Xbox 360 failure fiasco explained in-depth [Gamespot]

[epfrndz]

From Gamespot by Polybren

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_bl...5&tag=;title;1

If there's one thing former San Jose Mercury-News writer Dean Takahashi knows, it's Microsoft's gaming hardware. In 2002, his book Opening the Xbox recapped the making of the software giant's first entry into the console game industry. Shortly after Microsoft launched its follow-up, Takahashi followed suit with The Xbox 360 Uncloaked.

It's little surprise then that Takahashi, currently a writer for Silicon Valley blog VentureBeat, would be the guy to go whole-hog into the saga of the Xbox 360 hardware's ongoing reliability issues. In a newly published feature that Takahashi considers the final chapter of his Xbox 360 book, the reporter meticulously recounts how Microsoft launched a gaming system with unacceptably high failure rates and its attempts to address the problem.
In July of 2007, Microsoft publicly acknowledged the so-called "Red Ring of Death" issue and took a corresponding financial hit of more than $1 billion to fix it. Prior to that acknowledgement, Takahashi reports that Microsoft had taken returns on 1.2 million of the roughly 11.6 million shipped Xbox 360s. However, the problems responsible for that return rate had been around since before the console hit shelves.
Takahashi quotes a Microsoft engineer who raised the issue of hardware reliability in August of 2005, months before the system's November launch. At the time, 68 of every 100 Xbox 360s made by Microsoft's Chinese manufacturing partners were coming off the line nonfunctional. Worse still, when the first batch of the system's three-core CPUs rolled off the line, only 16 percent worked.
On top of that, Microsoft reportedly altered the design of the system repeatedly in the latter stages of development. The company added hard drives to most machines and made wireless controllers standard, further blocking cooling airflow inside the console. There were even issues with the QA machines that supposedly ensured the 360's system reliability. Takahashi reports that the machines would approve faulty units and were not properly debugged because Microsoft wanted to save $2 million on a $25 million contract with its third-party manufacturer.
"It turned out in the end that this was all going too far, too fast," an unnamed source told Takahashi. "They were adding too many features after things were locked down. That incremental feature adding just made it fragile."
The article goes on to say the post-launch shortage of Xbox 360 systems was due partly to Microsoft's inability to make enough functioning units to satisfy demand. In the spring of 2006, Microsoft had half a million returned or defective units sitting in warehouses, all while publicly stating that returns were within normal rates for consumer electronics.
Problems with quality control continued to plague the system, so much so that Microsoft actually ceased production of the Xbox 360 in 2007 between January and June to find and address the issue, according to the report. The production stoppage was also due to a surplus of systems at retailers from the prior holiday season, a fact which led to accusations of channel-stuffing on Microsoft's part.
As for what the ultimate culprit for the faulty console was, Takahashi reports it was a combination of factors. The ATI graphics chip had overheating issues, solder joints were prone to failure, and assembly and memory issues were widespread.
"The video game industry has never seen a consumer problem as bad as the 'red rings of death' and the size of the $1.15 billion charge stands as one of the biggest liability glitches in consumer electronics history," Takahashi wrote. "How Microsoft handled the flaw may provide a lesson for all modern electronics companies; that is, if you are going to promote the hell out of something, it better work the way you say it does, and you better have a strong customer support and engineering debugging team to back it up."

Wow, the price of the rush....

ohh well, a lesson for the future of consumer electronics.
Ohh yea I noticed that when I play Gears of War in HD, it kinda lags... well its just annoying... .

Good thing Sony didnt end up like them. wooohhhh thats alot of moo-milk lost

[04soldier]

This article literally puts ammo in any Sony fanboy's gun. A strong collection of games doesn't mean anything if your console is dead. 360=fail.

[E6600]

Originally Posted by 04soldier

This article literally puts ammo in any Sony fanboy's gun. A strong collection of games doesn't mean anything if your console is dead. 360=fail.

are you talking about the earlier models or the later models?

[04soldier]

New or old model. Either way its a loss towards microsoft's consumer. Which in turn have to buy a new console just to maintain 'reliability'. Its dirty greedy marketing.

[epfrndz]

Mehh, Xbox 360s are still prone to death's ring of incarnation (lol i mean RROD). It was a business decision, a big risk, but if you think about many businesses now, most of the big ones took such risks and it yielded back big returns. But its still is a risk in the first place, and unfortunately, Microsoft ended on hells path.

I mean what company wouldnt want 10 million units in advance than the other, it could be quite intimidating for consumers and sends out ripples that shout your name.

Ohh well, ummm, i'm still in for Sony.


Oh yea, I dont belive its greedy marketing, I believe its just risk taking.
I love business stories and sagas XD.

[boffo]

Regardless of what MS does the rest of this gen and how many times they redo the hardware the 360's legacy will always be the RRoD. Reported percentages may differ from source to source but any current or future console will always have it's failure rate compared to the 360.

[04soldier]

I agree....Now no 360 fanboy can tell me the 360 is better than my PS3. For 2007 They bashed PS3 to a bloody pulp. Alot of them now are in either in denial of its hardware failure or just boast about its limited exclusives.

[LieutenantDan67]

I don't see one system as being better than the other; just different, with different strengths. I own both.

I've also had four 360s LOL. My current one is going to die soon, the drive is SO loud, especially on COD4...it's my third refurb from MS (and my last..when this thing dies, my warranty is up and I'll get a new one from BB with a PRP so I'll be in NEW 360's from here on out).

I will say that my wife's new 360 is really quiet and runs cool. It'd seem that ms finally got the design refined to where it ideally should have been at launch.

I love the 360...but I've been in the audio/video industry since 1985 and this failure rate was astronomically bad; I've never seen anything like it. A failure rate of 1-2% is what is usually 'acceptable'...but MS was at 10% or better overall.

MS is unbelieveably fortunate that it didn't spiral off worse than it did, but lucky for them most of the general public isn't that well-informed as to know how bad it really was.

Kudos to MS for finally stepping up and taking it in the shorts for over a billion when they did admit to the problem (though not in DETAIL...but I guess that's not really necessary) and do something about it like they did.


SIDE NOTE: When I first fired up my Dreamcast, I thought that thing would NEVER last, it was so loud! Played the hell out of it and never had to replace it....

[epfrndz]

>.> no two kings can occupy the same ruling seat.
Yea, the public is not well informed, well atleast where MS tries not to...

PS3 is more popular here and RROD is what people see as the big factor why people here buy PS3s instead of 360s, hehe woohoo PS3.
And, I'm like preaching everywhere about that 360 failure news XD.