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RRoGDC? Xbox 360 failure shows up at trade show
Microsoft's efforts to divert attention from the Xbox 360's reportedly high failure rates were were certainly not helped today by an infamous Red Ring of Death that showed up at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. An intrepid BBC reporter noted the common hardware failure on display at Microsoft's XNA area in the Moscone Center's North Hall.Perhaps this is why the whole XNA area was protected by a shroud as recently as yesterday. Then again, perhaps not. Regardless, the BBC is certainly correct in noting that "at the very least it's embarrassing for the company that its own stock of demo machines are still susceptible to the problem." Check out the full video of the "event" below.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
Sony denies 40% failure rate on new PS3, original article removed
Sony Europe came out and denied a "report" that 40% of the new 40GB PlayStation 3 models are defective. The story got started by Dutch site Gamed, which claimed that Belgian retailer, Games Mania, stated 40% of the new 40GB PS3 sold have been returned because of hardware defects. The original "report" has since been removed and wiped clean from the tubes. Sony Europe pres. David Reeves said they're very proud of the quality and reliability of the PS3 and are disappointed in the inaccurate story. We imagine Reeves was trying with all his might to not take the swipe at the competition he could have easily justified. Classy.
MacBook Pros exhibiting locking up with second displays?
Here's another Apple Support forums conundrum for ya: a small group of users are reporting that their Santa Rosa MacBook Pros are locking up sporadically when attaching or disconnecting a second display or projector. This post is currently being typed on a Santa Rosa MacBook Pro, which is regularly hooked up to a Dell monitor sitting on the desk: no problems here. That said, there are several dozen responses on this one thread, so feel free to weigh in if you're seeing these freezing issues too.
We wait for the Halo 3 (Boston edition): aka failure to launch
Don't see much in the picture above? Don't worry about it because there's nothing to see. Remember how there were those midnight Wal-Mart launches for Halo 3? Well apparently that didn't apply to the Wal-Mart in Walpole, Mass. Quick timeline of the events leading to midnight: 11:43PM - Arrive to an almost empty parking lot at Wal-Mart. 11:43:30 - Realize there is nothing going on here as I watch a woman cleaning inside. 11:44 - Two guys pull up asking what's the deal with the midnight launch? Tell them it looks like it's not happening here. 11:48 - Call up Ross who's apparently in a really great launch line waiting for his copy. Ask him if he can easily find a 7-Eleven on his internet-enabled phone that has a midnight launch. He can't hear me, but the two guys in the car know of a local store. It'll be a roll of the dice whether they're selling Halo. 11:50 - Follow the two guys to the nearest 7-Eleven. That's at least where I hoped we were going. 11:55 - Arrive at the local 7-Eleven and in a very awkward exchange that involves me pointing at the Slurpee machine and asking if they are selling, "The Halo 3." The clerk politely responds and laughs, "No, no, no, no." 11:57 - Say goodbye to the two strangers who say they're off to bed. They say they'll just pick it up tomorrow morning. 12:01AM - Standing in the empty 7-Eleven parking lot and accepting the fact that there won't be the Haloz tonight. Begin the drive home. So, what's the point of this post? Did you try and get a copy of the game tonight and have no luck? Share your stories below.
Why the iPhone should tank
Doctor Macenstein has a very good commentary up: even though he's a happy iPhone owner, he wants the iPhone to fail. Fail miserably. In fact, he was cheering on the news during the earnings announcement yesterday that Apple completely missed their analysts' fever dream-induced goal for iPhone sales. Why would a man (woman? Did we ever find out what the Doc's gender was?) who's invested $600+ in a phone want it to not sell well? If you're like me, you might answer that, "because he's crazy." Everyone knows success is always good for a product-- if the iPod had failed, we'd never have had the Nano, the Shuffle, or, for that matter, the iPhone. So if Doc Mac wants to wish the iPhone wrong, he's a loony.Or is he? He makes good points-- lower-than-expected iPhone sales might make Apple nervous enough to get in gear on pushing new software features and updates out, and get that price point dropping for the rest of us. And on the price point Doc's especially got a point-- when Apple was asked if there was going to be a lowered price point, they actually cited customer satisfaction as the reason not to drop it. In other words, if people are happy with the iPhone (and Apple is convinced that they are), there's no reason to change it.With AAPL doing so well, Apple has a chance to sit back on their laurels and let the AT&T payments roll in. But any self-respecting iPhone user shouldn't let them take it. With a happy customer base, Apple has less incentive to fix those "little" problems like copy and paste and a missing iChat Mobile.Update: My good colleagues point out that the iPhone missed analysts' goals, not Apple's.
Duke exonerates iPhone from network outage charges
Granted, the original report suggesting that swarms of iPhones actually broke Duke's WiFi network did seem a bit bizarre, and now it appears that the university is freeing Apple's handset from blame. Interestingly, the actual culprit still seems somewhat veiled in secrecy, as we're only informed that "a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service," but never do they exaggerate on exactly what caused the hiccups. Still, Duke also stated that it worked in conjunction with Cisco and Apple in order to "identify the network issue that was causing the problem," and since Cisco stepped in and provided a fix, the prpblem has yet to repeat itself. Looks like you're off the hook on this one, iPhone.
Peter Moore: Sony is 'failing' in Japan
The funniest part of the GameDaily.biz interview with Peter Moore is that he knows the Xbox is biting the big one in Japan, but he points out that Sony "crumbling" in Japan against the Wii is just more delicious. Moore says he planned for an uphill battle in Japan -- actually it's more like a flat-faced vertical mountain battle, having only sold 122, 565 Xbox 360s this year -- but he believes Sony never expected to fail in Japan like they have.Moore points out that Sony keeps talking about this 10-year plan without ever explaining what that means. He says, "I'm not sure what their 10-year plan is ... It's like they just said, 'We have a 10-year plan' [and that's it]." Moore isn't talking 10-year plans but he expects the Xbox to live longer than the original's four years. He says Sony can have all the plans they like, but the key is getting to the "mass market with price points [that matter]," which Moore says Microsoft is a lot closer to being able to do. Yes, that certainly sounds like allusion to an incoming price drop.
UK repair service Micromart refuses Xbox 360
UK repair service Micromart is refusing to service any more Xbox 360s due to a "base manufacturing problem that potentially affects all 360s" they tell Joystiq. Before they stopped repairing Xbox 360s, which they are not an authorized repair center for, they were getting in "around 30 a week." Customers who are looking for the quick service of Micromart are suggested to "contact Microsoft for a motherboard replacement" as it's the only guaranteed fix according to Micromart. Jeff Croft of Micromart says, "We saw it over a period of several months and it was just getting worse. It began towards the end of last year. Once the twelve month warranty finished then we started to see more and more machines being sent in to be looked at ... The problem with three red lights was there fairly regularly, but over two or three months it became a real issue." Croft goes on to say that even after the repairs that Micromart had done they were not happy with the result. They believe it is a problem with the motherboard and weren't comfortable charging customers for labor on a product for a problem they believed wasn't going to go away. Croft sent a letter to Microsoft with their concerns, but says they've received no response.[Thanks, ktchong, CR, Jem]Read - Micromart homepageRead - Repair Firm Won't Service Ring of Death 360s (Next-Gen)Read - Repair Specialist Refuses to Take Further Xbox 360s (GI.biz)
Audio proof of one man's 11 dead Xbox 360s
As Microsoft dances around the Xbox 360 hardware failure class action lawsuit just begging to happen, 1UP has one more piece of "anecdotal" evidence to throw on the pyre. They offer up the tale of Justin Lowe and his 11 failed Xbox 360s. "No, that's impossible!" scream the fanboys in their best Luke Skywalker impression. Ah, but Lowe went ahead and got audio evidence to prove it's true. The recording (found below) covers his conversation with Xbox India support as they walk through every single one of his failed consoles. Although the recording is long and just goes through the motions, evidence isn't always sexy, sometimes it just proves a point.Now, we're sure that Lowe keeps his Xbox 360 wrapped in an old shag carpet, standing vertically, in a room that has the humidity of the Amazon rainforest ... oh, and the electrical system in his house consistently causes spikes. Did we cover everything there? 1UP went through the motions, like every media outlet pretty much has done at this point, and received the standard wall of there being nothing wrong and that the newly installed heatsinks are merely part of the regular updating of components in consoles. As Microsoft previously asserted, they "do not provide details on these updates." Lowe, who is on console number 12 now, says, "I still like Microsoft, as much as that may astound people. There's no real hate towards the company for what I have experienced." And we just keep telling ourselves: Don't focus on failure, focus on repair.Lowe Recording:
A valiant attempt to get Xbox 360 failure rate answers
Dean Takahashi from the San Jose Mercury News recently sat down with Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft's man in charge of the quality for the Xbox 360. Takahashi is another reporter trying to get Microsoft fessing up to the actual failure rate of the Xbox 360, a machine that many enjoy and continues to show its worth, but has an anecdotally tragic failure rate. It would probably make a great chapter if Takahashi ever follows up his book Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Takahashi does his best get answers in the interview to what's really going on with the system's failure rate, but if you've ever wondered what corporate stonewalling looks like, make sure to read the full interview.Highlights from the interview after the break
Microsoft avoids 360 cooling rumors, calls hardware updates 'commonplace'
If we had actually started fixing a problem people had been complaining about since our system had been released (read: Xbox 360s dying) we'd be shouting it from the rooftops. In a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz though, Microsoft was playing it cool on rumors of additional cooling in repaired 360. (Do you see what we did there?)"Regularly updating console components is commonplace within the industry," was the official line from the spokesperson, who then promptly declined to comment on whether or not Microsoft had done it. There's no word on whether or not the spokesperson's comically exaggerated winking was audible during the interview. If there's actually a Lorenzo's Oil for 360 heat death, we assume Microsoft's worried about opening the floodgates to the millions that might want their problem prematurely fixed. After all, as Peter Moore already told us, the company's not so much interested in preventative care as resuscitation.
Motley Fool tells MS to get its act together
Adding himself to the ever-growing pool of Xbox 360 failure coverage, Seth Jayson of The Motley Fool is warning investors that the Xbox 360's failure rates could hurt its future growth. After receiving the dreaded Ring of Death himself (and some faulty Zunes), Jayson has some fighting words for Microsoft. Of particular note, is the statement that the actual failure rates aren't as important as the perceived failure rates. In other words, the stories of multiple failed Xbox 360s are much louder than Microsoft's claims that failure rates are within the acceptable standard. Jayson admits that, when functional, the Xbox 360 is a topnotch game player and an excellent media hub to boot, but if the public perceives it as faulty, then Microsoft stands the chance of "alienating potential customers and crimping future growth." In conclusion, Jayson notes that Microsoft must address these basic hardware issues before it can effectively execute its plans for new-gen dominance.What do you think? Do you know anyone who was swayed from getting an Xbox 360 based on failure horror stories?
Anecdotal: Microsoft low on Xbox 360 coffins
For the most part, we've given up on reporting every single time one of our colleagues in the gaming press has an Xbox 360 die on them. Frankly, we'd be writing a piece every couple weeks. A brilliant recent example was the Weekly Geek Show's Xbox 360, which we covered, died again in late May. Exactly one month and six days after being "repaired." But, like Peter Moore asked of all of us, we shouldn't focus on the failure rate of Xbox 360s, but on the service in repairing them. And so, we have the story of Officer Craig Ravitch of the New York Police Department.Officer Ravitch discovered last Friday that his Xbox 360 died on him in a classic New York "You gotta' be frickin' kidding me!" moment. He loves his Xbox 360, it's his "favorite system," but the "constant breaking down is amazing" to him. He called Microsoft, as he's done three times before. This next console will be his fourth since the 360 launch. He bought the $60 two-year warranty after his last failure and also received a 50% repair discount after arguing the last time. Microsoft support told him he'd have his box by Tuesday. After not receiving a confirmation that this Xbox 360 coffin was sent (which he received the last time he did this), he decided to call support again. They informed him his box wasn't sent because "the service department is running very low on boxes, so it will take a little longer than expected to get that box" out to him. Ravitch was shocked. Is Microsoft getting back so many defective systems that they don't have a fresh supply of coffins anymore?We spoke with Officer Ravitch, who has a 26,000 point Gamerscore and buys about four games a month, and he told us, "As a consumer, I'm extremely, extremely disappointed with the way these consoles are dying. I don't have small children, I'm married, I get my three hours of gaming in when I can." He points out that the time he's lost in the back and fourth transit of his Xbox 360 has cost him three months of Xbox Live and he's thankful that he bought the warranty last time around, despite it being an unnecessary expense. Ravitch was mostly concerned that Microsoft is running low on coffins and now his repair has been delayed by a full week. Ravitch says, "I hate to badmouth the 360, its one of my favorite systems, but this burns me."
Has Sony failed to understand the casual gamer?
In a recent interview with GI.biz, Nintendo VP of marketing, George Harrison, said that Sony and Microsoft have both attempted to woo the casual gamer but both failed due to a lack of understanding of the casual gamer. Specifically, Harrison mentioned the Sixaxis as Sony's failure:"We can already see some of the things they've tried. For last year's E3, at the last minute, Sony rushed out their Sixaxis controller as an effort to respond to the Wii remote. We saw Microsoft roll out Viva Piñata as their killer app for the Pokemon set. And neither of those worked really well.It's true that Nintendo knows how to dominate a certain kind of casual gamer market, but it seems a bit disingenuous to be writing off the Sixaxis as a failed attempt to capture Nintendo's market share. Sony has never particularly positioned that motion-sensitivity of the Sixaxis as a lure to the casual gamer. They've marketed it as a feature that adds to existing games and allows you to do things you've never done before (see LAIR and Warhawk). It's true that they have utilized the motion sensitivity aspect of the controller to create more easily accessible games like Blast Factor, flOw and Super Rub-a-Dub, but unlike Nintendo, thats that's clearly not their whole focus.
Game Informer agrees: PSP failure is a myth
The June issue of Game Informer has a feature about gaming's big questions. One of these is whether or not the PSP is a failure. Unsurprisingly, these claims are reduced to nothing more than simple falsities, spouted by Sony haters. As the Game Informer article smartly states: "How does selling 10 million units equate to failure?" Amongst many reasons listed is the undeniable fact that the PSP is the first serious portable competitor of Nintendo to find success. Before the DS Lite came out, PSP was actually beating DS in sales (according to NPD). To sum it up, no rational, unbiased gamer can list the PSP as a failure. We all know the PSP is a success, it's just nice to see the often PSP hating press finally agree with us.
Ted and Gadget weep as MAST tether project fails to deploy
While a number of recent space-based experiments have proven quite successful, it must not have been Ted nor Gadget's day. The daring duo that made up the MAST project was supposed to "test the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space," but due to a glitch in the restraint system that "kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool," the once hopeful mission has come to an ill-fated close. Rather than reaching a full kilometer, the tether was only able to reach a few meters before coming to a stop, but the team at Tethers Unlimited aren't calling it quits just yet. They did admit to not knowing precisely what caused the costly mishap, but the crew also suggested that they'll try to use the small amount of data they did gather to analyze "how a short tether behaves in microgravity." Don't worry fellas, there's always next time.
Air conditioners kill hard drives?
We already knew that we had to sacrifice our precious holiday decorations in order to get maximum bandwidth and coverage from our WiFi routers, and now it looks like we may have to sweat out the summer months sans air conditioning if an anecdotal, single-source article in Associated Content proves accurate. According to sole interviewee Ben Carmichel of ESS Data Recovery, his company sees "a 20% increase in failed hard drives hitting our lab in the summer as [opposed to] the winter," and believes from surveying customers and the uptick in electronic-related issues that AC-triggered power surges are largely to blame. Of course, this alleged risk is easy enough to minimize by utilizing an uniterrupted power source for your PC and configuring your drives in a RAID 1 or 5, so it doesn't seem too difficult to have your cake and eat it too in this case. Or you could set up shop in Siberia and just avoid this nonsense altogether. [Via The Inquirer, thanks John K.]
Failed Louisiana video game bill sponsor speaks out
Following an embarrassing defeat of his unconstitutional video game bill, Louisiana Rep. Roy Burrell (D) wrote an op-ed piece in this morning's Shreveport Times. The newspaper had previously criticized him and it seemed he was attempting to explain himself. The naive representative worked with Jack Thompson to pen the bill that would not only eventually get defeated, but would force Louisiana taxpayers to pony up the $100,000 in legal fees to the ESA for wasting their time fighting the bill. From the op-ed piece Burrell still doesn't quite get what's wrong.Burrell (pictured with Jack Thompson) writes, "I am offended The Times and one federal judge would question state legislators' commitment, integrity and legal knowledge because of a controversial constitutional court ruling on the protection of the First Amendment Right of free speech. Like me, during the legislative process, legislators never knew they would vote unanimously on HB 1381, only to have it struck down by a federal district judge, then publicly criticized by him and the media for doing their legislative duty. This is appalling. Conversely, they should be commended and not humiliated on standing up finally for children and families against the powerful entertainment industry."So, not only was Burrell "humiliated," but he ended up costing taxpayers 100 grand. He says it's worth it if it stops one child from being harmed by "mind-altering harmful ultra-violent video games." Burrell closes saying, "It is difficult for me to ignore the facts that explicitly sexual and ultra-violent video games are severely and adversely affecting our children's behavior." Sorry Roy, no facts, you just got Jack.[Via GamePolitics]
Moore: Don't focus on Xbox 360 failure, focus on repair
In a recent interview with Microsoft's Peter Moore, Mike Antonucci of the Mercury News had a portion of his interview dedicated to reader questions. The topic of the Xbox 360's failure rate was bound to come up. In a stunning display of spin typically reserved for only the best bad Sony news, Moore says consumers should focus on their treatment once their Xbox 360 fails, not the failure itself. Moore says, "I can't comment on failure rates, because it's just not something -- it's a moving target. What this consumer should worry about is the way that we've treated him. Y'know, things break, and if we've treated him well and fixed his problem, that's something that we're focused on right now. I'm not going to comment on individual failure rates because I'm shipping in 36 countries and it's a complex business."It's a moving target? It may be an ever increasing target (or decreasing target), but it's hardly moving. All it takes is the number of defective units sent in for repair, divided by units sold and voila ... a clear number. Nobody is screaming recall and owners have come to expect the Xbox 360's failure as part of the console's lore, but they're sticking to that 3% figure ... which works out to over 300K units, no small number.[Via 1UP]
Breakfast Topic: Failing to succeed
Over at Kill Ten Rats, Zubon has brought up an interesting point about failure. So you're the best tank, or the best rogue, or the best mage you can be. You've played this role game after game -- the class names have changed, but your playstyle hasn't. Says Zubon:You are stuck in your comfort zone. You need to go out there and fail. Try a lot of things. A lot. You will be lousy at most of them and you will do dumb things. But a few of them will really work for you.What do you think? Are you stuck in a rut in the gaming world? Maybe it's time to go out and try your hand at a new alt! [Fan art by Astrid Hansen]
