The Next Gen Brick?

[JNewt427]

I bought a PS3 for $499.00 at game stop over a year after release, the $599.00 release price was irrelevant. Needless to say It bricked with the overheating issues 54 days out of the 1 year manufacturing warranty. Calling Sony told the dead horse story of $150.00 for a refurb unit. go f*** ur self. Till this day it sits a a very very expensive paperweight.

My gaming fix needed to be full filled so I jumped to the xbox360. Very unaware and ill knowledge honestly that they also suffered from the same type of fate. The Xbox too bricked however this unit was covered under the new extended warranty, Payed $349.00 for a premium unit that went also bricked but a call to microsoft and is was replaced with a unit that is still in working condition today.

Having the said above, All of those that are a part of these forums!, you have to remember that the "average consumer" does not know what you guys know, period. What makes you think an average consumer would make the same mistake twice? Almost every aspect of the new Consoles are spoken here and in every way. Haven't seen this one yet posted? Your thoughts as far as the teething problems if you will on the new consoles.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I doubt either of the next gen consoles will have problems remotely as bad as the launch X360 or PS3. The hardware in general seems to be a bit more conservative with low power being a key point. As well, both companies have a good understanding of lead-free solder now which was the major problem for the launch units.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

My launch PS3 lasted about 5 years give or take, so your anecdotal evidence isn't worth the paper it's printed on (figuratively, of course...)

When the last gen of consoles launched, lead-less solder was a pretty new thing. Last gen was also the first time in history 200+ watts consoles existed, and may be the only time depending on how much these upcoming units pull. In any case, matters have improved considerably since then, so there should be less spontaneous bricking this time around (although greater than zero of course; no mass-produced group of devices will ever be entirely free of defects.)

 

[BRiT]

Last gen bricking issues were caused mostly by the transition to lead-free solder. I don't know of any hardware production changes of similar nature that would be used for PS4/XB720.

I suspect the only teething problems would be on a software front. Considering this is MS and Sony who are well versed in providing console services and what's required, I don't expect major software issues. I do not expect either one to have a Wii U launch bomb experience consisting of incredible slow and large firmware updates.

 

[eastmen]

I still have a 20 gig xbox 360 from launch day still doing media center streaming . Works like a charm.

 

[dagamer]

Last gen bricking issues were caused mostly by the transition to lead-free solder. I don't know of any hardware production changes of similar nature that would be used for PS4/XB720.

I suspect the only teething problems would be on a software front. Considering this is MS and Sony who are well versed in providing console services and what's required, I don't expect major software issues. I do not expect either one to have a Wii U launch bomb experience consisting of incredible slow and large firmware updates.

We're much more likely to see software hiccups as next-gen consoles will heavily lean on always-on services. Good thing about software is that it can be fixed after shipping on a console, bad thing is that it can be shipped partially implemented or outright broken.

 

[Strange]

My phat PS3 60GB from March 2007 is still working today.

 

[Arwin]

Also, many of us use their consoles way more than average. My bricked PS3 was the only device for games, blurays and dvds for a long time and heavily used for all of these. Conversely I never used my 20GB launch 360 much and it's still around.

 

[Pressure]

Both my phat PS3 (30 GB) and PS3 Slim (120GB) works without a hitch.

 

[patsu]

The Fat PS3 is pretty well built. I remember in the early days when talks about overheating were everywhere, one of the sites ran PS3 in a sauna for hours. It passed the test. I was folding 24/7 through the hot summer without a hitch.

When my PS3 die, I intend to frame the motherboard up. The original board is a work of science and art. The newer PS3s feel cheap to me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The Fat PS3 is pretty well built. I remember in the early days when talks about overheating were everywhere, one of the sites ran PS3 in a sauna for hours. It passed the test. I was folding 24/7 through the hot summer without a hitch.

Constant heat isn't an issue. The problem was supposedly hot/cold cycles fatiguing the solder points.

We have our own very scientific investigation. 39 "My PS3 just keeps working", 22 "I had a PS3 die", and 8 "I've had 2 or more die". That's 30/69 owners had a dead PS3. And when you count the 8 "two or mores" as 16 PS3s minimum, that's 38 dead PS3s, or 50%. I wasn't ever a super heavy user. And those results don't include my friends' dead PS3s either.

Not that I'm saying the failure rate is 50%. I'm just saying there's no point claiming PS3 was reliable based on one's own PS3 not dying. This thread is headed with a personal experience, and a consideration of whether there'll be a high failure rate next-gen. Which there's little reason to think there will be. There are no new techs to throw a spanner in the works. Any faults will be due to cheap, shoddy engineering.

 

[patsu]

Amongst the PS3s that failed, how many are due to the drive and how many are due to motherboard issues ?

They are different problems.
[size=-2]... and no, forum polls are not scientific enough if we really want to attribute the errors.[/size]

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Read the thread. Plenty of failed mobos temporarily fixed with the heatgun trick. PS3 wasn't beset by a monstrous optical failure rate like previous PSes.

 

[patsu]

Constant heat isn't an issue. The problem was supposedly hot/cold cycles fatiguing the solder points.

We have our own very scientific investigation. 39 "My PS3 just keeps working", 22 "I had a PS3 die", and 8 "I've had 2 or more die". That's 30/69 owners had a dead PS3. And when you count the 8 "two or mores" as 16 PS3s minimum, that's 38 dead PS3s, or 50%. I wasn't ever a super heavy user. And those results don't include my friends' dead PS3s either.

Not that I'm saying the failure rate is 50%. I'm just saying there's no point claiming PS3 was reliable based on one's own PS3 not dying. This thread is headed with a personal experience, and a consideration of whether there'll be a high failure rate next-gen. Which there's little reason to think there will be. There are no new techs to throw a spanner in the works. Any faults will be due to cheap, shoddy engineering.

The calculation is off. 30 polls said one or more of their PS3s failed. But the total should be more than 69 because some of us have more than one working PS3s. That's counting all issues polled here.

It will certainly be interesting to see what the total failures tally up to over these 10 years. I remember because of all the hoo-hahs, someone did a study about 1-2 years into the generation and the failure rate was within 2% (for PS3).

 

[Deleted member 7537]

The calculation is off. 30 polls said one or more of their PS3s failed. But the total should be more than 69 because some of us have more than one working PS3s. That's counting all issues polled here.

It will certainly be interesting to see what the total failures tally up to over these 10 years. I remember because of all the hoo-hahs, someone did a study about 1-2 years into the generation and the failure rate was within 2% (for PS3).

Wasn't around 10%?

Edit : http://www.gamespot.com/news/xbox-360-failure-rate-237-ps3-10-wii-27-study-6216691

23.7% 360
10% PS3
2.7% Wii

Edit 2: BTW, 60GB Launch PS3 still working. 360 bought in 2007, dead in 2011.

 

[Sigfried1977]

My 360 came red-ringed out of the box. Oddly enough it sprang back to live, refusing to die again for a whole year. That's when a crippling disc drive condition finished it off for good. My phat PS3's disc drive died as well.

 

[Grall]

My phat PS3's disc drive died as well.

Do you have pets? Carpet flooring?

Might've been dust buildup that made your drives bellyup.

 

[deathindustrial]

I have had 3 out of 4 PS3s fail. None were due to hard drive issues as far as I could tell. One was a phat and 2 where slims that had issues out of the box. One slim would not update properly and so messed up a transfer from my phat and the other one had a munged audio output. The 2nd replacement slim is still working (fingers crossed). The phat lasted the longest but eventually packed it in after about 4 years I think.

So my personal experience has been a 75% failure rate for the PS3. Which of course is ridiculous.

If next gen is anything like that I will seriously consider switching to a Linux based Steam box for the front room.

Cheers

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wasn't around 10%?

Edit : http://www.gamespot.com/news/xbox-360-failure-rate-237-ps3-10-wii-27-study-6216691

23.7% 360
10% PS3
2.7% Wii

Edit 2: BTW, 60GB Launch PS3 still working. 360 bought in 2007, dead in 2011.

That's an old study.

For X360, if your launch unit was going to die it was generally going to die within the first year. If it didn't die then, it was likely to last a long time (my launch 360 still works fine and is getting heavier use now than ever before from my nephew).

The launch PS3 on the other hand, was more likely to fail later on in life. Which is good and/or bad. Good that it lasted longer before it failed. Bad that when it did fail, you had to pay.

X360's usually failed within the warranty period. Once out of warranty, they were unlikely to fail. Launch PS3's on the other hand from what I've seen generally fail out of warranty and in similar ratios to launch 360's dying in the first year after purchase.

Either way, as I've said before in this thread. I don't see anything coming from either manufacturer that should lead either to have failure rates out of line with other electronics of the modern age. Which means they should be reliable, but probably not as reliable as electronics from before lead free solder.

Regards,
SB

 

[JNewt427]

Human experience as well as scientific evidence both way in here, don't clash the two against each other. Polls posted or not etc, kudos for the forum in doing so and all those that participated. Trying to way in everything here.... without biased..please.

Did anyone know about the use of lead free solder before release prior with the said consoles?

My thread start I guess was more tuned to buyer beware, hence the experience, but I want to believe in nextgen console longevity as a main buyers point of purchase, regardless of what hype and goodies lie under the hood. If the console dies....well you know...

Any info on Warranty coverage of next gen consoles?.