The Xbox 360 seems to be suffering from inverse karma of late. On the one hand, it's a damn fine machine with a vast library of worthwhile games and a great online service. On the other hand, death seems to eagerly shadow its every footstep.
A couple of weeks ago we brought you news of a crazily high retailer estimate of a 30% failure rate for Microsft's big white box of joy, and today that bad news has been compounded by some fairly extreme reports from the repair shop end of things. In the UK it transpires that the number of red lights appearing at Microsoft's repair centre currently evokes the image of a Cylon invasion, with a massive 1500 to 2500 machines turning up daily. Not only that, but the repair centre is now failing to keep up with demand, and is being forced to out-source repairs on UK machines to other countries. Hit the jump for the details.
The news broke as a result of the intrepid pokings around of a 360 owner, who after talking to Microsoft customer service, called the repair centre in Havant directly in an attempt to find out what had happened to the machine he had sent in. In his own words:
A shocking statistic we found out though is that between 1,500 to 2,500 consoles get sent to Havant by three UPS lorries per day, to then be shipped to Prague for repair.
[We] phoned up Nora the [customer service] supervisor again, who then admitted my console was in Prague and hadn’t been looked at yet – she seemed amazed that we knew!
Oh dear.
In addition to that, the red ring o' death, doom and despair is so prolific that independent repair shops are now refusing to touch it. Electronics repair centre Micromart has just cancelled its repair service for the problem, stating that after seeing the frequency of the complaint increase for several months, it eventually became apparent that it was far too serious for them to effectively deal with.
The work we had done to the console lead us to believe that basically it was a fault with the motherboard and not something that could be resolved easily. And it wasn't going to go away.
Rather than lead customers up the garden path we'd walk away from it and tell them to go directly to Microsoft because they have the facility to replace the motherboard. If Microsoft has updated the motherboard for the new consoles that it's producing then presumably they've improved the existing model.
We're not taking that thing on board; we won't repair them. We originally did some work with it but it's labour intensive and it isn't really a feasible repair for us to undertake. We would probably end up charging GBP 100 for a repair and we still wouldn't be happy with the end result.
Oh dear, oh dear.
The situation is now explained on the company's home page, where the problem is described as endemic.
Despite Microsoft's denials, this problem has surely gone too far now. It's the big, glowing red elephant in the corner, and there really is no PR victory to be made by pretending it isn't there any longer. It would save the company and its consumers a lot of time and money to just put things right now and let people get on with enjoying the otherwise great machine without fear. A lot of people have flawess 360s of course, but given the current evidence, a lot more should have.
In the meantime, add the price of a towel to that Premium Pack when you pick one up.
[Via Danny Martinez and Tempus' community blog]
Contest:
8:36 PM on 07.01.2007
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numbers doesn't equal quality. Especially if half the games are fps.
I see my judgment was correct, we've got: One console that runs great, but has no games; and one console that has all sorts of games, but breaks while playing them (and my Wii needs more games too).
So far the console "wars" are very disappointing... I think I'm sticking with that whole PC thing for a bit more.
"Spinmaster, eject. Commence Operation: Brainwash."
Is like gambling against destiny.
...
...
...
***RUNS >
If you don't live near a Costco, pack up your fucking teepee and move toward the lights.
I am afraid it is going to brick again... I don't want to put up with having to send it back again. I love the system but it is pretty much bullshit. Waiting for a class action lawsuit ;)
Should a defect show up in the PS3, it should start some interesting fanboy wars as to whose exploding hardware is worse. My money is it will involve the bluray diode.
I guess the morale here is buy Nintendo. All of the Nintendo products I've owned are survivors. Sure, you may have to wiggle the Wii remote at the screen and this makes you look gay to friends you only think you have, but when you launch it at a wall at mach 3 it survives.
And please dont read my post and be like "ZoMg ps3 has noes games".
Ive have 1 ps1 it still works to this day. I have 1 ps2 it works to this day. I have 1 ps3 no problems it still works.
I had 1 xbox 360 elite it fucking overheated the first month.
I was thinking the same as you until last week, when mine spontaneously crapped out on me. And then reports of a mass breaking suddenly show up on the internet... It's weird, almost like some sort of code word was sent out, ha.
Unfortunately it wasn't under warranty anymore. Strangely, even though I wasn't able to find one in stores until March of 06, looking at the back of my console (which I just never thought to do) revealed that mine was made in Oct of 05, making it part of the first batch. That's weird, no? Where was it sitting for more than three months before it found its way to shelves?
Luckily calling the service line was easy, and the guy I talked to was really nice (contrary to that one bogus 'news' story from a while back). We talked about how awesome Canada is, ha. He said I was lucky too (relatively), in that I live within an hour of the repair centre. Though I didn't remember it was the long weekend at the time, but I hope to get it back Tuesday.
One thing I found curious though was he said they'd just be giving me a new one... have they just given up trying to repair them now? I didn't think anything of it at the time, but in light of this, I wonder if it's now just more cost effective to outright replace them for customers.
Anywho, if this happens again, it'll be a different story, but the ordeal hasn't soured me on Microsoft, just the opposite. Though, we'll see what the story is depending on how long it takes me to get it back/whether it breaks on me again.
And my NES still works, and that was made back in 85 or so. Nintendo has all claims to console reliability, even my Virtual Boy still works, though I wish it didn't so I could throw it away.
My friend got his XBox 360 before the release date, thanks to some Mountain Dew contest, and his runs fine. So I guess he's one of the lucky ones.
not true, just as some 360's manage to not crap out, the same can be said for the launch PS2... i got my PS2 at launch(pre-ordered) and it's running strong
Looking inside of the beast though (on the net), does seem like it needs more fans....as soon as my warranty is up, im busting it open and beefing it up!!
Brilliant system, cant keep off it, to think i hated the first one too!!
PS3 seems such a waste of cash at the mo, buy an xbox i say, who wants to pay 20 more quid for the same game on a system that doesnt rumble and looks crap (fatty playstation!!)
hopefullym this will kick them in the pants to lower the price!!
I hated the first xbox, thought it was crap, but the 360 is great, thats it plain and simple!!
If im a fanboy of anything its nintendo, or since ive got a psx, ps2 and a psp im a sony one aswell.
in a word shut your mouth you havent got a clue. Oh tekken sucked after number 3, put that in your pipe and smoke it!!
I really hope I have slightly better luck with it this time.
The process was pretty painless. It took about four weeks in total. And it was free.
first one red rings of death.
2nd one lag while playing games..NOT EVEN ONLINE.
3rd. i STILL lag when playing Burnout Revenge
splitscreen VS on long maps.
that Tokyo level and that warehouse level..
it skips
WTF SHOULD I DO?!?!
SHOULD I SEND IT BACK????
ANYONE ELSE HAVE THIS BURNOUT PROBLEM?
ONLINE PLAY IS FINE, BUT SPLITSCREEN LAG SUCKS!!!
Moore said "You know, stuff breaks".
And you all bought the shit anyway. When someone tells me "Stuff breaks" I say; "I don't want your stuff then".
Simple.
Look, I understand you can’t keep modern consoles on carpeting like you used to when you were a kid, but there are a lot of people who think they are keeping their system well-ventilated and they are still damn near melting the plastic in back.
M$, meet reality. Most people have a set place for their game consoles. They are going to put them someplace like on the shelf under the TV on their entertainment center that is 5-10 years old. There is literally no place else to put it, so it goes there. They’ll move some cords around and try to keep air around it, but that is all they can do.
Then they’ll play Gears all day on teacher institute day and leave it on while they make a run to the border for fourthmeal. Hey, 30% of the time, this causes the motherboard to slit her wrists. Who knew? We all knew, that’s who.
So is it the user’s fault or M$. Like it or not, consoles need to take a bit of punishment. Did M$ know they had a console that could melt if you didn’t cut out the back of your entertainment center or have a fan blowing on it 24/7? You bet they did. Could you imagine if this sort of thing happened with things like televisions or DVD players? The customer wouldn’t stand for it, and M$ had better start with the transparent customer service or the customer will turn the hurt back on them.
Maybe I've been lucky... I've owned a 360 for a year now, I even traveled with it once and put it in my suitcase, where it was transited through three locations!
I haven't had a problem with it yet.... either way, hope MS gets their act together because its an otherwise good system with a great lineup right now relative to what the competition is offering.
With consoles you have a single manufacturer for every system, and while one could make the argument that the consumer should purchase a PS3/Wii instead of a 360 because of its failure rate, people won't because the 360 has enough highly anticipated exclusives and a large library of games relative to the competition. So while a consumer won't stand for it with a DVD or TV, they'll bend over backwards and take it with a console.
Now this would be all and well had MS actually been doing something to fix the problem, but when the Elite just got released and you are still having reports of 1500-2000 failures a day in one country..... then there is obviously a disconnect.
Just so no one says it, because someone always does, yes my 360 is well-ventilated and well taken care of...however, I don't think any consumer should have to go through the video game equivalent of a shuttle launch just to play a goddamn game. What I'm saying is, fix the problem MS, because my PS3 is built like a brickhouse.
1st scratched up games, the 2nd lasted 4 months and the 3rd also scratched up games, it ate my Dead Rising.
4th seems to be doing well.
After my elite overheated and got a rrod i sold it. I could tell that was just more headaches waiting to happen. I can take that kind of stuff with gaming computers. But not with a console. Ive never had a problem with sony so im happy now with a PS3.
My friend brought over his premium xbox to 1 v 1 me in gears it wasnt even online. And the thing was lagging like hell. Not very enjoyable. 360 may have some games that i wanna play but its not worth the headache. Im not gonna keep shipping my system to get it in a refurb box. I dont even understand why people defend a system like this. When there on there 2nd or 3rd system. Do you actually think thats normal?
I play xbox 360 around 2 hours per week and the rest of the household generally plays around 10 hours per week, certainly not outside of the realm of "normality".
We've had a hard drive break, a power brick break, 2 controllers develop problems, DVD read-errors, corrupted hard drives, corrupted game saves, 1 red ring, 3 red ring, and had to reinstall our live arcade games 7 times as well.
I've also had an xbox 360 elite go wonky on me as well, it began freezing randomly. Rather than keep that sucker, I returned it immediately before my 30 day in-store return policy went up. I have however had another 360 elite that has worked absolutely flawless since I got it. Call me crazy, but 1 out of 9 is a fucking joke.