Maybe this time I should send my XBox back in little tiny pieces

The BBQ Pit
1

So about two weeks ago we got the dreaded Red Ring of Death. Just about everyone I know who has an XBox 360 has had this happen, so I was unnaturally calm about it. Hey, it’s under warranty, they’ll pay for the shipping. No biggie. Work’s been taking over some evenings of mine and the stepson needs to bear down on homework more anyway.

We followed the course of the package from here to Texas and back. Of course UPS had to come here when I was at work, but I was able to pick up the XBox at the depot, no problem. Look, they even gave us a card for a free month of XBox Live, how thoughtful of them. So ends this happy little story.

No.

We got the XBox back on Monday. The stepson played for a little bit on Tuesday, and all seemed well. Yesterday evening he fired up Skate 2 for a bit of grinding. I watched him put the disk in and tygre and I started chatting. One minute later we heard a BZZZZZT! from the TV.

Red ring of death.

The stepson had played for about 15 minutes, tops, since we got it back. We hadn’t played at all.

OK, time to call Microsoft. “Oh, this almost never happens,” they lie. Send it back to us and we might send you back a new one. Maybe.

Hey, what about the disk still in the XBox? The one that wouldn’t eject when the RRoD appeared again? “Oh, you can find out how to get the drive open by following the instructions on our website.” Right. Two hours of fiddling, checking YouTube examples, learning that there are really three different types of drive (and we happen to have the most difficult one to open manually), bending paperclips, trying to balance a flashlight between my head and shoulder, and the drive popped open like magic!

With the disk still stuck inside.

What an assload of fuck! Fuck you XBox!

2

That sucks dude. When my 360 got the RRoD I pissed as hell. It was cool though because I bought the machine used on eBay and the machine they sent back was either brand new or refurbed to brand new.

3

Regular nintendos required you to blow them, xbox360s just suck.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

4

You’d think after 4 years of making them Microsoft would’ve gotten whatever the problem with these things is sorted out. Continuously selling a product with a 30%+ failure rate can’t be helping the Microsoft brand.

5

Ummmm… Windows? Internet Exploder?

6

Typically, I find that it is not the product, but the user in these examples.

7

Oh come on. The Red Ring Of Death is named after the Blue Screen Of Death. Do you not remember the Blue Screen? That shit would just come out of nowhere.

8

While I’m sure we’ve all had problems with Windows and IE, neither of those just completely stops working in 30% of cases.

And in the case of windows, at least, after a service pack or two, most of the major problems are usually fixed. That’s why I was surprised that after 4 years, Microsoft hasn’t fixed whatever the hell the problem is with the 360. Endlessly having to process returns and send out new units for free has got to be costing them a minor fortune, even to the point where redesigning the consul would save them money.

9

Haven’t seen a blue-screen in years. Even so, the product wouldn’t be broken and unusable, just needed a reset.

10

OK, the disk is out of the machine, and the box is on its way to Mesquite, TX.

Now we wait. And play NetHack when we can’t sleep.

11

I don’t understand what can be so critical that it grinds the hardware to a screeching halt.

An XBox 360 is just a glorified computer with a special interface and controllers, isn’t it?

12

Basically, yeah. I believe (based on half-recalled rumors) the problem with the 360 is that there isn’t nearly enough cooling, so it overheats to the point that some of the solder starts melting off the motherboard. Grinding the hardware to a screeching halt.

13

We got a 3/4 red ring yesterday. Weirdest thing. We were able to turn it on and use it for another half hour, and were sure to take the disc out before turning it off again. Now we don’t really know what to do. It’s pretty clear that a new machine is needed- it’s been randomly restarting for about a week now- but I was thinking that rather than dealing with a return to Microsoft we might be able to do a trade in at Gamestop, and pay a little to get a refurbished console. When Gamestop gets a trade in they return it to Microsoft for a refurbish anyway, right? Is this a possibly unethical thing to do?

14

When I worked at GameStop, they were sending their defective consoles taken in for trade to their own warehouse to be refurbished. The failure rates on GameStop’s refurbished consoles was really bad, I’d avoid refurbished at all costs.

GameStop employees are also supposed to test every system taken in before accepting a trade-in. They’ll turn it on, play for five minutes, and if they don’t see any problems, they’ll accept it. Used systems (without hard drives) are immediately put back on the shelves and sold to customers. Whoever buys your system, if they have the same problems, will be able to return it to the store, so no one is really screwed in the deal. Not unethical in my book, go for it.

15

Nintendo dominates this generation, and a lot of that has to do with PS3’s high price points and the RRoD. There are multiple reasons why certain models are failing, when you send it in once, they fix ‘a’ problem. My friend got a new one after his second incident. It must cost Microsoft a fortune. Nintendo’s manufacturing costs make them a profit, while the other two are just trying to save face for the coming generation by being #2. I’m a Nintendo fan, but with the lack of competition, they’re taking their damn time to do things that should have been done year-one. RRoD is really unfortunate.

16

Just doing a back of the envelope estimate, according to wiki, there have been 30 million 360 units sold. If the failure rate is really one-third, then that’s 10 million bad units for Microsoft to replace. I don’t know how much it costs to replace a unit with a new machine, but I’d think at least 50$ and probably closer to 100, given the things retail for something like 200$ (and even then are supposedly sold at a loss) and Microsoft pays for the shipping when you return it.

So that means they’ve lost on the order of 500 million dollars to the red ring of death. Not to mention the cost to the brand for gaining a reputation for being unreliable. Gonna have to sell a lot of copies of Halo to make that up.

17

The xbox 360 and the PS3 are/were sold at a loss. The actual losses for Microsoft then are in the order of billions of dollars.

That’s a LOT of HALO they have to sell.

18

PS3 for example is said to lose about $100 per console, NOW. They were probably losing more than that a year or two ago. They’ve sold a bit over 20 million I think world wide. That’s AT LEAST $2,000,000,000 in losses minimum. It’s probably more like twice that. And that doesn’t count all the money they spend on servers and marketing and all the other associated expenses. The story for Microsoft is similar. And they also have to pay for all of the repairs/replacements.

I’m telling you, nintendo is nothing short of brilliant.

19

Duh. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

PS3s also have a high failure rate? Interesting. I did notice that my housemate’s PS3 couldn’t be put on the shelf, since it would eventually overheat, even though there was an inch of space between the exhaust vent and the particleboard.

All in all, the Wii does seem much better put together, and is never hot to the touch, though I think that’s a direct result of using a slower processor (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given the Wii’s gaming market)