There's an interesting article over at local technology site, smarthouse.com.au, on the extraordinarily high failure rate of the Xbox 360 console. Smarthouse has received a lot of complaints about Microsoft's gaming machine going belly up, with many owners receiving the dreaded "red rings of death" not long after their one year warranty had expired. One hapless customer recounted the harrowing process of returning their console for repair, only to receive a refurbished (and not quite as clean!) replacement in the end. Some retailers, behind a veil of anonymity, provide some insight into the extent of the problem...
"A Sydney retailer said "Out the Nintendo Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 the Microsoft product is the only one that we have had constant problems with. In fact when we sell the Xbox 360 we tell customers to contact Microsoft if they "Ever have a problem"."At one stage we were getting calls everyday however this has slowed down. The failure rate must be well over 30% which when you look at a PC or iPod the failure rate is less than 2%.
I have a friend who's in the business of importing electronics and devices from overseas for sale to local retailers, and he's going to laugh himself silly at that percentage. The industry there is pretty stringent when it comes to quality control, and the 1% or 2% failure rate definitely isn't an exaggeration. For the entire article, head on over to Smarthouse.com.au!
I'm one of those people onto their second 360. It's laughable really.
I just got the 3 red rings of death on my 360 the other day. Actually, half of the team members at AustralianGamer have had their 360's go belly up as well ... quite scary really.
One of the guys here at work just got a 360 this week... we plugged it in to give Forza a bit of a look while our build was a-building... and the thing lasted for about 2 minutes before it red ringed us, never to work again. That $80 warranty wasn't looking too silly at that point... given that otherwise, he would have shelled out his cash, bought a console that doesn't work, and had to send it off for 1-2 months for repair (at his own cost!).
On the other hand though, my old faithful at home has been going strong since I got it on release. They don't build em like they used to. ;)
Scott.
Sony's PR machine kicks into gear.
Yup. Sony has been sending Ninjas around to xbox 360 owner's houses and as been sabotaging them. If you look closely at the broken 360s you'll see an obvious katana slash mark. Thats the only explanation (We all know that Microsoft are a gentle giant of a corporation and could do nothing wrong)
Yup. Sony has been sending Ninjas around to xbox 360 owner's houses and as been sabotaging them. If you look closely at the broken 360s you'll see an obvious katana slash mark. Thats the only explanation (We all know that Microsoft are a gentle giant of a corporation and could do nothing wrong)
In Microsoft's defense, the time between mailing it away and getting it back was less than a week and I got one month free of XBL Gold to apologise. That was sweet of them.
I hope my brothers xbox360 doesent f### up on him.
If these failure rates are really this high and I'm not saying that they're not then anyone and everyone who has had this happen to them please POST ME AND IF I GET ENOUGH RESPONSES I WILL ORGANISE A CONSUMER AFFAIRS INVESTIGATION and pay any legal costs. Otherwise, I will probably be left wondering what was behind all the fuss? Enough responses would be in the order of 20+.
If these failure rates are really this high and I'm not saying that they're not then anyone and everyone who has had this happen to them please POST ME AND IF I GET ENOUGH RESPONSES I WILL ORGANISE A CONSUMER AFFAIRS INVESTIGATION and pay any legal costs. Otherwise, I will probably be left wondering what was behind all the fuss? Enough responses would be in the order of 20+.
It's just Sony PR. There are always problems with hardware from time to time. It's just being drummed up. The good news is that Microsoft really does look after the consumer when there are problems.
Nope. Sorry, you are very wrong there. Google around a bit (can't post links here) and you'll see that MS is not looking after the consumer. The delays are getting longer and longer on returns (they're saying 25 working days in the UK now) - looks like they can't keep up with the demand. The Media has caught wind of this and it is getting beat up a bit, but you can't blame Sony for that. Just like you can't blame MS for Sony's bad PR.
Nope. Sorry, you are very wrong there. Google around a bit (can't post links here) and you'll see that MS is not looking after the consumer. The delays are getting longer and longer on returns (they're saying 25 working days in the UK now) - looks like they can't keep up with the demand. The Media has caught wind of this and it is getting beat up a bit, but you can't blame Sony for that. Just like you can't blame MS for Sony's bad PR.
Ok I'm confused - this is strange, I work in the city so I just went out for lunch and went to some major retailers - Myer on George, eb games and another large seller of consules who I won't name and said I was considering either xBox 360 or PS3. Myer and eb games both outlets pretty much towed the line that there were returns but the numbers were only about 1 in 20 or something less and than that and the xBox was a much better seller and better value for gaming and that fix ups were done promptly in the case of problems. However, when I asked this other major retailer who weren't so corporate a strange thing happened the guy who actually does the returns told me "yeah it's really high" 4 or 5 a week and we do about 20 sales a week. Said it was the highest return rate of any product. Well unfortunately of the people I talked to based on the way they responded their body language and other things I pretty much only trust that guy particularly as he didn't initially want to say anything and I can tell you if I ever buy anything I'm going to buy it from him and here's my reasoning. No sales person especially eb games wouldn't want to say xBox 360 was a better machine as they have hardly any titles for the PS3 so wouldn't sell as many games and that's where the real profit is made especially for eb games. Myer were just being corporate and perhaps had sales motives beyond the normal policy of not saying anything bad about a product. The clincher for me though was when the guy at eb games who really wants people to buy xbox 360 units told me that Microsoft had an end user fix for it that involved the customer wrapping the xbox 360 in a towel and sticking it in the oven for 10 minutes to re-attach the solder! What the?
However, as the previous post said Microsoft are quickly fixing up the problem for people then their might not be anything to complain about? I would like to go to Consumer Affiars but I will need customers who have an ongoing problem that the manufacturing is not fixing - is this the case for anyone? It doesn't change the fact that it isn't satisfactory that a product which after all only has a 12 month warranty and is a lot of money for most people is failing at such high numbers - most people are justified in expecting it to last 3 years or more. My only advice keep it cool.
Mine died and they fixed it and returned to me in a week
I don't trust what those EB guys say. Most don't even know what they are talking about and are fanboys. They're also sales people for a business that wants to make money. As 10 stated, if there is more chance of them making money off of you, they'll get you to buy something that isn't the best for you perhaps or even the best option out there.
We bought 10 for our office around 6 months ago. They all work fine. No issues.
There's another similar article to the one in the newsitem - <a href="http://www.dailytech.com/Retailers+Estimate+Xbox+360+Failure+Rate+High+…">Retailers Estimate Xbox 360 Failure Rate High as 33 Percent</a> - based on some findings by Dailytech.com who contacted numerous retailers in North America. 30(percent) - 33(percent) seems to be the number bandied around when failure rates are mentioned...
33(percent) is a bit tough to swallow... you'd have odds twice as good if you were playing Russian Roulette.
Scott.
33(percent) is a bit tough to swallow... you'd have odds twice as good if you were playing Russian Roulette.
Scott.
Not sure if this applies to Oz, but..
<a href="http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/petermooreletter.htm">Microsoft extends warranty to 3 years</a>.
<q>As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles.</q>
This billion dollars they're going to spend fixing all of their shonky hardware means that they're what... $5 or $6 BILLION down on the Xbox and still haemmorhaging cash on it.
If I was a large institutional shareholder in Microsoft I'd be asking the board why they're continuing to pour billions of capital into it and when they expect to start making serious returns on it. If they don't, I'd be demanding that they shut it down and invest the capital elsewhere or return to me via dividends. It's the opportunity cost!
If current trends continue, in a couple of years we could find Microsoft doing a Sega and getting out of hardware.
I guess that's the point. It's a publicly listed company. The info is readily available. It's not happening ;)