Showing posts with label 3 Red Rings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3 Red Rings. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Evil Rears it's Ugly Head Once Again

Four pages of nonsense, enjoy.

Blah, blah, blah. The system's still defective, you're still a piece of shit, your customers are still good at taking shit, and so on and so forth.

...BIZ: It's a bit ironic, because when MS first got into the console business, critics laughed because MS is a software company at its core. It's not in the business of creating hardware. Now the company has discovered some faulty design in its 360 hardware, seemingly proving the critics right. What do you say to those critics?

PM: Those critics need to do their homework and look at some of the hardware product failures that this industry has seen in the past 30 years that maybe have not got as much publicity...


Here's a history lesson for you; I bought and Xbox in 2001, IT STILL WORKS TODAY. No one will say the same about the 360, it's disposable.

The 360 is ass-backwards, it lacks a standard HDD, it's unreliable, it's cheaply made and no matter how much duct tape and patches are thrown at it, it's still garbage. What good are games if the system breaks so much that you can't even play them?

When the 360 fails, you know who to blame. Microsoft and Microsoft alone are at fault for all the faults within the system, truly the most brilliant minds in the world are the ones who lack the most common sense. The PS3 is reliable and customers won't keep taking shit forever and will pay the little bit extra for the convenience of not having to going a MONTH without their system WHEN it breaks down again.

MS is just lucky that their customers are braindead tools and the June 07 NPD sales just solidify that:

Top SKU's June 2007
01. Wii Mario Party 8 -- 426.k
02. Wii Play w/ remote -- 291.2k
03. NDS Pokemon Diamond Version -- 288.4k
04. NDS Pokemon Pearl Version -- 214.7k
05. 360 Forza Motorsport 2 -- 197.40k
06. PS2 Guitar Hero 2 w/ Guitar -- 197.35k
07. 360 Guitar Hero 2 w/ guitar -- 177.6k
08. Wii Pokemon Battle -- 157.9k
09. Wii Resident Evil 4
10. 360 The Darkness
11. PS2 Naruto Ultimate Ninja 2
12. PS2 Transformers: the Game
13. 360 Tenchu Z
14. NDS New Super Mario Bros
15. PS2 Tomb Raider: Anniversary
16. Wii Super Paper Mario
17. 360 Transformers: The Game
18. PS2 MLB '07: The Show
19. Wii Big Brain Academy: Wii
20. 360 Dirt


Tenchu Z outsells DiRT, wtf?

XBLA users aren't that bright either:
Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Bomberman LIVE
2 Sonic The Hedgehog
3 Golden Axe
4 Texas Hold 'em
5 Yie Ar Kung-Fu
6 UNO
7 Worms
8 Double Dragon
9 TMNT 1989 Arcade
10 Carcassonne


Dear all 360 owners, stop wasting money on CRAP you won't touch after a week, donate it and feed a starving child, not a hungry publisher.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Six Reasons The Xbox 360 Is in Trouble

GamePro states the obvious.

The number one reason is:
1. It's unreliable. As Microsoft finally acknowledged this month, Xbox 360s fail more often than the company "is comfortable with." Some reports pin the "Red Ring of Death" failure rates as high as 33%. As a result, Microsoft increased the system's warranty from one to three years at a sizable and appreciated expense, but the company's unwillingness to fully disclose what's causing the problem undermines the solution. Gamers don't want to risk $300-400 at the chance to play games on 360, they want to make sure it can and will play games for years to come. Pile on the recent class-action lawsuits claiming that the machine scratches discs at random, and it becomes clear that the Xbox 360 isn't nearly as dependable as it could be.

If only 360 owners had more brains than money, something might actually get done instead of buying fucking pictures on Live and defending a defective product.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

N'Gai Croal says Recall the 360!

N'Gai Croal says recall the 360!

The Newsweek Level Up man with the dreads has lambasted MS for the 360's faults.

"...Again, if Bach is correct and this is problem is truly design-related rather than manufacturing-related, and Microsoft still can't or won't be more forthcoming, then it should either institute a general product recall, or offer to completely replace any Xbox 360 whose model numbers come from those batches with this design flaw.

We say this for three reasons. First, it took Microsoft months to acknowledge the scope of the problem, long after afflicted Xbox 360 owners were already complaining loudly, attempting to identify the issue, and desperately inventing homegrown remedies. So to finally have Microsoft admit that, yes, there is a problem, is much like a wife who's found lipstick on her husband's collar; strange numbers in his mobile phone; and unspecified charges on his credit card. When he finally admits that, yes, he has been cheating, she's going to feel relieved that, thank god, she isn't crazy. But to simply have that acknowledged, accompanied by a bouquet of flowers, some chocolates and a promise never to stray again, is unlikely to restore said wife's trust. Microsoft needs to issue a full and frank accounting of what took place rather than the modified limited hangout wrapped in an extravagant display of remorse that we've seen thus far.


The system is defective. The time has long passed and before Halo 3 hits, MS must do something more than apply a giant band-aid to cover a gaping wound. It's infected, festering and about to mutate into something horrid.

It's a system that costs just $6 to manufacture, it was rushed out in 2005 and they just cut too many costs to try and make a profit. MS cheaps out, we pay and now they have to pay. You'd think we could go one console generation without having one turd of a system.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Why the 360 failed (I could've told you that)

The 360 failed because it's cheap, no shit Sherlock

"Asian Xbox 360 manufacturers are blaming poor console design, cheap components and a lack of testing coupled with a manic obsession by Microsoft to beat Sony as the reasons for the Xbox 360 "Red Ring Of Death" problems."

Wow, a system rushed out of the gate in 2005 with a tard pack, cheap components, $6 manufacturing cost, a jet engine inside it and cheap plastic on the outside isn't the best piece of hardware out there? I'm not surprised. The Xbox was a surprisingly stable piece of hardware last-gen, but then again, they had a lot to prove. The people in charge of the first Xbox were a lot smarter and more idealistic. They didn't want it to be like the PS2, something that kept breaking down and was unreliable.

So when MS wanted to try and win this generation, they copied the PS2 to a T. I guess they missed the memo where it said they shouldn't have copied the shitty hardware. Oh well, let MS do what they always do, ignore, deny and patch, patch, patch!

Thursday, July 5, 2007

3 year warranty for 3 red rings doesn't make 360 more reliable

Well, the 360's been out for almost two years. It's unreliable, loud, clunky and cheaply made. Y'know, things break still applies just as much now as it did in 2005. So what does MS do? Well, they're patching hardware by adding a new GPU heatsink and extended the warranty! You can smell that pungent aroma from a looming class-action lawsuit permeating the internet...

That's right, because 360's are continuing to break down and MS is overwhelmed with dead systems, they're extending the warranty. The warranty which used to be 90 days, which was extended to 1 year, has now been extended to 3 years. So at least you're covered when the system breaks again.

Now, this sounds fine and all, but there's still the whole process of sending a dead system and receiving a working system. Today, I just got my system back, 31 days after I had sent it in! So if you don't mind waiting a month with no system, while you wait for MS to repair it, then you're golden.

Warranty Update Information
An Open Letter from Petey Moore

An Open Letter From Peter Moore

An Open Letter From PeteyMooreproblems

"To our Xbox Community:

You've spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we've not been doing a good enough job.

Some of you have expressed frustration with the customer experiences you have had with Xbox 360; frustration with having to return your console for service after receiving the general hardware error message on the console.

The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles have had a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out. But when anyone questions the reliability of our product, or our commitment to our customers, it's something I take very seriously.

We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console.

We are also implementing some important policy changes intended to keep you in the game, worry-free.

As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.

If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.

This will take a few days to roll out globally, and I appreciate your continued patience as we launch this program. I've posted an FAQ that should address some additional questions, and we'll update it over the next few days.

I want to thank you, on behalf of all us at Microsoft, for your loyalty.
"

Stop apologizing and get off your ass and make a system that doesn't break. There will be no magic Peter Moore pixie fairies fixing all the 360s in the world, the system is unchanged... A 3-year warranty is really just a band-aid, albeit a large one. Is just wanting to play games too much to ask? The system is not any more reliable than it was, the 2nd GPU heatsink is a 'hardware patch' and the 3 red rings will be the final boss of Halo 3.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

"1/3 Ain't Bad" - Future Peter Moore Quote

"EB Games held conference calls for its Canadian stores informing them of the extended warranty policy changes and revealing alarming failure rates of the Xbox 360. “The real numbers were between 30 to 33 percent,” said former EB Games employee Matthieu G., adding that failure rate was even greater for launch consoles."

read more | digg story

Been waiting a month for my 2nd dead system to come back, double the wait the first time it broke. It's just annoying as hell having a $400 piece of electronics equipment that can die randomly, not to mention the $480 version isn't even any safer, plus they still haven't fixed the d-pad.

MS cheaped out, (yet sells us pictures at pure profit) and we all have to suffer for their mistakes. The Core pack was an ominous sign more people should have paid attention to. Unfortunately for us, hardware quality didn't seem like a high priority compared to a 2005 launch and being able to turn a profit within 2 years.

In addition to getting great games this fall, the PS3 is a more capable machine with a solid design, Blu-ray's larger disc space and a standard hard drive. The Wii is just unstoppable and MS is helping keep it that way.

Inconvenience = unhappy consumers who will not stay loyal forever.
"1/3 Ain't Bad" - Future Peter Moore Quote
"Less than 2/5 of 360 owners are disappointed" - Future Peter Moore Quote
"Halo 3 won't hit PC for a couple years" - Future Peter Moore Quote
"You get what you pay for" - Future Kaz Hirai Quote

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thousands of 360s dying daily

1500-2500 dead 360s PER DAY!?

Microsoft’s UK repair centre in Havant is now redistributing faulty consoles to foreign repair centres in order to clear an overwhelming backlog and keep up with the 1,500 to 2,500 Xbox 360s arriving at its doors on a daily basis, according to customer reports.

I tried searching for words, but there are none. Absolutely none.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Lucky Number 12

11 dead systems, there are no words.

I applaud his patience. Unfortunately for MS, not all 360 owners are going to be this patient. By not acting now, they are only continuing to shoot themselves in the foot and further tarnish the Xbox brand name.

At least he has a PS3, so he's got something to play while he waits for his 360 to come back from repairs time and time again. What a joke of a system MS delivered and it's nobody's fault, but theirs when they lose the console war. Damn shame, because there's so much potential. The tard pack was the first sign that all was not right in the land of Xbox 360 and it's only been downhill from there, cheap bastards.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Todd Halmdahl Dodgy Interview

Here's another piece of shit at Microsoft demonstrating poor business ethics, spitting in customers faces.


Bullshit interview with Todd Halmdahl

Now, a 'professional' response to this genuine 'great' guy:
"...Q: I’m sure you’ve seen some of these complaints that we’ve written about from the guy who went through seven machines. There are a lot of people posting on the blog saying they still have problems. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the quality of the Xbox 360 isn’t there. How can you paint the bigger picture for me there?
A: We’re very proud of the box. We think the vast majority of people are having just a great experience. You look at the number of games they are buying, the number of accessories they are buying, the Live attach. They love the box. They continue to buy the box. That said, we take any customer issue very seriously. We continue to look into these things very deeply. You have seen we have made some changes to our customer service policy.

Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?
A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it."


He dodges questions with elegance and finesse, no wonder they picked him, after all, he does have all the answers.

"...Q: I’ve heard varying accounts of what is considered a normal return rate. Some people say that 2 percent is normal. Sometimes 3 percent to 5 percent is considered normal. Back to that question, can you address whether you are within those rates or within a normal rate.
A: We don’t disclose the actual number.

Q: Do you still say that is a normal return rate for the console?
A: We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.

Q: I’ve heard varying accounts of what is considered a normal return rate. Some people say that 2 percent is normal. Sometimes 3 percent to 5 percent is considered normal. Back to that question, can you address whether you are within those rates or within a normal rate.
A: We don’t disclose the actual number.

Q: Normal compared to the Xbox?
A: We don’t comment on that.


Thanks Todd, thanks for addressing my concerns as a (former?!) paying customer! Please, spew more shit at me.

"Q: What explains this anecodotal evidence that it’s out of whack, compared to the Wii or the PlayStation 3 or other consoles.
A: I would go back and say the vast majority of people love their experience. We continue to go back and address all of these issues on a case by case basis. There is a vocal minority out there. We go off and try to address their issues as quickly and as pain free as possible.

Q: There were some folks, who are not totally guessing, who said that when you had three million consoles in the market, you have a bone pile of bad ones. That seems to suggest a pretty high defect rate as far as the yield goes. Can you address that?
A: We don’t talk about our production.

Q: Can you say anything about the yield? Do you have a good yield? Can you say anything about the yield?
A: The important thing here is that each product that comes out of the factory is rigorously tested. To ensure highest quality for our customer."


Like Petey essentially said, it's not about about making a quality product. It wasn't about that, not to mention it's too late for that, now it's just damage control. When a 360 fucks up, lots of them are replaced for free, the three dead ones I was involved with were. However, some are charged up to $170 for repairs, for another shitty, unreliable unit, I sure as hell wouldn't pay that.

You know the problem is real bad when MS is running short on boxes (aka coffins) for the dead systems.
It took MS 8 days to get me my most recent coffin, compared to the complete 12~ days the entire process took last time. I'm not even XBL Gold anymore (another MS screwup), but I feel for the people who are paying to play online (another 360-only 'feature')and are without a console this long, just throwing money away. It's pretty re-goddamn-diculous.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Y'know, Things Break

Thanks for the comforting statement, jackass...

"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." - Peter Moore

Wow. What an explanation, way to reassure your customer base. You've treated him well if you mean lubing up with spit before going in with a fuckin' cactus. This is unethical, stupid, condescending and just plain ignorant. You know there's a problem, the gaming community knows there's a problem and if you don't act now, the amount of people who know will increase just as fast as the faith in the Xbox brand decreases.

Peter Moore is a piece of shit.


Thumbs up to you, Petey!