I’m on my 9th Xbox 360. After 5 dead Premium systems since launch, I decided to spring for an Elite, with the hopes of better hardware. I was sadly mistaken, as I’ve gone through 3 Elites so far, with my 4th and current being a Falcon. I’ve had this one for two months now and haven’t had any issues. The reason I keep coming back, aside from the games (which I’ll touch on in a second), is the fact that I purchased the Best Buy warranty with both systems and have been able to swap it in store with no issue.
The games are really the reason I keep coming back. Exclusive titles like Gears of War, Ninja Gaiden 2, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Dead Rising, etc. are more than enough reason for me to want to keep the console. I’ve also built up a good list of friends over the past five and a half years.
I think what’s happened here is I’m afraid of my Xbox 360. Not afraid of it coming to life and killing me like a Transformer, but of it kicking the bucket again. I baby my Xbox 360’s, but have been hit with RRoD after RRoD, followed by disc read error after disc read error. Because of all the problems I’ve had, I make sure not to leave the system on idle after playing and get nervous during long gaming sessions about what might happen, causing me to save very frequently in games with that type of support.
The recent Xbox Live outages have hit home as well, as every Arcade title I had purchased at the time of the outage was on different consoles. This put a damper on things over the holidays as a few family members visiting wanted to play Street Fighter 2 and Geometry Wars, of which I could only fire up the demos due to DRM issues. I can say I was upset it went down, but nowhere near the level of many people on the internet calling for Microsoft’s head on a platter. Yes we pay for the service, and yes it was busiest time of the year for gaming, but I had other things that could occupy my time, so I wasn’t enraged.
More often than not, because of my experiences, I tend to look to the PS3 for my multi-platform titles. I’ve run my 60GB launch PS3 almost 24/7 for months (Folding@Home when not gaming) without an issue. The only problem I have there is with big online titles, where my friends list on PS3 just doesn’t match up to what I have on Xbox Live. In those situations, I weigh the options and make a decision based on old friends vs. new friends. Most of the time I end up going with the Xbox 360 version to play with everyone I already know.
Here-in lies a problem that I’ve faced a few times because of this. I’ve been called a PS3 fanboy for purchasing multi-platform titles like Devil May Cry 4 and Rock Band for the PS3, which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not that I don’t like the 360, it’s that I just don’t trust the hardware to hold up to the rigorous gaming marathons I tend to expose it to. I honestly have nothing against the platform, I love the time I spend with it.
I think until Microsoft really irons out the hardware issues (because Falcons are still having problems, but to nowhere the level of previous hardware revisions), there will continue to be public outcries from both gamers that have been devastated by a broken system as well of fanboys on the other side of the fence.
Don’t hold your breath for a reliable 360. It took MS 18 months to admit to a ‘potential problem’ and increase their waranty from 90 days to 1 yr to 3 yrs (only on RRoD issues mind you). And it still sells and still breaks. No consumer watchdog group has even bothered to address this issue so why would MS bother making a reliabel console? Consumers have decided that a crapy product is ok with them (at least in the Americas).
What I can’t understand is, after 9 xboxes… do you need those games that badly.. I’ve only had one 360 and thank goodness no problems yet and it is relatively new as of 2007 x-mas, but i’ve had a PS3 and Wii for much longer and they are reliable as ever so far and I love them both. In fact I play my PS3 the most and being a general vid game lover, I can honestly say it is severely underestimated and downplayed. It’s a phenominal piece of machinery on all levels. But time and time again shows that ppl are willing to keep on going back to the big MS for something that keeps breaking down and I cannot understand that. I mean if mine breaks down it does and for real this time i will loose faith in the 56 billion dollar man mister gates… rather than take 500 dollars from my pocket and submit it to a extremely rich man who is so greedy he would rather rush to beat another company and throw you a sometimes working machine… i would stick to the ever so reliable Sony and Nintendo and anyone else that could do the job right…. (Sega rest in peace on the console front, poor, poor marketing and circumstances)… By the way. Way to go and extra kudos to Sony for sticking it out and believeing in a format called blu-ray. You guys had a dream and now you will reap the benefits. Mister Gates is rich enough, he’s gotta learn to play nice in the play ground and share amongst his peers. Hopefully next time around he will make an x-box that is not going to break down on ppl who work so hard to support his dream… Get it right!
I got mine in march of 06 I never had an issues played many hours on it until November of last year it got the red ring of death when I turned it on. I called Microsoft and they had it replaced within two week, and have no problems so far on my second console.
Tom
I had mine since near-launch times and I have not got the RRoD, once but I restared the console and he was just fine.
I got my 360 5 months after aunch, and it still works fine. It’s a Core with al the bells and whistles (cost me what a premium would’ve cost at the time). If it craps out, I’ll get it fixed and then trade the sucker in and be done with it. I am at a point where I hold no loyalties to any console. My console loyalties died with the Dreamcast.
It normally would overheat whenever it feels like it. I worry about leaving it on for longer than an hour cause I feel like after all the times it has overheat it might just blow up. I bought that “intercooler” which does absolutely nothing for it, at least in my opinion. My 360 decided that it will lock up every time I’m in the middle of an extreme battle, race, or gun fire. Thanks XBOX for making a system that the only thing you’re good for is online game play. PS3…. FTW!
First I’d like to say that was a nice writeup you’ve done. Secondly, i’ve had 2 RROD in 6 months and was just recently hit with a RROD last week. It really put me into a rage, as i don’t play the console a lot, i had rocked on with some GH3 the night before, turned it on the next morning and it was RROD without warning.
Now i have both a 360 and ps3, and for various reasons, I like games on both sides of the fence.
What i don’t understand is this, with such a horrible failure rate on the hardware, why there isn’t more uprise agains M$ I mean come on, we bought this console to play games on, not baby them so they don’t break, making sure we turn them off right away, make sure we don’t move them with a disc in. God forbid you want to change the location of it in your entertainment stand, oh look it’s gouged my disc and wont read anything anymore.
I guess what I’m saying is Microsoft should be ashamed of the product they’ve offered and with creating their next console, should strive to have the reliability that clearly Nintendo and Sony can offer.
Until there is enough consumers showing they are unhappy, they will just keep providing us with a POS.
I HAD TO REPLACE TWO XBOX360 AND ON MY THIRD I BOUGHT A COOLING FAN FOR IT. THE NYKO FOR LIKE 20 BUCKS AND HAVENT HAD A PROBLEM SINCE. THE FAN DOES KEEP IT COOL AND I PLAY FOR HOURS SO I WOULD KNOW FIRST HAND. NOW I HAVE A ELITE SINCE NOV AND I HAVE A FAN ON THAT AND ITS BEEN WORKING FINE FOR ME. PEOPLE NEED TO REALISE THAT THE MAIN PROBLEM IS THE OVERHEATING ISSUE .. DONT THAT RING A BELL.. GET A FAN PEOPLE IT WORKS. THE GUYS AT GAMESTOP TELL ME THAT THEY ALWAYS RECOMMEND ANYONE WHO BUYS AN XBOX360 TO GET A FAN. SO THERE IS YOUR SOLUTION.. BUY A FAN!!
@Spanishfly – your use of caps is astounding, that aside, I agree a fan does help but it is not the ultimate solution as my second unit died with the extra fan/cooler on it. I do suggest for any 360 owner to have an extra external fan though.
DID YOU HAVE THE NYKO FAN THAT POPS IN THE BACK OF YOUR 360?? THAT THING IS POWERFUL ITS LOUD BUT IT KEEPS IT COOL.. SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS I WANT PEOPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO MY POST.
My co-worker bought a 360 and the extended warranty. It died and he sent it back for another one. The 2nd 360 that was sent also started to have issues. The DVD drive died. When he tried to get them to honor the warranty they said the 360 was tampered with and would not honor the warranty. The found scratch marks around the screw holes. This was something that was there before he got it. And something they should have caught. They also didn’t have any record of the original 360 that was sent back. Luckily he saved the emails. Still they wouldn’t honor the warranty claiming that he was the one who messed up the second 360.
Horror stories like this make me not want to buy a 360.
Wow how did you screw up all of those xbox360s I have only had the ring of death once before. I pulled off the hard drive durring gameplay…
It’s simple, he’s lying!
I LOVE MY 360 I LOVE THE GAMES AND MOST OF ALL THE ONLINE PLAY. I DONT SEE WHY EVERYONE IS PRAISING THE PLAYSTATION 3. I DONT THINK ANYONE IS GOING TO GET ANY BETTER EXPERIENCE ON ANOTHER CONSOLE. NOW I WILL BE GETTING A PS3 AND A WII WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH. BUT REALLY IT WILL ONLY BE PLAYED FOR EXCLUSIVE GAME LIKE MGS, TEKKEN, SUPER SMASH BRO AND SO FORTH. NOT TO MENTION I JUST BOUGHT A HDTV, SO FOR THE BLUERAY ALSO.
@ Spanishfly – indeed the nykos snap on fan, works like a charm, but it is pretty loud, I just drown it out with surround sound gaming, hehehe.
A fan is not the solution. And neither is caps lock, so knock it off. You shouldn’t have to go out and buy a third party product to ensure your console won’t die. It’s like buying a car, with the dealer telling you that you need to go buy this FlowMax exhaust of your car will probably overheat and stop working within a year.
Any add-on is never, and will never be a solution. To anyone who thinks it is, I’m sorry you’ve been duped into thinking that.
@ AL ZAMORA – YEA ME TOO I JUST BOUGHT A 61INCH SAMSUNG 1080P DLP AND A SAMSUNG 1200WATT SURROUND SOUND SO YEA I WILL BE DEAF PRETTY SOON..LOL
@MATT BANKS – IM JUST SAYING IF IT WORKS GO WITH IT.. CALM DOWN.. YOU PROBABLY MAD BECAUSE YOU BOUGHT A PS3 AND HAVE NO GOOD GAMES TO PLAY FOR IT. HEY I GOT A WEBSITE FOR YOU THAT MIGHT HELP http://WWW.YOUGOTF**KBYSONY.COM.. COMPLAIN TO THEM THEY MIGHT GIVE YOU A REFUND.
Spanishfly, wow, seriously. You are the retarded offspring of six monkeys having butt-sex with a squirrel. How stupid can one person be? You are a grade-A Xbot. Why don’t you take Microsoft’s penis out of your mouth for a bit before you start bashing Sony and the PS3. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about when you say “YOU BOUGHT A PS3 AND HAVE NO GOOD GAMES TO PLAY FOR IT.”
That is pretty hilarious that you think he got “f**k by sony” when MS is doing the same to thousands of their customers with the RRoD. MS rushed the 360 and the result was bad hardware. The 360 will never even compare to the greatness of the PS3. It’s only advantage is software which they had a 1 year head start on.
You, and others like you, are the reason that 360 fanboys seem like retarded piece of shit prepubescent teens.
Ok, SpanishFly… why I’m responding, I don’t know. But here goes… (maybe I should do this in all caps so people will think I’m cool)…
I own every system, as I should being the Editor-in-Chief of fairly large gaming website. In case you didn’t realize, thats who I am and I wrote this Editorial.
Second, there are plenty of games to play on PS3, as with the Xbox 360. The Wii, that’s another discussion.
Your blatant fanboy-ism has put blinders on you. I’m not partial to any company or system, but you definitely are. Let’s see how it would be if the shoe was on the other foot. It it was the PS3 having tons of hardware problems and gamers there had to buy a 3rd party accessory to make sure their console wouldn’t die, how quickly would you be jumping all over that? My guess is very very soon.
So why don’t you calm down, like you so brashly told me to do, and realize that your beloved console of choice isn’t perfect. None of them are. They all have strong pros and cons.
It doesn’t matter where your unfounded loyalties lie, as this is a recounting of my experiences and those of people I speak with on a regular basis.
Of the people I know who have an Xbox 360, no-one has had the “red-ring” failure, including a friend who has a launch model. What I have observed from the posts is there are a few individuals with multiple failures (ie 5 ) and then the majority with none or occassionally one. I’m curious how this occurs. As with any mass produced product, some will fail. Even if one out every two Xbox 360s failed, your chances of having eight of your own Xboxs fail eight times are less than four in a thousand. That’s amazingly low odds, and realistically, the failure rate of the Xbox 360 is much, much less (it would be off the market otherwise). So really, the chances of this ocurring are probably less than 1 in millions. Now, I recognize that since millions of Xbox 360s have sold this could realistically occur. What everyone else must consider is that if this were entirely random fault, it is a rare anomaly being reported by a vocal few. However, considering the observation I have made above about reported failures (none, one, or way too many), I have to wonder if the repeat failures are not due to some characteristic of its use. Case in point, my Pioneer receiver has served me well for almost 8 years and I bought it used. It is a well engineered device. However, it is hot and if I placed it on the carpet or in a tight shelf with a door over it, it would overheat and shut down. These things have operating perameters. Unlike the entirely solid state consoles of the past (ie cartridge based), having a disc drive as well as the increased memory and processing power generates more heat and you cannot place the machine just anywhere. Any computer afficianado knows this. I believe us console gamers learned this lession with the original Playstation, a console with a 2X CD-Rom and about one thousandth, if not less, the processing power.
WOW..OKKAYYYY.. SOMEBODY HATES ME.. LOOK IM BUYING A PS3 TODAY AND IM GOING TO PICK UP LIKE 3 GAMES BECAUSE I WANNA SEE THIS GREATNESS YOUR TALKING ABOUT… BUT IM SURE THE ONLY GREATNESS IM GOING TO SEE IS IN THE BLURAY. BUT REALLY IM NOT A FAN BOY. IM GOING TO BUY ALL SYSTEMS AND DO WHAT I DO BEST AND THATS KICKING A** ONLINE. I CANT WAIT FOR TEKKEN AND SMASH BROS. OH AND GEARS 2
I don’t want to offend anyone who’s a fan of any console. Matt Banks is right all systems has its pros and cons. Surely and slowly I will be picking up the sony and nintendo. Im just really enjoying my 360 games as im sure I will feel the same about other games on the other platforms.
All this time I thought your caps key was just broken.
what the hell are you doing to your boxes? There are a couple trends I’ve noticed to 360’s dying; poor circulation, people stand them vertically, or they are smokers… My launch one just finally gave out. The other is no other electronics should be near it for heat disappation purposes. I suggest you take these steps to prolong your usuage, even though microsoft has said nothing of it…
Yeah, I’m a little scared actually – inexplicably one of my Bioshock save files is somehow corrupted or otherwise defunct. The other 3 are fine, but when you try to load this specific one I get some ridiculous error message that “the storage device has been removed” which is clearly untrue. So in the back of my head I think – “Is this how it starts? Will I be red ringing soon?”. Not that I think there would necessarily be any connection, but even without out and out hardware failure, I’ve experienced numerous glitches like this that really just punch my confidence about the hardware in the gut.
Got mine on May 06
I got busted on August 06 ;(
Im on my third 360, first PS3, first wii, first PSP and first DS
tsk tsk MS (and yes I fear playing my 360 o.o)
I feel for you, Matt… I know, the problem with Xbox360 is the hardware, not the software. So many people don’t understand this, they keep telling you why do u still go back to Xbox360, why not buy a PS3?
Yes, PS3 is a great gaming maching, for it is a well manufactured piece of hardware. It has some great games. But, does it have the games that we like to play? Does our friends play the same games?
It’s not about which hardware is better. It’s totally not about that. I hate the reliability issues Xbox360 have, but I love the games. I hate it when everytime I turn on my Xbox360, I fear i will face the RROD. I hate that feeling, but again I love the games…
Well, just my 2 cents here, I don’t think we need to pledge any loyalty to any of the corporations. We choose what we like, and we respect what other people like…
Ive been called a ps3 fan boy on many occasions, i had an xbox, and was planning on stepping up to the 360 after a while of them being out to give it time to work our bugs, the said thing is it never seems to have worked out those bugs, there is so many game on the 360 id like to purchase, but i dont trust microsoft becuae they cant seem to fix issues even when there right in there face
No hate here, I just thought I would present another perspective on the issue. I personnally plan to eventually have both consoles. And my reason is the games. I will probably buy the 360 first because I really want to play Halo 3. That said, I was blown away when I saw the new Ratchet and Clank game on the PS3 at Best Buy about two months ago. I have been a fan of both series, and realistically as a fan of video games in general I often get both sides of the competition, just as soon as the price meets my funding level.
Ok, does anyone know that the RRoD effect your hard drive itself along with your gamertag and all your saves or just your 360 console??
nbght