If you wouldn't mind looking up from that avatar creation screen for a second -- yes, we're aware of how much that t-shirt selection means about you as a person -- you might notice that your Xbox 360 is dead. At least, a few hapless souls on the Xbox forums seem to think
NXE is to blame for such atrocities. Numerous folks are reporting variously bad red ring configurations, random freezing and a huge pile of blockbuster titles that won't just play themselves. The biggest problem is that Microsoft isn't universally treating problems caused by NXE as an "oh, our bad" sort of situation, and at least from anecdotes we're seeing has charged quite a few folks $100 to fix their freshly-out-warranty Xbox 360s -- not to mention separating them for weeks from their precious murder simulators.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Nov 20th 2008 12:18PM
360s are still red ringing?! Is this some kind of a joke? Jesus... shoddiest console ever, ever, ever made (and no, that does not mean the WORST overall, I am talking craftsmanship).
The RROD is still happening in part because the console just hit its third year, meaning there are a fair number of people who have pre-Falcon consoles that haven't RROD yet. I'm not saying all pre-Falcon will, but they are certainly at much higher risk. And of course you hear of the RROD around this time of year since folks are playing their consoles more as the big games come out ... and this year has the NXE.
Of all those that I know that have RRODed, all have been 2005 and 2006 consoles.
Even the PS3, which is very well built, has bricked on various firmware updates.
The extremely high failure rate of Xbox 360 is well documented. There are some major design issues that will likely continue to cause failures until the next console from MS is released.
"Even the PS3, which is very well built, has bricked on various firmware updates."
Completely irrelevant. A small percentage of PS3s have bricked from firmware updates. Hell, even the Wii has. But the 360 is a totally different story. The amount of them that break is exponentially higher and the REASONS they break are far more varied. So the PS3 losing a few units to a firmware update is nowhere near the fiasco of the RRODs.
My PS3 had the PS# version of the Red lightof death like 6 months ago and they wanted me to pay to get it fixed .. and just this week my ps3 harddrive crapped the bed , lucky i had a back up and i dont use it for games anyway so i dint lose much .. And i did have a 360 RRoD on me .. so in my eyes they are tied 1-1 ...
amazingly, my launch X360 is still chugging along, no problems (knock on wood).
meanwhile, a 2nd X360 I picked up in early 2007 has died twice.
@AVG
You missed the point in your rush to defend the PS3 and interject irrelevance.
The point is that firmware updates can brick all electronics (including the PS3 and Wii). Just because a few XBs are bricking from a firmware update doesn't mean it's related to the RROD fiasco. Sometimes it's just insufficiently tested code regardless of the quality of the hardware.
I bought a second year 360 in Spring 2007 and it Red Ringed on me last month. I mailed it in and they got it back to me a week later, and I realized it was a REFURB.
The person who'd used it last had their clock set for LONDON time Zone so that must mean it came from there.
As for this "new experience"
I HATE IT
If I'd wanted a goddamned MII character, I'd have bought one of those piece o shit WII's. I tried to design my character but a bunch of options are missing. Black gloves, black suit, Walther PPK pistol...It PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH.
Now all the menu's are hard to navigate. I want MY OLD 360 EXPERIENCE BACK.
@Joe:
A lot of the failures are older consoles, sure, but new ones are still failing too. My latest system, an Arcade purchased in August, lasted 36 days before it got teh RRoD.
I didn't miss the point. Comparing a 360 to a PS3 when it comes to a bricked console just isn't reasonable. One is a hardware failure fiasco the likes of which we've never seen. One is a total rarity. Just because "other systems break" doesn't give Microsoft reason to have a console with this sort of pitiful existence.
@ Flashpoint
I don't have a 360 or anything, but uh.. isn't this new experience supposed to be completely optional? If you don't like the face of progress, don't accept it. Easy enough.
My bro's Falcon just RRODed on him 2 weeks ago. So yes, even the newer Gen xboxes are red ringing. Microsoft did a great job with the software on the xbox, but man the hardware design is just garbage. I guess that's what happens when you want to be first to market.
AVG
When you make 20 millions consoles, you bout to get some bad ones right? Of course you do it happends to any mass production. nothing is perfect. now all we see and heard is ppl with rrod, but how many is that. 5% -10% maybe. The point is that we will see bad units from time to time. I'm sure you heard from friends that their cell phones, ipod, computers,gps,bluettoth,tv, dvd, etc etc have some bugs and not working as it should. So yes the RRoD are still around. to sad for the one that got it.
@absinthe_party... This update is not optional, at least if you ever want to connect to xbox live. If you are connected to xbox live you have to download and install the update or you won't be able to sign in. All updates are compulsary for xbox live users.
@donkamero
Ah, my bad. So using the avatars and the gumdrop lollipop experience is mandatory, or can't you just switch back to the blade interface?
Wait, so, 4.2% of people on Engadget bought their Xbox 360 *before* 20th November 2005 (i.e. the 3 year RROD warranty has expired)?
The console was only launched on 22nd November 2005!
I had seven --yes, seven RROD'd consoles before the one I have now. But hey, I got PGR3 and a couple of months of XBL GOLD for free. Besides, I just bought the blasted thing for Halo. And now to-be Halo 3: Recon
@absinthe party
You can't switch back no, if some people don't like the new dash they will have to suffer it.
I am not all the bothered with it either way. I do like how it is faster (more responsive) and that party chat is now included, I like the new guide as well I guess. Since I am in the UK we can't get Netflix, the real highlight, so for non-US customers it is certainly lacking (there isn't all that much to get excited about). Don't get me wrong, it's fresh and easy to use, it is definitley better, but I can't help but feel we are missing a huge chunk of the features without Netflix (which every single review of the NXE holds as the main feature, or to qoute engadget "the big-daddy feature")..
I am sure it will pan out to be good in the long run for non-US customers once some of the functionality is expanded on with more apps, but untill then, we are missing out over here ...again
@Aaron
I am one of those that bought the console when it came out. Pre-ordering it on gamestop.com a month or so before it came out and got one from FedEx on launch day. I still have and use somewhat regularly (I got married the following May) the original console. I have since bought (on eBay) an additional console because my wife likes to play with me.
And yes, I am a very lucky man. Now I just need to buy a second copy of COD:W@W
nxe causes red ring of death. NXE causes RROD. New xbox experience causes RROD. New xbox experience causes red ring of death.
My xbox 360 got the RROD within minutes of downloading the new xbox experience. It's an unmodded 2007 model and I do not play all that often. Microsoft is the next GM.
Can't afford an Xbox :(
Damn economy!
To the person below:
I replied to the wrong person.
Now, to correct:
Damn economy!
me neither :[ can't afford beer AND an xbox 360... gotta keep your priorities in line...
Just wait until after Jan. 20th. You'll be able to buy one and put it on the taxpayers bill. Everyone Gets A Bailout in 2009!!!
I wish you told me that before. I just burned a huge pile of money.
"And I though my jokes were bad."
So much for the new Xbox experience, I guess its a bad experience form some :)
I haven't had a problem yet, but now I am worried. It has already been sent back twice. Too bad they couldn't solved those heat issue problems before they released it.
It hasn't had a problem but you sent it back twice? Huh? You just like shipping it around or something?
Are you using DHL? Maybe the user is trying to get it to break?
I think he means he hasn't had problems with the NXE yet.
My launch console is doing just fine, except for the blasted DVD drive, that really needs to be replaced.
Just like every other big release is to cause, and let's face it - this is the biggest of big releases since everyone connected to Live got it.
When Gears came out, "Gears bricked my 360"
When Forza came out, "Forza bricked my 360"
When COD4 came out, "COD4 bricked my 360"
It's called coincidence, and it happens when tens of millions of people all download the same software on the same day.
Your comment bricked my 360 =(
Even my bricks have been bricked.
It's not always coincidence. Last years fall update bricked my 360 and many others. As soon as the auto-reboot occurred I popped in Bioshock and it didnt last 2 minutes. At the time there were hundreds of folks on that exact day who had the exact problem.
And if you say anything else to the contrary my avatar will kick your ass!!!
I agree with you. And BTW, Gears did brick my 360 (the first time).
Many 360s are bricks waiting to happen. When something is the big seller/downloader, the machines that were just about ready to expire were likely to expire while running that popular software.
Basically, 360s are of awful quality. The old ones much more so then the new ones though.
Viva Pinata 2 is what ate my most recent 360, the one I had to pay to replace because MS doesn't cover optical drive problems under the 3-year RRoD warranty.
This is what I came here to say. Just because something new and exciting came out and your 360 has been running for 18 hours straight with poor ventilation doesn't mean it's the game's fault when the innards melt.
@absinthe_party... This update is not optional, at least if you ever want to connect to xbox live. If you are connected to xbox live you have to download and install the update or you won't be able to sign in. All updates are compulsary for xbox live users.
we've bricked the people responsible for bricking the brick comments
Not counting the people who "just like messing with poll results," it looks like roughly 10%, of the people who have voted so far have gotten the RROD hammer to the head. That seems exorbitant, even for the 360. And I'm not sure if "coincidence" can account for it.
I just hope mine continues to work. This would be a terrible month to be missing my 360!
Well people, don't shit a brick.
mine actually red ringed before NXE came out. and i had jsut gotten BK: nuts and bolts and BK the original game, made me sad.
lasted a good 2 years though, i was surprised, i thought i got lucky.
Why would they have magically stopped red ringing? It didn't happen to all of them on the same day. The Elite I bought about a year and a half ago hasn't gone RROD, but I mostly play movies on it. If it's going to fail, mine might take longer than most.
My biggest gripe about the NXE is how long it takes to get up and running. I tried to do it yesterday before a meeting I had at work, and between multiple downloads and reboots, I was watching the clock.. then that god-awful 2 minute intro video played, I said fuck it, shut everything off, and went to work.
The NXE is very clean looking. You could say MS tried too hard to make it pretty, but the old "blade" setup had an odd mix of elements on the screen. You'd switch blades, but also be able to move around in 2-d space in the current screen to find options, some of them were extremely poorly laid out. This new interface has a simple up/down, left-right movement that makes sense, even though on first glance it might look more confusing.
I watched the Office in HD last night on Netflix streaming at 500-700k/sec, and the quality was awesome.
After the initial boot, the intro movie disappears. To me, it seems like the NXE boots faster than the blades did.
Yeah it does boot a bit faster.
Only problems I've had are the friends list lockup (look at friend details and then go back to the friend list and it freezes) but that seems to have stopped happening and the Netflix low-quality stream problem (it defaults to lowest quality for no reason) but again, that seems to have fixed itself as well.
And as far as bricking...it's probably a coincidence in 85 percent of the cases. I would bet 10 of the remaining 15 is user error (like the "disc eating error" when they first came out..."um...i dropped it down a flight of stairs while it was booting the disc and theres a big scratch in it now...this console sucks!!!DURRRR!!!!"). It's probably people who shut it off or something while it was installing...or they changed video source off HDMI which also powers it down. The last 5 percent I would guess are the only ones that actually had a software problem. And in those cases it was probably something like they had a save game for Super Dirt Mover 3: The Revenege of Poorly Coded Man on their HDD and it somehow didn't mesh well with the NXE.
I call BS on this issue .. Let the red ring of death issue die already
idiot.
How's this a New Xbox Experience? Seems like the same old experience...
doesnt seem like anyone likes your comments today, eh?
I'm in a shitty mood and hate MS (I'm a .Net dev) and Sony, and I comment at Engadget... you'll see me low ranked pretty often... LOL
Mine is a newer "pro" system, 20 gig, with hdmi port. I have had zero issue. I waited till the RROD issue was solved. Here is the thing: how many OLD 360's have luckily kept going, but when the NGE came out, it may have pushed the system doing updates and just unluckily, overheated it? Now the RROD was unexceptionable anyway, since MS got shotty parts, but in the end I can see the software as the cause as old 360's about to die, get "pushed over the edge" by this update.
I meant CAN'T see the software causing this.
How exactly can a software update "push it over the edge"? Surely installing new software can't stress the CPU/GPU that much?
I changed it and said can't. Got low ranked? Whatever....
Don't take it personally, people are all bitchy 'cause of the state of the world and need to hate to feel better, I think.
'freshly-out-warranty Xbox 360s'
Um, the Xbox 360 launched 3 years ago this Saturday, every 360 should still be under RROD warranty unless people broke their warranty
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Unless of course microsoft only offered the three year warranties to those who had a xbox and the new ones from then on only got a 1 year one?
Nope, all xboxes get the 3 year RROD warrenty.
after updating to the NXE, i no longer get sound out of my HDMI connection. Any body else have this problem?
What the crap! Damn blog comment system... getting everything wrong.
I love the NXE, menus are much easier to Navigate. I don't have to scroll across unwanted options to get to where I want. The Avatars, as shamelessly stolen from Nintendo as they are, are a much needed step into the Casual gamer market (Which if Microsoft break into means there's going to be loads more money floating about for those bigger, better more badass games. Think Gears 3 with a massive budget....)
My gripes are that whenever I load a game onto the hard drive it never once tells me how much space it's going to take up, I have to either look it up on the here intarwebz or just install then check. Also, whenever I have eventually decided to keep a game on the hard drive, I proceed to go and play the game and I am greeted with a nice and lovely frozen menu screen for whatever game I have installed, this only happens the first time mind. But still having waited nearly 15 minutes for Fable 2 to install then having it crash is truly show-stoppingly-shit.
No problems whatsoever. I even got GTAIV installed on my 360 last night. I was amazed at how much faster it was.
Likewise. I installed Mass Effect and was playing it for the first time last night (waited almost a year just to install it to HDD) and had no problems.
Halo 3 is the only game so far to show adverse effects when installed to HDD (longer load times).
@Lowest Ranked
That should be Cortana trying to fit inside the console.
That's good to know. Wonder if they'd ever have a fix for Halo 3. It's probably the first game that a lot of Xbox360 owners would want to get faster loadage on.
Loadage?!
I'm not sure it can happen, as Halo 3 typically utilizes both the DVD and the HDD for pre-caching and background loading, limiting it to strictly the HDD causes it to slow down.
My roommate's 360 RRoD'ed. I was selecting an avatar, and it crashed. I rebooted, tried to make an avatar again, RRoD. Rebooted, checked out the new dash without making an avatar, worked just fine. Deleted some demos to make room for an install, then went back to make an avatar, RRoD. Now I get an RRoD on boot. Oh well, it's not my 360.
haha, that's the spirit! Who cares if you broke something that doesn't belong to you?
Haha, "he broke it"... He did unimaginable things to it, like changing an avatar.
Gee, gadgets these days get more and more solid.
Now that I've taken the update as of 8:30 AM CST I have noticed that some of the services are slow to load. I didn't find many other glitches and am think that the servers were near full capacity (maybe, maybe not) and that that was slowing things down.
Personally are the consoles that red ringed Modded or are they running pirated games? I'm cautious however to blame the end user, but I still wonder if that would be the case.
It went smooth for me and the few friends I have didn't seem to have a problem either. I just thought I'd throw that idea out there.
..."the few friends I have..."
Wait, seriously dude?
@ Lowest Ranked
When i say the few friends I mean the few people I'm connected to on Xbox Live. Good point and just thought I'd clarify. I have many friends in general. Thanks for noticing
PS please don't low rank this comment even though it's off topic
I don't have any friends. I have criminal associates.
And I have many Strangers With Benefits...
Here's everything normal, the only little delay will be when I use the Xbox 360 Guide button..but hey! I can deal with that.
Consumer electronics die at a set rate. By coincidence, these failures can correspond to other events. Human nature wants to pin the failure on a "cause" and therefore will lash out at the biggest event in recent memory.
Every time an update is release, people claims it RRoDs their console.
Every time a big game hits, people claim it RRoDs their console.
In reality, it's just he fact that these are events that hit a large majority of the ownership population and therefore intersect with more people who were going to have failures regardless.
It's happened with the PS3 as well. No software problem is ever specific to one machine or the other. Just to agree with your statement.
While it's true that I can't PROVE the NXE RROD my console, I played Fallout 3 for over an hour Tuesday night with no issues. I then installed NXE Wednesday, had the screen freeze in Marketplace on me (first time since launch that's ever happened), fired up Fallout 3 and had the screen freeze within 1 minute. Restarted twice more, same thing. Installed it to the HDD, started F3, froze again and then RROD on restart. Repeatedly restarted, repeatedly RROD.
Could the this be completely unrelated to the NXE update? Possibly, but since my console has never once exhibited this freezing behaviour before, it seems like a pretty good bet to me.
I'm just happy it happened when it did, my warranty expires today so I'm covered.
That doesn't mean the NXE caused it. About 2 months after halo 3 came out, I was playing it and it worked great. I played a lot. Then one day the 360 broke while I was playing halo. Does that mean halo broke it? no
ScottF - There is a big difference between what happened to you and what happened to me. I played my system everyday for an hour plus since the release of Fallout 3 with no issues. I installed NXE and immediately and repeatedly saw a behaviour I had never before seen on my console. Now I myself admit that it could be pure coincidence, but as any scientist can tell you when you do something repeatedly with no change, introduce a variable, and then see a radically different result, there is a strong likelihood that the variable caused the radically different result. Of course it's only a hypothesis at that point and can't be proven without further experiment, but as that was my only console, the best I can do is post my result and see what others have encountered.
Also when bull3964 states that "Consumer electronics die at a set rate", that is just completely false. The rate at which CE die can be greatly influenced by manufacture date, use, even region and weather and mostly certainly by software/firmware updates.
I'm not trying to hate on NXE, having previously worked for MS for 10+ years, I'm very hopeful that it succeeds. But I've worked around CE long enough to know that a major update can certainly have a negative impact on what I hope is a minor segment of the end users.
Sorry, PeterF, not ScottF
my xbox freezes while going through the friends blade, like 4 times in a row.. my xbox isnt broken because i played 2-3 hours of COD after giving up looking at peoples avatars.
Mine too, it freezes on the friends, like it's downloading list of friends. It does eventually unfreeze if you're patient. I think they will release a bug fix in the next month.
There is zero correlation between a RROD failure and any software on the 360, its purely a hardware issue, and its only coincidental because the people who actually ran into trouble probably hadn't turned on their xbox for months.
Yeah, that's what I thought because the RROD directly corresponds to an issue with the CPU/GPU.
Dust is the true number one cause of dead consoles, computers, and the like. Let me gunk up yoru car's radiator with buildup that doesn't let air flow through and I gaurantee I can get your cylinder head to warp.
wow... how quick some people can jump so easily in a single conclusion.
People hasn't turned on the xbox360 --> then turn on the console, update the NXE --> RROD.
People keeps playing the xbox360 almost once a week -> then turn on console, update the NXE -> RROD.
People keeps playing the xbox360 almost once a week -> then turn on console, update the NXE -> and later (navigating the new NXE) -> RROD.
Currently RROD is not clear if it is related with heat and/or other factor and MS is not tell it about the real cause.
The only problem i've had so far is my codecs got erased and when i try to download them again i get an error of some sort. no worries i'm sure it will get sorted out.
Similar problem... when I select a friend and try to go back to the menu... boom! freeze!
I have an elite, so not overly old console.
Oh and also, I had a weird problem with gears 2. I completed it, decided to copy on the drive, play it fine. Next time I load it, I select my save game, click A to start.. nothing, try another save, same... go to training mode, escape training mode, go to the save... works... so weird.
Still I can play games... so I kind of hope that an update will come soon and fix the lot.
How are the consoles out of the 3-year red-ring warranty when the console launched on November 22, 2005?
Every time I go to the friends list in the NXE my Xbox freezes for about 2 minutes. I timed it; 2 minutes and 15 seconds to go back to normal
I pay for Xbox LIVE so this should not happen. Get it together Microsoft.
Lucky that I have no red ring. Yet.
Heh, I bet the NXE was designed to obliterate older models, to replace them all en masse with the fabled Jasper configuration.
My launch console is fine.
Atleast, I think it's still launch. It was repaired but came back without HDMI so I'm guessing its the same old thing... but it has the new GPU heatsink.
Correlation != Causality
lol i see what you did there
Sadly, my xbox died just last week with RROD however, it should be here by monday. Overall, im gladd to see my xbox died before this rolled out because i would have been stuck with a longer wait time before i got it back. I cant wait to go create my sexy avatarrrr!.
NXE looks great.
Mine only froze twice. :-(
On a side note: It did not improve my COD scoring I still suck.
J
I had a really long freeze last night when looking through my friends list - I was about to shut the console down the hard way (wasn't responding to the controllers or power button). Luckily it unfroze at the last second. Other than that, it's been a little laggy but I'm willing to put up with it for Netflix.
The Office in HD FTW!
i've gotten red rings during cod5 gameplay, ive also had the 360 freeze on me three times on nxe