Supposed MS insider discusses RRoD errors, Falcon at 10% failure rate?

[sevanig]

Yer how exactly do/did they test the falcon 360's to get that 10% figure?
Hell, how did they get the 30% figure???
Maybe all of the units still haven't reached critical mass

 

[Rangers]

The 10% may well be. In most other markets a high failure rate would mean consumers wouldn't buy the product, and would tell their friends not to buy the product. Why does the opposite happen in games consoles?

Because 360 is like digital crack, basically.

Seriously, I've known many RROD people who buy a core pack just to tide themselves over the 2-3 weeks their system is out on repair. Believe me I considered it myself.

 

[Silent]

I was always lucky then

My machine broke 3 times and I had it always back in the same week. They picked it up on monday and on thursday they delivered a refurbished machine

 

[scooby_dooby]

Yer how exactly do/did they test the falcon 360's to get that 10% figure?
Hell, how did they get the 30% figure???
Maybe all of the units still haven't reached critical mass

Well he says that in the article. Both the 10% and 30% numbers could still go up.

 

[Asher]

The "source" has responded. Amazingly, it's made me even more skeptical:

http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archive...box_360_red_ring_of_death_source_responds.php

Hi everyone. I understand the questions you all have. I hope you understand that it's a bit overwhelming to try and answer everything in real time. After tonight, I'm going to ask Jake (or Jacob?) to field your questions and funnel them to me for answers. Then we can do that in an organized way. But for now, I'm going to try and answer some that I thought were most important.

First, why the secrecy?

MS knows who I am. That's why I'm not concerned about self identifying to them in these postings with details only they would know, as some here have pointed out. The people who founded Xbox hw number 10. 1 left to go be the VP of manufacturing at Qualcomm, 1 left to go be the GM of engineering at Zune, 1 left after only 2 months in ‘99 due to conflicts with toddhol. He works on Surface now. The rest still work on Xbox. I am the only one who left the company entirely.

I am not concerned about MS knowing who I am. They are worried about me revealing their problems. Not the other way around. Plus, I have contacted every single attorney who has filed a lawsuit against MS and offered to help. Some have accepted, and that work is in progress. We'll talk about that in another post. It's very interesting, I just don't want a bunch of fan boys trying to hack my home PC (that I use for work). Harass my kids, call my house, etc.

Second, why now?

Well, it's not just now. I've been reaching out since before the product went into manufacturing. I left before launch. But many employees continued to contact me about the problems with the product and its launch. I did my best to help them figure out how to mitigate the problems caused my bad management decisions, and test the boxes right. Sometimes my ideas worked, sometimes they didn't. I then started to contact reporters. Sometimes it went no where. Sometimes, it resulted in a spectacular thing, like the ambush interview with toddhol just before MS admitted guilt. But still, it happened too slowly for me. That's one reason I'm doing this now.

When those articles were posted last July, I chimed in as a commentator. That's when Jake invited me for an interview. But I didn't see it then. It was only recently when I goog'ed "xboxfounder" on a whim that I found that old invite. So I contacted him to see if he was still interested. I sent him a current resume from my current work email account, and he believed me. If you guys don't, then tell me what you need to see as proof. And I will provide that.

Last: My motivation.

I have always been in a position to stand up for the customer. MS stopped me from doing that. They need to pay the price now. If you guys won't get together and make that happen, you have no hope for the future with them. It's not my fight, but I am here fighting. You decide what you want to do. And then do it!

 

[Crayon]

It's amazing.

I mean.... besides the fact that the gaming media has been grilling Sony over and over again about most every minor descision while more or less ignoring the RRoD problem....

When the product you paid for actually breaks in your home, only to be replaced by a unit that does it again, and yet you are happy about it....

In my opinion it's stupidity.

There was a cool Palm-based niche device called a Zodiac a few years ago. I was really into it and wanted to see it succeed. When my Zodiac unit started having symptoms of a crucial flaw in the joystick, I sent it back for a replacement. When it happened to the second one, I declined another replacement and asked for my money back. Because I'm not stupid.

 

[Asher]

Who are you talking about? Your post is apparently directed at a figment of your imagination, as no one here is "happy" about it or has said anything like that. And to say the media ignored the problem is pretty amazing, there was tons of coverage of it -- from the mainstream media to the gaming press to bloggers to tons of forum threads on it. To say the media is ignoring it and instead judging the PS3 is just pure victimization complex.

Say what you want about the Xbox 360's reliability -- and yes, it has major problems there (if you want to do some research, you'll see I've been very vocal on this site about my issues with MS and my 360's reliability). But it's old news. What isn't old news is December NPD, and when people talk about December NPD and see Sony's poor sales, they talk about that.

I'm not sure why you perceive bias in the media, but to say Microsoft gets a free pass in the media is amazing. I'm sure you've never seen any kind of coverage of MS security problems in the press either, right?

 

[Crayon]

When a product is having critical failures at an astonishing rate yet users are still buying, re-buying and using it....

Well pardon my choice of words. But I would be "unhappy" and stop using the product. Alot of people seem "happy" and continue to use the product.

Sorry if that still sounds too harsh, but how much am I supposed to sugarcoat it?

About the supposed media bias, tho. I didn't mean to imply a conspiracy of any sort. The gaming press was just to busy jumping on the bandwagon. At the time, the RRoD story was not as interesting as the PS3 drama. The press is just after hits. It's been harsh to MS before and I'm sure will again in the future. It's just amazing that the failures never were considered tha newsworthy.

 

[Asher]

People buy game consoles for the games, not perceived reliability. Given the 3-year warranty on the 360, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

I'm on my 6th Xbox 360. All replaced without cost under warranty. But I still don't regret buying it, because I've gotten a TON out of enjoyment out of it. In the end, that's what it's about.

MS needs to get their ass in gear and fix it, but I think Falcon's are pretty reliable. My new Falcon doesn't have any issues, at least. Nor do others I know of. I'm not convinced there's widespread problems with Falcons.

 

[PARANOiA]

When a product is having critical failures at an astonishing rate yet users are still buying, re-buying and using it....

Well pardon my choice of words. But I would be "unhappy" and stop using the product. Alot of people seem "happy" and continue to use the product.

*shrug* you're of course free to have your own opinion, but this is hardly limited to the 360. I went through three PS1's and kept buying them because... they had the best games. I love gaming, I want good games, and I imagine that's the rationale for many gamers out there too.

Hell, look at the terrible quality of the first (few) generation(s) of Ipods. Pretty much all batteries died within a year, and people kept going back for new Ipods. Were they stupid not to switch to the Sony Atrac players or the Creative line? In your opininon, maybe, but hey, if a consumer likes a product they'll weigh up the goods (overall enjoyment for cash spent) compared to the bads (low build quality, likely need to re-invest). At least MS does it for free.

 

[Crayon]

People buy game consoles for the games, not perceived reliability.

Perhaps that is the long and short explanation for the situation. From where I'm standing it appears to be madness.

Then again, it's easy for me to say I'd never get to my sixth replacement unit. It's probably different when you allready have a stack of games and accessories that are useless without the box.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I mean.... besides the fact that the gaming media has been grilling Sony over and over again about most every minor descision while more or less ignoring the RRoD problem.....

It's gotten tremendous exposure actually. I remember seeing a CNN Headline News broadcast last Xmas where they mentioned it.

MS's 1billion dollar writeoff in itself generated alot of negative publicity, with some journalists like N'gai Croal calling for an outright recall. But in the end, I think the fallout among consumers was a positive one.

 

[Daozang]

The fact that a faulty machine manages to sell well is strange to some of us though. Especially when the initial warranty used to be 3 months and most of the media aknowledged the problem only when MS did. (And to clarify, I'm not talking about a conspiracy either).
But it's easy to see that MS did everything they could to convince everyone that there was no problem whatsoever until they couldn't hide it anymore.

What would be the rate of failure that would be acceptable? Is it subjective? 'Cause by the looks of it, if it's not a time bomb waitting to explode and take you and a city block with it, it's easy to say that 80% is just fine. As long as you don't have to pay for anything...

 

[scooby_dooby]

What would be the rate of failure that would be acceptable? Is it subjective? 'Cause by the looks of it, if it's not a time bomb waitting to explode and take you and a city block with it, it's easy to say that 80% is just fine. As long as you don't have to pay for anything...

Depends on the product, what it's function is, where your priorities lie. Is it something you use every day, or only once a week? Is it something you need, or just a recreational device? How much value do you get from it when it is working?

In the case of the 360, it's a game device. Ya it sucks to have your console go down, but waiting 3-4weeks to get a replacement is really not that big of a risk. On one hand, you have hundreds of hours of gaming, on the other a small period of time where you won't be able to play video games.

I don't think it's hard to see why most people aren't completely up in arms about the failure rate.

Now people getting it replaced 5-6 times is just crazy. That is completely unacceptable, but I really think those cases are extremely rare (.1%).

 

[quest55720]

The fact that a faulty machine manages to sell well is strange to some of us though. Especially when the initial warranty used to be 3 months and most of the media aknowledged the problem only when MS did. (And to clarify, I'm not talking about a conspiracy either).
But it's easy to see that MS did everything they could to convince everyone that there was no problem whatsoever until they couldn't hide it anymore.

What would be the rate of failure that would be acceptable? Is it subjective? 'Cause by the looks of it, if it's not a time bomb waitting to explode and take you and a city block with it, it's easy to say that 80% is just fine. As long as you don't have to pay for anything...

NES horrible cartrige slot.
PS1 faulty drive thanks to heat near the laser assembly.
PS2 DRE

There have been plenty of consoles with failure rates that have sold. At least MS is replacing units for free. I would of loved to wait 3-4 weeks vs money out of my pocket like during the PS1 days.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

What would be the rate of failure that would be acceptable? Is it subjective? 'Cause by the looks of it, if it's not a time bomb waitting to explode and take you and a city block with it, it's easy to say that 80% is just fine. As long as you don't have to pay for anything...

If you've already got a financial investment (in the form of games) let alone the emotional investment of having chosen a "side" to support, you don't really have much choice but to live with it.

It's not like you can avoide the faulty Xbox360 made by MS and buy the one made by Toshiba or Sony instead, as would be the case with a DVD player or TV, or any one of a number of other items that you might draw parallels with.

One of the benefits of the console's closed, proprietry hardware and software is that this locked down design is supposed to mean "it just works". However, Microsoft's rush to market in order to beat the PS3 with the standard PC mantra of "ship it broken, patch it later" enshrined within the very design methodology means you have a situation where the console is "broken by design".

Microsoft's lack of experience in making robust home goods for general use (as opposed for the geek market) probably shows here. So MS have to dedicate a billion to fixing broken Xboxes because they didn't build them right in the first place, while the customer is trapped by the investment in software/games and his uwillingness to admit he was conned into buying a lemon.

MS has the deep pockets to keep spending while they keep their eyes on the long term goal of MS in the living room/media centre, but this sort of failure rate may very well affect future sales, especially where someone is choosing between the XBox360 and PS3 as a first time console, or a media centre.

 

[Heinrich4]

Here in my country pay a oficial kit US$1400 with 3 games or imported USA US$800/900,10% console fail is too high...and send broked console imported from usa for change by MS i spent something like US$200/250 cost.its a great problem.

(My ps3 60GB USA 5 months using more tham any other console before for Blu-ray movies,games,downloads,stamford etc i never see any signal of failure or reboot etc)

 

[scooby_dooby]

while the customer is trapped by the investment in software/games and his uwillingness to admit he was conned into buying a lemon.

So what a sec...you're telling me I bought a lemon because my console which I purchased in Nov 2005 (113 weeks ago) was not working for a period of 4 weeks?

The amount of gaming I've gotten out of it, literally hundreds of hours, makes the purchase price an absolute bargain of a value, compared to other forms of recreation.

 

[swaaye]

A friend of mine loaned me his 360 when he went off to China last summer. I've played it a good bit. It's a launch machine and hasn't died yet, but the DVDROM is making lovely grinding sounds. I imagine he will be wanting to get a replacement from Best Buy (replacement plan) so he can get one of the newer models when he gets back....

This interviewee seems to know what he's talking about from an engineering standpoint. Cool read.

(btw sorry for posting a link to this in the Console Tech forum. I actually forgot the base console forum existed!)

 

[AzBat]

Not sure if many follow Xbox-Scene, but they found a post on Bunnie's blog about what he thinks about this inside source and his own findings into the RROD issue. It's a very nice technical read. Be sure to check some of the comments to the blog too.

Tommy McClain


http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=223

A while back I posted that I was looking for an RROD Xbox360; I actually sent it off to MEFAS to get digested for solder joint inspection on the GPU through a process called "dye and pry". In this process, the motherboard is flooded with red ink, and then the GPU is mechanically pried off the board. The red ink flows into any of the tiny cracks in the solder balls, and at least in theory, when you pry the GPU off the cracked regions will shear first so you will be left with visible red spots at the points of failure.

left: Below is what a normal ball looks like after the test
right: One of several balls on the GPU that exhibited signs of partial failure

I was a bit puzzled by these results because you didn't see any "catastrophic" failure -- pools of red ink over a connection interface -- just partial cracking. Partial cracking isn't terribly uncommon, and many products work quite well despite such artifacts. However, after reading the [SeattlePI RRoD] article, if Microsoft shorted safety margins around many of the design parameters to get the product out on time, it makes sense that the summation of many partial failures could lead to a total system failure -- failures that have symptoms that vaguely cluster together but are difficult to point to any single root cause. Heisenbugs. Yuck.