a time when a PC upgrade meant that everything ran faster. Now it merely means that things run.
In terms of software, reliability should be going *up* all the time - the software should be getting fixed more and more as time goes on, not thrown out with each new iteration. You win by making things SIMPLE and reuseable, not complex. The simpler they are, the easier they are to find problems, the less they have to go wrong, the easier they are to fix. That's *software*. Easily updateable, changeable *software*. Hardware should be a million times more solid.
Games consoles are enclosed systems. Their hardware has been fixed to a finite set of components that will not change. Their OS software has a long time in which to be designed and is very basic - load game, run it, everything else should be handled by the application, so it's not like you have to update the DirectX drivers to fix a bug in a shader model or some such crap - the game works or doesn't and it's the game manufactures fault if it doesn't (this is the way it SHOULD work, anyway... I'm not surprised that MS basically try to make the XBox a mini-PC because it's all they know). Console hardware is *static*. Thus it can be tested *much* more extensively for problems than, say, my bodge-job, home-built, cheap-component PC which has been up now for over a year and never crashed or experienced a hardware problem (or, for that matter, needed any significant hardware maintenance in that time - I think I blew the dust off the fans once while it was still running). Or the dozens of servers, dozens of "blackboxes" and hundreds of client machines that I've built along the same lines in recent years. These things can EASILY run for decades, even being knocked about and moved in school environments. The BBC-Micro's that I pulled out of a skip last year from one school I work at were still perfectly operational despite years of heavy use and having been stored with no maintenance and then thrown (literally) into a skip and having building rubble thrown on them - THAT is solid-state hardware of thirty years ago! They were originally bought as a set of 15. There were still 15 there, all working - one of them we still used for flashing EEPROM's! We should have moved FORWARD from that, not BACKWARD.
A computer should be switched on, work should be done, and then it should be switched off. Anything that causes that cycle not to work under reasonable conditions (i.e. not dropped, not placed in a
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Funny)
the fun part is that the competitor had an inverse problem with wiimots being more sturdy than everything else and basically destroying people's tvset, eyes, faces, walls...
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with all your points although this is hardly a new thing. From the same era as the BBC Micro the Sinclair Spectrum was notoriously shoddy and easy to break as was its predecessor the ZX81 (RAM pack wobble took out many a program in the bad old days).
Re: (Score:2)
What you say may be true, but it doesn't mean it's the right behaviour for a large company.
Some Spectrums were home-built (I know they offered a solder-kit for cheaper prices than a shop-built one). However, I agree that they had a few design flaws because of the same sorts of problems and component pricing of the time, etc. If I remember, the RAM on the early models was actually bog-standard RAM of the day where one half had failed but left enough to be usable for Sinclair's purposes. The price of buyin
Re: (Score:2)
Simple software is not the design goal for MS tho...
DOS was simple, and several compatible clones sprang up...
Unix is simple and has many clones...
Windows is extremely complex and has far less clones which themselves are incomplete and not fully functional.
Windows is massively more complex than any other system on the market, and this complexity makes it difficult to maintain and causes stability and security problems. And much of the complexity was intentional to make it harder for third party clones to ex
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
>>>
Yeah, and yet the PS3 has next-to-no problems, and the Wii console has zero problems. So I'm blaming the designer not the complexity. (I also question your claim the SNES was simple. For its time it was leading edge technology and just as prone to engineering mistakes as an X360.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not at all. The 2009 Chevy Truck is engineered to be less sturdy. Why? Because a less sturdy truck requires less material to build and will therefore be cheaper. Y'know, most people tend to buy the cheaper of two equivalent products while flagrantly disregarding lifetime cost of the product.
Re: (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with complexity, but all to do with cheap components (as you mention) and planned obsolescence. Now I wonder why companies would do this? Hmmm... it's not hard to figure out.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
So is it a bad thing they laid of the studio that ruined flight simulator or a good thing then?
MS does do a lot for PC gaming. For all the negativity DirectX gets on here, they work heavily with graphics card makers and software developers creating each version, including it in their consoles enables easier ports between consoles and PC gaming making PC titles get a chance at a wider audience and in general most games companies are generally happy using the API over alternatives solutions such as OpenGL and
Re: (Score:2)
I've never seen any negativity about the quality of DX, only about the platform lock-in. AFAIK it is a good library - if only it was cross-platform like the others.
Re: (Score:2)
link: http://oldcomputermuseum.com/apple_3.html [oldcomputermuseum.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The sad thing is that despite all these problems, their leading in this realm, too.
Nintendo would like to disagree with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, actually they're a distant second.
Microsoft is basically the Linux of the console world.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who don't know what chip creep is, it's the term used to describe the movement of ch
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Wii isn't something different and it's not a toyota to MS's Ferrari. For starters in order for the 360 to be a Ferrari it shouldn't die just from looking at it funny and it should host the best selection of games rath