Why would anyone buy a 360?!

Theboinkmaster

I just don't understand it. It is without doubt the best console available in terms of games, graphics, controller etc - but it's too unreliable.

I got one last xmas, 1st day it scratched my fear disk (didn't move the console of course) and had awful hassle getting an exchange in HMV.

Then playing GoW a few weeks later kept getting the red ring thing in the middle of a game. I did some research here and discovered
the level of problems so just said "fook that, not worth the hassle" - demanded a replacement and sold it in buy and sell.

Having reading the posts here I cannot believe the level of problems people are having with the consol (as apposed to the xbox or the wii)
and I can't believe people still put up with this and buy the consol?!

Myself and a mate both want 360s (for the games, hi def gaming etc) but both decided against getting one until MS have fixed
the design problems - it's just not worth the hassle.

Was even in dunnes last week first thing and could have bought 2 of them - but didn't bother as it's not about the money I
just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of having to return the console or games or getting it repaired.

It's just no good enough - if people like me refused to by the 360 MS would be forced to change the design but because people still
buy it they're just leaving it as is - changing the warrenty period isn't really any good

I'd rather pay €600 for a 360 with no issues than €400 for one which may go bust at any given time...

Sorry about the rant - I just don't understand why people put up with this

Kinetic^

Theboinkmaster wrote:

Sorry about the rant - I just don't understand why people put up with this

I haven't had a problem with either of the 360s I've had.

Kur4mA

I've still got my launch 360 and haven't had any problems with it.

Nice rant there but MS have already put the wheels in motion to change the current 90nm architecture CPU of the 360 to a 65nm which will according to all reports stop these overheating issues from happening. More HERE.

Antamojo

Does anyone know if the Elite is more reliable or more or less the same?

Theboinkmaster

kyub wrote:

I've still got my launch 360 and haven't had any problems with it.

Nice rant there but MS have already put the wheels in motion to change the current 90nm architecture CPU of the 360 to a 65nm which will according to all reports stop these overheating issues from happening. More HERE.

Thanks Kyub - if MS do change things I'll def re-buy one

PeakOutput

fan boys will always be fan boys.

most of the problems should be sorted so in getting one next week

lee_baby_simms

Theboinkmaster wrote:

Thanks Kyub - if MS do change things I'll def re-buy one

Cool, fingers crossed you will. Keep us all updated.

mickoneill30

Theboinkmaster wrote:

I just don't understand it. It is without doubt the best console available in terms of games, graphics, controller etc

Yep.

Theboinkmaster wrote:

- but it's too unreliable.

Not for me (yet). I've had mine about 8 months and have had zero issues. I'm not too worried anyway. If it breaks it has a 3 year warranty now. So hopefully in about 2 years and 3 months it'll break and I'll get a nice new model.

To be honest when you buy something and it works as it should. Who do you tell? Nobody.
If it breaks and gives you trouble who do you tell? Everybody who'll listen.

FranchisePlayer

Yeah i understand the op's annoyance with MS about the faliure rate of their consoles am on my 3rd xbox now and (touch wood) this one want **** up asweel but have had for nearly 6 months now so all is going good:D .

thebman

Theboinkmaster wrote:

I just don't understand it. It is without doubt the best console available in terms of games, graphics, controller etc - but it's too unreliable.

The bolded part is why.

The rest is a small number of users compared to the total number of 360 users in the world. It does have a 3 year warranty now at least against 3 red lights so why wouldn't someone buy a 360?

Theboinkmaster

brim4brim wrote:

The bolded part is why.

The rest is a small number of users compared to the total number of 360 users in the world. It does have a 3 year warranty now at least against 3 red lights so why wouldn't someone buy a 360?

I guess the small number of users doesn't wash with me - based on:

a - my own experience
b - the complaints on this board and other forums (compared to nintendo DS, original xbox etc both of which ive owned)
c - failure rate of 33% per xbox (not sure this is true though, seems very high?)

The 3 year warranty is irrelevant to me - I want a console which will not freeze in the middle of games for no reason nor scatch my disks for no reason - having to send the console back to MS would be too annoying I'd prefer just to re-buy the damn thing.

I've owned a nes, snes, n64, xbox, ds, playstation and ps2 and not once when I was buying any of them did i think "i hope this doesn't fail me and ive to send back to the manufacturer for repair" and I never had any problems with any of them. Come to mention it ive never really had any problems with my car, tv, stereo etc. I buy premium brands (ie VW car, Sony TV etc) and all I expect from them is to work as described and to pay €400 for a console and for it to have a good chance of failing in the first few weeks just isn't good enough.

For me to buy one again I'd want microsoft to issue a statement saying they've amended the design of the console and any manufactured after xx/xx/xx are certainly not to fail (although I realise any electrical product is going to have some failure rate, I could handle say 5% but not 30%...)

Limerick Dude

Theboinkmaster wrote:

I just don't understand it. It is without doubt the best console available in terms of games, graphics, controller etc - but it's too unreliable.

I got one last xmas, 1st day it scratched my fear disk (didn't move the console of course) and had awful hassle getting an exchange in HMV.

Then playing GoW a few weeks later kept getting the red ring thing in the middle of a game. I did some research here and discovered
the level of problems so just said "fook that, not worth the hassle" - demanded a replacement and sold it in buy and sell.

Having reading the posts here I cannot believe the level of problems people are having with the consol (as apposed to the xbox or the wii)
and I can't believe people still put up with this and buy the consol?!

Myself and a mate both want 360s (for the games, hi def gaming etc) but both decided against getting one until MS have fixed
the design problems - it's just not worth the hassle.

Was even in dunnes last week first thing and could have bought 2 of them - but didn't bother as it's not about the money I
just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of having to return the console or games or getting it repaired.

It's just no good enough - if people like me refused to by the 360 MS would be forced to change the design but because people still
buy it they're just leaving it as is - changing the warrenty period isn't really any good

I'd rather pay €600 for a 360 with no issues than €400 for one which may go bust at any given time...

Sorry about the rant - I just don't understand why people put up with this

I havent had one problem with my 360, and i got mine one month after launch

Dades

My 360 functions as good as the day I bought it.

And I bought it last Monday.

Sad Professor

I have my 360 about a month now. I bought it with full knowledge of the rumoured failure rate and the horror stories others have experienced. Tbh while I'd be much happier if MS had designed the bloody thing properly to begin with, I'm not too worried about it failing on me. It's covered for 3 years if it does. Yes it's a hassle sending it back and everything but I'll jump off that bridge if/when I come to it.

Right now if you want a games console with a great selection of quality titles available and more on the horizon the 360 is your best choice imo.

Anyway afaik the new heat-sink MS are installing in failed xboxes fixes much of the reliability issues. I can't see them spending over a billion dollars on an extended warranty if they don't know how to prevent these issue from reoccurring. But then it's Microsoft so...

Mikeyt086

Had one since the day before launch and no problems here!

v10

I bought one at launch and it's never given me trouble .. although I haven't turned it on since I got my PS3.

CuLT

Mine died a couple of months ago and I haven't been bothered getting it replaced yet, but will have to get my arse in gear in time for Mass Effect.

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

CuLT wrote:

Mine died a couple of months ago and I haven't been bothered getting it replaced yet, but will have to get my arse in gear in time for Mass Effect.

Have mine since about May last year, and it has only given me problems last week, it froze a couple of times, then I got the 3 red lights, it's now in Germany for repair, thought I would get it fixed sooner rather than later with all of the good games coming out later in the year!!! And I hope to have no further problems with the console!!!

wayne040576

brim4brim wrote:

The rest is a small number of users compared to the total number of 360 users in the world. It does have a 3 year warranty now at least against 3 red lights so why wouldn't someone buy a 360?

It's estimated at about 33%. That's quite high. Even higher than the Playstation laser problem a few years back and that resulted in a class action lawsuit against Sony. I'm surprised there hasn't been any mention of such a lawsuit in the US against MS.

Stephen!

I heard the European Commission were looking into systems that scratched disks, no???

McDermotX

3 of us bought launch systems at the same time..
2 of us have had the console die (1 is even on his third system now - the other binned his system and sold off his games etc)

I'll leave it to you to work out the failure rate ....

Just because my launch system hasn't died I'm not going to keep my head in the sand and proclaim there is no issue (I'll leave that to MS up until last week!)
Bottom line is, game availability aside, it is a flawed platform..

People usually state that the failure rate only appears artificially high due to the fact that people only post about issues with their machine, not when their machine is working fine..
You can counter that with the fact that do people really believe that everyone who has a problem frequents forums posting their experiences. I don't think so. Think of the amount of people who bought consoles and aren't normally internet savvy or posting left, right and center, but rather returning consoles to shops and MS..
I would guess a failure rate of +30% is more than achievable and given the amount of 360s shipped......that is a shocking level of QC problems (anything above 5% in the CE industry is unacceptable)

There are many extremely valid reasons for buying a 360 from a gaming and entertainment perspective, but I can fully understand people have second thoughts from a hardware support point of view. As I've stated in other threads, whenever someone asks my opinion, I advise them not to buy a 360 right now, but rather wait for a hardware revision or, at least make them fully aware of potential problems if their heart is set on buying right now..

madser77

I bought my xbox a month after launch and have had 0 problems (other than my jumpy nephew kicking it over & banjaxing need for speed carbon:( ). The only downside is the feckin racket it makes ... the sound of a blender going off in the background doesn't really help when I'm down some hole muggin Goblins in Oblivion

PeakOutput

as long as you get a no quibble replacement its a non issue tbh

mcgovern

Why would anyone buy a FIAT?

corblimey

FuzzyWuzzyWazza wrote:

Have mine since about May last year, and it has only given me problems last week, it froze a couple of times, then I got the 3 red lights, it's now in Germany for repair, thought I would get it fixed sooner rather than later with all of the good games coming out later in the year!!! And I hope to have no further problems with the console!!!

I'm in the same boat, and I got so lonely without mine (for what 20 working days :eek: ) I just bought a second hand core that I'll pass onto my nephew when I get mine back. Having it break was no disincentive to buying another one.

Awesome username by the way, love that movie! </offtopic>

Also, to the op who is worried about the large number of threads here and elsewhere about failing 360's, I would say that people will only post when something goes wrong, a thread about how their 360 continues to work would be quite dull (as evidenced by this very thread )

thebman

wayne040576 wrote:

It's estimated at about 33%. That's quite high. Even higher than the Playstation laser problem a few years back and that resulted in a class action lawsuit against Sony. I'm surprised there hasn't been any mention of such a lawsuit in the US against MS.

Its because they admitted the problem unlike Sony.

McDermotX wrote:

People usually state that the failure rate only appears artificially high due to the fact that people only post about issues with their machine, not when their machine is working fine..
You can counter that with the fact that do people really believe that everyone who has a problem frequents forums posting their experiences. I don't think so. Think of the amount of people who bought consoles and aren't normally internet savvy or posting left, right and center, but rather returning consoles to shops and MS..
I would guess a failure rate of +30% is more than achievable and given the amount of 360s shipped......that is a shocking level of QC problems (anything above 5% in the CE industry is unacceptable)

I think most 360 users do go online and frequent forums. The 360 is an online system and puts strong emphasis on community and friends etc.. It is also a high tech product so most its users are comfortable with online.

I'd have to say that it would be a small minority of 360 users that don't post online somewhere on the Internet, be it Bebo, boards.ie or xbox forums.

skywalker

100% agree with the op. I have enough hmv vouchers sitting at home to have a free one any time I fancy. Ive no interest in one for exactly the reasons the op stated.

The only thing Id add is the noise issue, for me it is almost as annoying.

WellyJ

Had mine since launch,

Play it all the time, no issues whatsoever,

Love it.

My wii and ps3 collect dust while my x360 gets played constantly

wayne040576

brim4brim wrote:

Its because they admitted the problem unlike Sony.

They only admitted it two weeks ago. Up to then they had been denying there was a big problem. I think the reason they issued this extended warranty was an attempt to avoid such a lawsuit.

tman

Had it for a couple of months now and have had no issues at all, apart from the dirty disc errors (which seem to have been remedied by just setting the xbox to boot to the dashboard instead of from disc)

There are some fantastic games out there, and I believe it's totally worth the risk. If the worst comes to the worst I'll just send it off to be repaired and catch up with my backlog of DS, PC and PS2 games in the meantime (wish I could say Wii games as well:p)

Scram

i was doing some research into the ring of death problem and it does seem a big issue. I found an article about 1 guy in america that had 11 Failures on 11 360's!
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603

Something is not right with the 360, Id like to know what is causing these problems?

1)Over heating
2)a Design flaw in the 360 design
3)bad components
4)just random failure

Youtube BBC Watchdog video:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=56-gQq62Hyc

Ive seen they upped the warranty to 3 years now which is good.

Now im a PC gamer i hate consoles but im very tempted by the 360 with the price and games lineup and GTA4 and Halo 3 it seems very very good but this whole "Red ring of death" thing has put me off one for a while at least though i think GTA4 will be too much to resist.

McDermotX

brim4brim wrote:

I think most 360 users do go online and frequent forums. The 360 is an online system and puts strong emphasis on community and friends etc.. It is also a high tech product so most its users are comfortable with online.

I'd have to say that it would be a small minority of 360 users that don't post online somewhere on the Internet, be it Bebo, boards.ie or xbox forums.

Will have to agree to disagree with you on that one Brim..
you need to step back and appreciate the fact that the 360 has shipped +10m......I believe the vast majority of these people do not frequent your typical forums complaining of faults..
Not all 360 owners are like you and me.....some are children, some are fathers buying for kids, some are casual gamers rather than hardcore gaming types etc etc etc..
These sort outweigh your general forum posters and think nothing of bringing a system back to stores or MS under warranty without posting each and every problem........i.e. their machine won't turn on one day, 3 red lights, disc scratching.........Daddy brings it back to the shop etc etc..

We can all see the problems regarding the 360 hardware every day, there is no reason to suggest that other demographics aren't seeing the same issues..

The most damning evidence is the whole support system (which multiple people on here have experienced)......long delays, faulty consoles shipped back, MS excuses, various independant repair specialists dropping 360 services, EA leaks about failure rates...
30-33% is more than likely right on the nose despite MS's previous claim of 3-5% (which comes with a free brick for everyone to swallow!)....which is why MS's 360 division is currently in damage control..

Good games, Good (if overpriced) network functionality........but current hardware design is inherently flawed..
Its something that everyone should be aware of before purchase..
I'm not saying that everyone should avoid buying a 360, as its their own money and if their happy jumping through hoops should their system fail, then so be it......just not this close to a serious process change IMO..