IGN: Another Xbox 360 bites the dust.

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"Nerve-Damage"

Regular
IGN Editor: Another Xbox 360 bites the dust.

Countdown to Destruction

Well, I walked into EB today and had my broken Xbox 360 replaced. I'm on number five now and I have every reason to believe that this baby won't be lasting too long. Bearing that in mind, would anybody like to make some bets as to how she'll last? The person who comes the closest will earn themselves a free Wii game of their choice. Let the games begin.

On a side note, the fact that nearly every Xbox 360 is doomed to break at some point in time has taught me to appreciate the system while it is working. Tonight, as a finish up an hour or more of Lost Planet (if I can get that much out of this unit), I expect to take a deep breath and thank the heavens above for the glorious bounty of functioning hardware. Unlike Wii and PS3, which keep on going, you just never know with Microsoft's system. So my advice to everyone is to enjoy your blessed time with the console and never say anything hateful to it for every play session could be your last.
Click to expand...

I must be lucky!! :cool:

So far...:|

What the heck is going on with all these failed systems??
 
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"Nerve-Damage" said:
Countdown to Destruction



I must be lucky!! :cool:

So far...:|

What the heck is going on with all these failed systems??
Click to expand...

I can't understand how some people manage it. I rarely hear of anyone with one system failure, it's either none (in my case - touch wood) or they've had 5 or something, and when it gets to that point you've got to start thinking there is more to this than simple bad luck. I really don't believe it's a fault with the console in general, it's either the way these people are using it, or it's that MS is sending out refurbed xboxs without fixing them properly or something, and they're failing again
 
Microsoft apparently has a habit of swapping returned Xbox 360s with refurbished Xbox 360s, which likely were returned due to hardware failures. So if your Xbox 360 never broke, you're golden. If it did, you may be in for a long ride of dead consoles.
 
nonamer said:
Microsoft apparently has a habit of swapping returned Xbox 360s with refurbished Xbox 360s, which likely were returned due to hardware failures. So if your Xbox 360 never broke, you're golden. If it did, you may be in for a long ride of dead consoles.
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They hooked me up with a brand new one.
 
nonamer said:
Microsoft apparently has a habit of swapping returned Xbox 360s with refurbished Xbox 360s, which likely were returned due to hardware failures. So if your Xbox 360 never broke, you're golden. If it did, you may be in for a long ride of dead consoles.
Click to expand...

This is, unfortunately, true. When my launch unit died on Thanksgiving, I sent it in, and was sent a refurb unit that was defective right out of the box. The second was another refurb, manufactured in 2005 (as opposed to early 06 like the defective replacement), but is actually still wo.... I mean, who knows about that one. :p

Edit: Also, I have to agree that 5 is indeed crazy. Defective launch unit? Okay. Defective refurb once, maaaayyyybeee twice? OK. After that, it's hard to believe anyone is actually having such bad luck.
 
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Yeah I don't get people going through crazy numbers like 5 either.

Mine hasn't worked perfectly, but it has worked since launch.
 
Ouch! I guess it comes down to two things, either Matt has not been taking care of his system properly or he is getting shafted by Microsoft when he returns his console receiving refurbished systems rather than new ones. I hope he can eventually sort out the problems, as going through five Xbox 360's, or any console for that matter is unacceptable.
 
"Nerve-Damage" said:
What the heck is going on with all these failed systems??
Click to expand...

They should put an odo on them.
My theory is they are breaking with use, it is likely an editor at IGN uses his a lot more than an average owner - having to review games and so on.

So they just wear out.

I bet gears caused a huge jump in returns.
 
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My theory is that they are very susceptible to power fluctuations...
I run mine on a decent spike guard, and it has been fine.

For example how on earth does the nyko intercooler practically destroy 360s if it's just a bunch of fans...?

I guess unfortunately for microsoft, one bad batch has given the system a (possibly undeserved) reputation as an unreliable system. So whenever someone has a machine fall over, it's not just bad luck, it's microsofts fault. A 10% failure rate for badly treated machines would still see a lot of users have 5 machines in a row die in a 10 million userbase.
Whenever I read of PS3s or Wiis dying, it's simply taken as being natural that high tech sometimes fails.. Yet for the 360 it's microsofts fault, and people have this odd desire to shout from the rooftops about it.
 
My 360 is over 14 months old now. Still works just fine apart from the disc tray which sticks every once in a blue moion.

If anything MS should have put in better quality drive mechanisms. Other than that the machine seems quite sturdy to me. Build quality is excellent.

Peace.
 
Graham said:
A 10% failure rate for badly treated machines would still see a lot of users have 5 machines in a row die in a 10 million userbase.
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So, an IGN editor "badly treats" his machines? all five of them?

I have a much simpler explanation for you. They are going wrong much more often and earlier than microsoft expected, and it is a difficult to solve problem. At least the early PS2s lasted a year before getting laser problems.

One thing for sure: for some odd reason the chattering classes online are giving MS a free pass on this, (and backward compatibilty). The same free pass is not available to sony, which have to do better on reliability than PS2, and have perfect backward compatibility, even to get a "C-" report card (smoothing PSone and PS2 graphics would get them a B-. Solving the middle east crisis would get them a B).
 
10% failure rate for "badly-treated" machines, eh? Well, let's assume one in every 5 X360 owners "treats his machine badly." Most users I know just keep them in a nice, open area, so that seems fair.

So 2 million badly-treated X360s. So supposing 10% fail, that means 200,000 people get a broken X360 because of "bad treatment." And after replacement, 10% of those failing means 20,000 people go through 2 360s. And 2000 people go through 3. And 200 people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD go through four. If Matt's 5th console breaks, then by your guess, he's one of 20 people on the globe! Amazing!

Even if we assume half of the people treat their machines badly, Matt's still 1 in 500.

Also, a lot of people don't seem to understand that even if 30% of X360s fail, that means that 70% don't fail, and you're still more likely to get a good machine than not.
 
Crayon said:
What exactly breaks on the console? Is it the drive?
Click to expand...

that would be my guess. Usually issues with the actual lense and the distance of the disc. If it gets thrown off by even 1mm it wont be able to read discs too well if at all. My Xbox does it, i want to throw it away but i'm too cheap to replace it since i dont game on it nearly enough.

They're all so damn cheap, i doubt they are even rated for thousands of hours of continual use before failure like they should be.
 
I'm on number #4. They all sat horizontally. It sits atop a glass table top with nothing around it. The power brick sits below with nothing close. 1 I took back the night I bought it, the box was open and the net grapevine on failures made me nervous. The 2nd failed after 4 months, DVD drive, it is sitting here boxed and ready to return but UPS says I have to pay 10$ for pickup = wait till I go to Columbia to hand it in to a UPS store. The 3rd I took back because it was a repackaged store demo unti that scratched my discs. The 4th is currently working and quite enjoyable to play. It gets hours of use daily between 4 people. I've never experienced a machine that locks up so often though. Even said to a friend staying over, after an Oblivion load lock-up followed by a lock up on reboot, that I love this thing... when it works.
 
I think this is a case of there has to be some kind of tradeoff for launching earlier. I'm quite convinced the system was not adequately tested.
 
I'm at my 3rd one already. Bought at Euro launch, unit was broken out of the box (froze after between 15 and 30 minutes of use). Second one worked perfectly until it started freezing with Gears of War, and became completely unstable with Viva Pinata. Third one seems to be doing well...
 
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