November 14, 2007 – 3:56 pm
Ever since the downtime for Xbox Live a couple days ago, Xbox.com has become increasingly annoying. It’s even slower than it was before (which is hard to accomplish). The other thing that really bugs me is having to put in my Windows Live password every single time I open a browser and load the page.
For the record, I’m not clearing or blocking cookies. I’ve tested this in Firefox, Opera, and Safari and am getting the same thing with all browsers. I haven’t tested IE, so anyone out there with Windows: please let me know how it goes there.
I thought these scheduled downtimes were improvements to the system? I was really expecting things to at least speed up.
October 9, 2007 – 1:38 pm
After just over 5 months, my Xbox 360 Elite has kicked the bucket. I get disk read errors on every disk I put in the tray, whether it’s a game, movie, or audio disk. Good times.
This marks my 6th Xbox 360 to die since launch day. Yes, my 6th. F’ing ridiculous.
I know some people are going to jump all over this in comments saying I treat it badly or whatever, but that is far from the case. My Xbox 360 has it’s own shelf in the entertainment center, with full ventilation from the front and rear. The power brick also sits on the shelf fully ventilated. The console is never moved when playing (in fact, it’s only moved a tiny bit once a week to dust). The console is kept perfectly clean, as are my other systems. I haven’t had any problems with my PS3 (save long install times) or my Wii. Never had problems with my PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube before that.
I guess I’ll be making a trip to Best Buy this afternoon to get this thing swapped out. Maybe #7 will be a lot luckier than the first 6 consoles I’ve gone through. At least I didn’t get the red ring of death again this time.
October 6, 2007 – 8:44 pm
If you grabbed a copy of Knocked Up on HD-DVD and are having troubles with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and getting this disc to even load, you’re not the only one. I spent a good hour tonight trying to get this disc to play, including a return trip to Best Buy because I thought I got a crap disc. I finally found a solution over at AVS Forum. The people over there are amazing.
- Go to the System blade
- Go down and select Memory
- Go down and Select HD Player (NOT Hard Drive)
- Go down to the bottom entry. More than likely, it will be the largest entry in the list. When the cookie is fully downloaded, it will be 11 MB in size. When I checked for the cookie, it was 1MB in size (at the time i stopped the download). [for me, it was the first in the list, but I deleted all entries in the HD-DVD drive]
- When you have found the entry, DELETE IT.
- Retry starting the movie and wait for the loading screen. When you see it, you will know you have succeeded.
Once you do that, the disc should load up fine and come to a loading screen where it will sit for about 10 minutes. Do NOT hit Cancel, because that will just mess up the cookie download, which will bring you back to the same point of the disc not playing.
Seriously, if either of the HD disc formats wants to win the format war, they need to stop making things so damn complicated for the average user.
October 5, 2007 – 11:49 am
Why is it that after every game or demo download from the PlayStation Store, you have to sit and install the file? I know it gets taken care of if you don’t download in the background, but who does that anymore? Queuing up downloads is a must, especially when there are lots of things you want.
So why after spending a long time downloading something do I have to spend 10 more minutes staring at the screen as the game slowly installs? You’re handcuffed while this going on, as you can’t do anything else on the console (and can’t cancel the process if you feel the need). Can’t Sony work this into the background downloading? I sincerely hope this is a feature that gets implemented in a future firmware update.
[Update] I’m not referring to installing Game Data when you first load a retail game disc. I’m talking about downloading titles from the PlayStation Store.
Yeah, Microsoft screwed this one up again. Or maybe it was a combination of Microsoft and Ubisoft. Either way, it’s another overpriced error on the Xbox Live Marketplace which does not bode well for Microsoft’s image.
The Rainbow Six: Vegas Black Pack was released last week to a bit of an uproar, as it was available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 MS Points ($10). It’s the same price as the previous Red Pack, which had much more to offer. After a couple days, the Black Pack mysteriously disappeared. Well, Major Nelson now sheds some light on the situation: the Black Pack should be free. Yes, free.
‘Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas Black Pack Downloadable Content for Xbox 360 Live was originally intended to be free content for the fans of Rainbow Six Vegas. We apologize for the error. All players who purchased the Black Pack will be reimbursed automatically.* The Black Pack will be posted Saturday June 30th and will be free of charge. Also, as a token of our appreciation for the Rainbow Six community, we are making the Red Pack free as of Friday July 6th as well. Thanks for playing and we hope you enjoy this free content.’
Glad the error is being corrected, although Microsoft is saying it’ll be 8-10 weeks to reimburse people who paid for the content. Giving away the Red Pack for free is a huge plus as well. I’ll be downloading these as soon as possible.
Oh how the PR spins fly. Dean Takahashi of the San Jose Mercury News recently grilled Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group, about all the hardware issues surrounding the Xbox 360.
Surprisingly to no one, Microsoft acts like nothing is going on. Holmdahl was pressed time and time again by Takahashi, but wouldn’t budge from his crystal palace.
When asked in business terms if a high defect rate would hurt the company’s bottom line, Holmdahl flat out denied that there’s any problem. “I would say we don’t have a high defect rate,” he said. “The vast majority of people are really excited about their product, and that we are targeting profitability for next year.”
Right. There’s no high defect rate. That’s why I’m on my 8th Xbox 360 since launch, and over 75% of people I’ve spoke with are at least on their 2nd box. Dean Takahashi should have just smacked the guy in the side of the head.
Microsoft is being investigated by the European Commission for Consumers about the disc scratching issues with the Xbox 360.
According the The Inquirer, there are apparantly over 1000 complaints from The Netherlands alone, and Commissioner Meglena Kuneva ” wants and expects Microsoft to respond to worldwide complaints about the problem.”
Well, Microsoft responded in their normal fashion, saying there’s absolutely no problems. In a statement to website MCV, Microsoft Belgium stated that it has responded to the inquiry and that scratched discs are likely to have been caused by ‘improper use’ of the console.
“If used properly, Xbox 360 consoles do not damage discs… there is no single root cause or systemic issue with any of the Xbox 360 consoles.”
I’m going to call shenanigans here. Come on Microsoft. If there really wasn’t a problem, why the bloody hell would you be replacing any scratched Xbox 360 games? You don’t just drop that kind of cash on replacements for something not being caused by your product.
I really hope that one day, Microsoft will come clean and admit how many problems the 360 is having. I’m not holding my breath though…
It seems there’s some major issues going on over at Microsoft and Bungie. Apparently, the servers won’t unlock the demo for those with Crackdown, so the majority of the beta users can’t download the file.
Yeah, I know, I posted three Halo 3 posts in a row, but it’s a big day in the Halo world, and there’s a lot of angry users out there right now.
Bungie is aware of the issue, and Frankie issued a statement:
With any luck this will be a short delay. People enetering the Beta through other methods - Friends and Family, Rule of Three and so on, are unaffected.
There’s some threads on the official Bungie forums stating that Xbox Support is telling users it will be a full 24 hours before the Halo 3 Beta will be available using Crackdown.
That’s some bravo sierra right there. You’d think that both Microsoft and Bungie would be ready for this?
There’s a few bugs in the most recent Dashboard Update for the Xbox 360.
The first bug is affecting Windows Live Messenger. If either your Xbox Live or Messenger account was setup prior to being age 18, you can’t use Messenger on your 360. I know someone who is currently 24 that can’t use his Messenger account on his 360 because it was setup when he was 17 years old.
The next bug is with the official wireless networking adapter. Users with the official wireless adapter are having problems auto signing in to Xbox Live. Changing from the wireless adapter to a wired connection solves the problem instantly, as does using a wireless bridge or third party wireless gaming adapter. Changing the auto sign-in options for both Live and Messenger to Enabled does not solve the problem.
In a call to Xbox Support today, they confirmed they are aware of both issues and are working on fixes. When they’ll be available, no one knows. I’d expect within a week or two.
Have you experienced these or other issues with the most recent dashboard update? Let us know in the comments.
So here’s a nice little problem with the transfer process for the 120GB hard drive on the Xbox 360 (thank you to a friend who lent me his transfer cable). While transferring data, if you disconnect anything, the process stops and dumps you back to the dashboard. This includes HDMI handshaking when using the Elite.. So if you change the input on your TV or turn off your TV, the process stops. I found out the hard way after an hour of watching some crap on my DVR.
I guess I’ll have to switch over to component video while I’m transferring the data over, so I don’t have to leave the TV sitting with a nice static image for an hour.
Hey Microsoft… can you please make some of these processes easier?
