Digital Foundry tech analysis channel at Eurogamer

[AzBat]

PC hardware has been using lead free solder joints for quite some time. However the consoles having cheap quality material, designed to be functional with minimum quality and expenses aswell as cramped space for airflow wont end well in the long run. The "low" prices comes with serious penalties. Which reminds me of when I had an Xbox and the manual said max ambient temp 30c which is low. A warm summer day the machine will be redlining the max temp barrier. And really didn't the Xbox also suffer from quite a lot of failures back then?

I remember my first Xbox (black one) died completly after about total 20 hours of use during a week in a cool environment. However I got it replaced with an Xbox Crystal and it worked for the 8 months of time I had it although with very little usage.

Must have been your unit, because the on the whole the original Xbox had very little heat issues. It's biggest issue was the poor Thomson drives where the laser lens would fail to read disks because of collection of dust. Another big issue was the recalled power cord. I think the actual problem was with the actual power cord connection, but they replaced the cords with those that have a circuit breaker included. Other than that the Xbox was a pretty tough long lasting machine. I still have my original from 2002 & it's still running like a champ.

Tommy McClain

 

[rekator]

Very interesting article, very well write, on a very "critical" subject…
And for warranty, personally I like the Norwegian way… FIVE years!!

 

[-tkf-]

I would have loved to hear a bit more in detail about the PS3 problems. We know all there is to know about the 360´s massive problems already.

The general conclusion from the article can not come as a shock, the more you use your console the bigger the risk is that it fails. For me the interesting this about this subject is how long should we expect our consoles to last.

4 hours a day for 5 years?

 

[JardeL]

I would have loved to hear a bit more in detail about the PS3 problems. We know all there is to know about the 360´s massive problems already.

both consoles are having exactly the same issues

lol , article is nothing but biased... You ever heard of Blu-Ray error on a X360 , no ?.. Me neither... You ever heard of E74 error on PS3 , no ?.. Me neither... ANA/HANA scaler chip failure on PS3 ?.. Come on...

I'm ok with comparing games , online services... But when it comes to failures/failure rates I don't think any ce product can match X360's records... Anyway , what can you expect from Eurogamer , it is biased from the very beginning...

Btw, I have a launch 60GB PAL PS3 , never had a single problem with it... I've even played FIFA09 for hours :smile:... And I assure you I use it more than 7-9 hours a day in a small & dusty room... But whoever I know that has an X360 got RROD...

Eurogamer has its anectodal evidence [ 60/40 ] so am I ...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm ok with comparing games , online services... But when it comes to failures/failure rates I don't think any ce product can match X360's records... Anyway , what can you expect from Eurogamer , it is biased from the very beginning...

Digital Foundry is mostly independent from Eurogamer. It's our own residential grandmaster reporting. Eurogamer are just offering a home for him, but they don't dictact his policy or content. The article clearly qualifies the data as the boxes present in that particular repair shop. It did not try to extrapolate those figures as relative failure rates for the world supply of consoles, and indeed made a point to outline the folly of such comparison. So I don't really see how bias can be called here.

The whole crux of the article wasn't "PS3 fails just as much as XB360" but "Consoles appear to have inherent, limited lifespans due to demanding components, which you wouldn't expect from a CE device. You'd expect a TV or DVd player to last longer than a couple of years and we should expect durability from our consoles too." Personally I agree with that sentiment, and felt the article was an intelligent read on the matter.

 

[Scott_Arm]

lol , article is nothing but biased... You ever heard of Blu-Ray error on a X360 , no ?.. Me neither... You ever heard of E74 error on PS3 , no ?.. Me neither... ANA/HANA scaler chip failure on PS3 ?.. Come on...

I'm ok with comparing games , online services... But when it comes to failures/failure rates I don't think any ce product can match X360's records... Anyway , what can you expect from Eurogamer , it is biased from the very beginning...

Btw, I have a launch 60GB PAL PS3 , never had a single problem with it... I've even played FIFA09 for hours :smile:... And I assure you I use it more than 7-9 hours a day in a small & dusty room... But whoever I know that has an X360 got RROD...

Eurogamer has its anectodal evidence [ 60/40 ] so am I ...

Did you actually read the article? He accounts for the 60/40 by saying most of the 360s would be handled through warranty service and not independent shops. So the actual ratio is much wider, but the shop sees 60/40.

And seriously, all consumer electronics fail, including the 60GB PS3. My brothers PS3 died and my XBOX360 hasn't. Anecdotal evidence is useless.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Did you actually read the article?

I'm guessing no, the only other option is that he was simply unable to understand what was said there. Imo the article perfectly explained why the 60/40 ratio couldn't be interpreted as the actual faulty rate of these consoles.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The only thing I didn't understand from the article was the 360 HDMI units being at the repair shop. Wouldn't all those units still be under warranty? Mind you, I've run into some guys on Xbox Live that did those insanely stupid RROD fixes at home, or worse paid someone else $50 to do it for them, when their unit was under warranty. I told them it was stupid and they didn't listen and they got burned on it, all because they didn't want to wait a few weeks to get their console back. Maybe my gaming addiction hasn't reached the point where I would understand that. Anyway, anecdotal, but I just though it was stupid of people to be sending warranty units to the repair shop, unless I'm wrong about the date they were released.

 

[Gradthrawn]

You'd expect a TV or DVd player to last longer than a couple of years and we should expect durability from our consoles too."

As far as I'm aware, other CE devices don't typically have their hardware cost subsidized (as there's rarely another revenue stream to make up for that). So, be careful what you wish for (could end up with extremely expensive hardware, or very "simple" hardware).

 

[obonicus]

The only thing I didn't understand from the article was the 360 HDMI units being at the repair shop. Wouldn't all those units still be under warranty? Mind you, I've run into some guys on Xbox Live that did those insanely stupid RROD fixes at home, or worse paid someone else $50 to do it for them, when their unit was under warranty. I told them it was stupid and they didn't listen and they got burned on it, all because they didn't want to wait a few weeks to get their console back. Maybe my gaming addiction hasn't reached the point where I would understand that. Anyway, anecdotal, but I just though it was stupid of people to be sending warranty units to the repair shop, unless I'm wrong about the date they were released.

'Backup-enabled' units?

 

[rekator]

'Backup-enabled' units?

For some probably, but Scott have right many gamers seem to not live without their consoles, like others don't be living without internet…

 

[holsty101]

...

Maybe they were just uninformed? It does happen, a few months ago my buddy back in the UK had problems with his < year old ( I think it was ... maybe it was a month or so over) ps3 & when we talking about it I'd assumed he's sent it back to Sony for repair but it turned out he'd done a search, which didn't get any 1st page hits about Sonys repair options & paid this 3rd party company that said they could fix it (what a joke that turned out to be ... He ended up waiting 6 weeks for them to not repair it, he got a different machine returned to him & in the end he had to threaten them with legal action before he got everything straightened out).

I know it's surprising to folks like us who follow what's going on but sometimes people, even clever online literate ones, aren't aware of the options available.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Yes it certainly does happen. I personally know 3 people who had RROD but did not know about the warranty extension. 2 of them bought new consoles and the other didnt bother and just left it sitting there for several months unused until i informed him. Needless to say they were all pretty p'd off.

This is 3 out of the 8 people i know who have experienced RROD which is quite a high percentage. Totaly anecdotal i know but i wouldnt dismiss it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I pretty much think that both MS and Sony knew roughly what their relative failure rates would be over time. Thus only offering short warranty's.

MS got caught out by all the PR flak over the RROD issue and had no choice but to extend this out to 3 years.

I think it's pretty telling that Sony is still unwilling to extend their's past 1 year despite consoles failing.

And as Scott_Arm mentioned, why are so many HDMI units in? Those would still be under the 3 year warranty.

So it's quite possible the split may be closer to 60/40 than say 80/20. Due to people either not returning them for warranty or trying a homebrew repair and thus invalidating their machine for warranty repairs.

Doesn't the X360 also have a larger install base in England which would also naturally mean more consoles in for repairs.

And damn. There goes any hope my launch 360 will fail anytime soon.

Regards,
SB

 

[obonicus]

I pretty much think that both MS and Sony knew roughly what their relative failure rates would be over time. Thus only offering short warranty's.

I'm sure MS knew their machine wasn't built to last, but I'm also sure they didn't know what the actual failure rate was going to be. They probably felt they could weather occasional bad hardware with revisions, the way PS2s with DRE didn't really impact Sony that much.

I think it's pretty telling that Sony is still unwilling to extend their's past 1 year despite consoles failing.

Telling of what? Their failure rate is much lower than MS', at least if we consider over the entire console's lifespan. If the 360 had the same failure rate as the PS3 it also would have kept its original 1-year warranty.

 

[-tkf-]

I think it's pretty telling that Sony is still unwilling to extend their's past 1 year despite consoles failing.

If Sony gets hit with the same stories as we saw on the 360 they may change their song. But so far there hasn´t been multiple stories about 10+ machines failing for one person.

So far it sounds like "expected" console failures.

 

[DrJay24]

Sony does not need to do a soft recall like MS did, that was pure PR to the save brand. It's not even a real three year warranty, years 2 & 3 are for specific failures.

With the arcade being so cheap I think most people just buy a new unit and drop the HD in, who would pay to have it repaired? I've never heard of people repairing consoles at 3rd parties, it must be a Euro thing. I wonder how many 360 owners there really are compared to WW sales?

 

[JardeL]

Digital Foundry is mostly independent from Eurogamer... they don't dictact his policy or content.

I don't think so.

The whole crux of the article wasn't "PS3 fails just as much as XB360" ... Personally I agree with that sentiment, and felt the article was an intelligent read on the matter.

both consoles are having exactly the same issues

I'm sorry this[ quote] is not an "intelligent read" for me , actually I've not read the whole article after seeing this. I do respect to everyone on this forum but it doesn't mean I have to agree with. And this part of the article makes the whole article biased, misinforming and pointless , IMO.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm sorry this[ quote] is not an "intelligent read" for me...

By "same issues" he means "same fundamental problem" and not "same scale of problem". That is, both console suffer from faults due to heat beyond their capacity to manage. The XB360 suffers more from this, but the fault is still endemic to both systems, and could be a worry going forward. This is an eye-opener given the effort of Sony's engineering. Even with the massive heatsink, this repair shop is seeing the same fault in the PS3 and the XB360.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I'm sure there'll be plenty of cries of "teh bias"

I'm sure that the 60/40 thing will be taken out of context.

actually I've not read the whole article.

And this part of the article makes the whole article biased, misinforming and pointless , IMO.

And bingo was his name... haha only one so far though, that's pretty good.