Comments on: why you probably shouldn’t buy an xbox 360

By: Keith Andrew

Keith Andrew — Fri, 25 May 2007 14:21:58 +0000

You’ve all gotten me very nervous, though. Am I just incredibly, incredibly lucky? Is my 360 going to leave me?

It’s not like it breaks it to you gently, either. Just this big red ring. The only time I’ve ever had a relationship end that way before involved the law courts.

(Incidentally, how did I know that GamesIndustry.biz feature was written by you without even clicking on it, Rob? )

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:21:30 +0000

I’m on my third 360. First one bricked after a week, the next lasted from launch until about 2 months ago. Although I’m normally wary of the anecdotal evidence trap, I think it’s pretty obvious that the 360 is poorly manufactured. Normally you do see these things die down after the kinks are ironed out of the production process. If this third one fails on me then I’d begin to suspect that something is fundamentally flawed in the design. They run damn hot…

The original Xbox also failed on me, incidentally. If MS didn’t continually bribe me with games I’m desperate to play, I’d have left them behind aeons ago.

By: Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey — Thu, 24 May 2007 18:52:26 +0000

Yeah, I guess there’s an element of luck involved. I’ve had three 360s in my household; all are now dead. I have three PS3s on my desk; all are alive, including my US launch model, which I just happily played through FFXII on.

I do know a fair few people who had PS2 troubles a few years in – mostly drive problems – and that’s to be expected to some extent of any piece of hardware. PS2 had issues where it would break down after a certain amount of time, and admittedly, Sony didn’t handle that terribly well either – but it was a far smaller proportion of people, and by and large, systems didn’t break until they were in their third year of operation, at the earliest.

But yeah, Bioshock looks nice. At this rate I’ll be playing it on PC though

By: Keith Andrew

Keith Andrew — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:02:12 +0000

Damn. I said ‘hear’.

You know I meant ‘here’, right?

By: Keith Andrew

Keith Andrew — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:01:13 +0000

You know my 360 is still working, don’t you Rob? I know I told you the other day, but I thought I could offer you a ‘daily update’ to see how my year-and-a-few-months old 360 is going.

I dunno, it’s very strange. I don’t know anyone in real life who has had a technical problem with their Xbox 360. Yet, likewise, people online tell me that I’m the only person they know whose 360 is still in working order after a year or so.

Maybe I got lucky. By comparison, my first PlayStation 2 began breaking down two years after I’d bought it. Gradually falling apart. And, much like you hear, Sony wanted to charge me for it.

So, erm, I dunno. BioShock looks good though, eh?

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 19 May 2007 07:11:59 +0000

Huh? Buy a 360? What? Why would I ever? (Yes, I’m one of those Sony fanboys)

But seriously: a high failure rate is a bad thing for any product. This can seriously hurt a brand.

Got here through Euro Gamers btw.

By: Nic

Nic — Fri, 18 May 2007 09:05:35 +0000

Did you try the “I’m blogging this!” approach? Scratch this one up to the long list of friends of mine whose 360s have died on the arses.

I wonder what other uses a pair of dead 360s could be put to?