Well Dean Takahashi wrote a mind-blowing article about the truth that leads to Xbox 360 hardware failure or we called it RRoD (Red Ring of Death). The story is also talking about Chris Szarek’s experience of being Microsoft fanboy who spent more than $1,000 on his games, but his beloved Xbox 360 is turned out to be failed.
Takahashi said :
The quality problem negated much of the advantage of going first, and it has delayed the company’s plan to aggressively market the console and slash its prices. (Microsoft disputes this point; it cut the price of all three versions of its Xbox consoles by $50 to $79 on Wednesday. And the company believes it will sell more boxes than Sony will. But prices ought to be lower still during this stage of the console life cycle). That has stopped the company from reaching the broader market of consumers that Nintendo has won over. It has lowered its ambitions, hoping instead just to get a clear edge on third-placed Sony. The future profits that the company once hoped for are now likely to wind up in Nintendo’s pockets.
Microsoft’s top game executive, Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices group, said at a dinner in July that Microsoft’s own research shows that gamers have largely forgiven the company for defective Xbox 360s. Microsoft has still sold more Xbox 360 consoles than Sony to date. But there is no doubt that the company has lost considerable good will among gamers. Before Microsoft offered free replacements, connsumers grumbled that they had to turn to forums, such as those on Ars Technica, to vent and to find solutions to problems that the company didn’t openly discuss. And for a couple of months now, Sony’s PlayStation 3 has been outselling the Xbox 360 in the U.S. for the first time.
I asked Microsoft to confirm or deny 35 different facts contained in this story. Instead, I received a formal statement from a Microsoft spokesperson, saying the company had already acknowledged an “unacceptable number of repairs” to Xbox 360 consoles and responded to the hardware failures with a free replacement program. The statement also said, “This topic has already been covered extensively in the media. This new story repeats old information, and contains rumors and innuendo from anonymous sources, attempting to create a new sensational angle, and is highly irresponsible.”
On Gizmodo site, the author said:
In an Aug. 30, 2005 memo, the team reported overheating graphics chip, cracking heat sinks, cosmetic issues with the hard disk drive and the front of the box, under-performing graphics memory chips from Infineon (now Qimonda), a problem with the DVD drive, and other things.
To be honest, the first reason I hates 360 is because of RRoD even it just got fixed on newer unit or MS gimme free repair on hardware failure. It’s made me not to trust MS and that damn xbox 360. In short word, I rather like PS3 than 360, at least there’s less than 1 percent for the hardware to fail. I don’t want to pay $299 and waiting ’til it’s fixed or pay fee for a replacement.
Anyway, I don’t mean I want you all to hates MS and buy Wii or PS3 instead. You have right to choose it… err, well anything have pros/cons on itself. You might want Xbox 360 because it’s cheap and save your budget. But my guess is if you pay more a bit, you won’t have shed the tears.
What do you think of this story? Would you consider to get other console instead of 360?
Source: VentuerBeat via Gizmodo
