The Internet was Right: Microsoft admits X360 flaws

Magic 8 Ball says .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Not a chance in hell.

:???: would your magic 8 ball say why (knowing that they are the end all be all for reasoning)....
 
:???: would your magic 8 ball say why (knowing that they are the end all be all for reasoning)....

No, seriously, I shook a magic 8 ball.

However, what you're asking would go along the lines of this:

When you bought your 2 year warranty it didn't mean you had 2 years and a month (the original warranty for 30 days added to the 2 year) you had 2 years with a month overlapping. All that happened now is your original warranty was nicely extended to 1 year. Now you have 2 years with a year overlapping.
 
Here is my stab at it: Maybe the "recently" is that as Summer has passed the rate of defective units has not slowed--and maybe even increased, especially in the lots of units sold/manufactured in 2005? The 3-5% could have been "out of the box" defective rate, but the continued breakdown and malfunction of units 6 months (and counting) later defects have appeared that are more significant of a trend. Thus the new extended warranty for 2005 units and noting that recently the defect rate of units has increased instead of leveling out.

I don't have any further information than anyone else, but based on the memory shortages it could very well be that Samsung/et al were verifying memory with razor sharp margins of error, MS used it, and long term more units than expected have broken down than expected.

All conjecture of course, but I think more likely than some of the theories (especially those with more sinister intent... not that you are suggesting such). This is one of those delicate situations, and with 2M units in 2005 and a 5% initial defact rate that is 100k bad units right off the bat. Obviously MS has already had to fend of some crazy theories like 50% defect rate, so how do you approach the issue without lending creedance to the loons? MS made the right step by extending the warranty--on the negative they waited waaaaaaaaay to long. 1yr warranty should be STANDARD anyhow :devilish:

I agree with this theory as it makes the moost sense based on facts (700 mhz memory was scarce for launch consoles)
 
Maybe an example would help. On day one 500k systems launch. By January, 1.4 million have shipped. 50k consoles roll through for repair. Guess what, that's less than 5%.

I'm pretty sure that's how it went.

But I also think they at least had a clue things we're not going smooth pretty soon (Q1). I wouldn't be surprised if the timing of this announcement was planned months ago...
 
Something else I would like to add/ask. Has anyone else here gotten the extended warranty? I payed for it like months ago and they just recently sent me the actual certificate. I was wanting to know if this is normal.

I ask also because it would seem like they know who has a launch system and it doesn't seem like it would have been hard to send some paperwork to us (that have registered) stating an extention of warranty to a year. And, for those of us who got the extended warranty, and extension of it as well.
 
When did they do this? Have we considered the possibility that these things are dying in a group as well, post that statement? That would not be unusual in the least. We had a group of 100+ PCs once that ran fine for 2 years. . . and then over a course of two months, about 1/3 of them blew their PSU's in most spectacular fashion. . .
That's actually a good point I hadn't considered with the reported defect rate (and shame on me for not reading Acert's post before my post!). It's a definite posibility at launch they were unaware that launch units would be breaking down, and the 5% fault rate was just the normal consumer goods production fault for reasons other than those that cause future faults.
 
[maven];838825 said:
My 2nd 360 is dying, locking up with sights such as this or this... :(

Wow, that's sad. Did you get a new one or did they just repair your old one? If it's the first, that's really bad.
 
Wow, that's sad. Did you get a new one or did they just repair your old one? If it's the first, that's really bad.

Well, the 360 that the service centre returned in July was a different serial, and looked new (stickers on DVD tray / IR), but had a manufacturing date of October 2005...
 
even if this is not really a technical support forum, since you took them photos,
maybe if you could upload some pics of your setup environment, we could see something that might prevent you third one from going baked.
 
even if this is not really a technical support forum, since you took them photos,
maybe if you could upload some pics of your setup environment, we could see something that might prevent you third one from going baked.

It's the box, not the environment. Plenty of space in all directions (lying down horizontally) (picture). The sides are open and there's 20cm space in the back as well.
 
yeap. its not the 360 heating for sure. but
the only thing I dont approve is the relaltive position of your speakers around and close to the box.
especially the center speaker seems very close to 360&hdd. are these speakers powerfull?
oh, and where is that brick of a power supply unit? down there, on the carpet?
if you would put it on the window ledge like that other device, that would be great.

so if your 360 isnt completely baked yet, maybe you want to try these two things and see that it helps ;)
btw, I'd sure love to get a hori doa joystick like the one you have! any ideas where can I order one from?
 
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My launch day 360 is still running fine. No lockups, no hiccups, nothing at all. It gets used quite a lot and I've even started a download, started watching some TV then turned the TV off and went about my day until later coming back to watch some more TV and seeing my 360 is still on. Doesn't get hot (gets warm but not hot) and I've had no problems/issues with any games/demos/XBLA or anything.

My friend who bought his on launch day.....his is still running fine too.

Definitely not saying there aren't problems out there.......but just throwing in my experiences...

Tom Crews
 
yeap. its not the 360 heating for sure.
the only thing I dont approve is the relaltive position of your speakers around and close to the box.
especially the center speaker seems very close to 360&hdd. are these speakers powerfull?
and where is that brick of a power supply unit? down there, on the carpet?
if you would put it on the window ledge like that other device, that would be great.
btw, I'd sure love to get a hori doa joystick like the one you have! any ideas where can I order one from?

The speakers are magnetically shielded and not terribly powerful. The power brick is on lying flat on a linoleum floor, no carpet in sight. If the 360 needs as much hand-holding as you seem to suggest, then its (technical) design is a terrible failure IMO.
The device on my window ledge is my server... ;)
I've got the DoA stick from Lik Sang, where it currently is "temporarily not available."
 
[maven];838909 said:
The speakers are magnetically shielded and not terribly powerful. The power brick is on lying flat on a linoleum floor, no carpet in sight. If the 360 needs as much hand-holding as you seem to suggest, then its (technical) design is a terrible failure IMO.
The device on my window ledge is my server... ;)
I've got the DoA stick from Lik Sang, where it currently is "temporarily not available."

I am not telling you that 360 needs "hand-holding".
I am telling you what I would do if I had two 360s baked in that same spot.
I'd want to be 100% sure that I aint doing something wrong.
 
Someone I helped with their PC got an XBOX360 for their kid and the next day they are on the phone to me, the XBOX is about to blow up! It's getting too hot!

Went round and there was no user error, the XBOX360 was wroking fine but was getting very hot and I told them return it to the store they got it from or accept the fact that these units get very hot and dont worry about it.. it has a 12 month warranty.

Still I dont believe the return rate is isolated to one group, I believe MS has a problem with several groups of XBOX360's otherwise people would not be on their 3rd console already.
 
Someone I helped with their PC got an XBOX360 for their kid and the next day they are on the phone to me, the XBOX is about to blow up! It's getting too hot!

Went round and there was no user error, the XBOX360 was wroking fine but was getting very hot and I told them return it to the store they got it from or accept the fact that these units get very hot and dont worry about it.. it has a 12 month warranty.

Still I dont believe the return rate is isolated to one group, I believe MS has a problem with several groups of XBOX360's otherwise people would not be on their 3rd console already.

How how is "very hot"? Also, how can you conclude that MS has problems with several batches because some people are on their 3rd console? Maybe, just maybe (actually most likely), people are getting referb units which still have another problem or some people can't take care of their electronics. I know people on their 3rd xbox or PS2, it doesn't mean that MS or Sony have "..problem(s) with several groups..". It just means that they went through that many consoles. Without a wider picture (and facts), you can't prove that.
 
Actually almost all of the consoles that were returned were refurbs from pre 2006. The batch that has a problem is obviously just downright defective. Anything after 2005 will work perfectly fine. This still doesn't mean MS was absolutely lying when saying the system has a 3-5% defect rate. Considering when they were making the statement they were comparing numbers shipped to date vs. consoles returned to date. They have no way of predicting when a defective console will fail and return.
 
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