Xbox 360: a Thanksgiving Turkey? (Register UK)

[Brundle_Fly]

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is a technical triumph that has been lauded by the hard-to-please, with John C Dvorak saying, "I have not seen a hardware/software system this well thought out for a decade or more." Whereas the original was an underpowered PC, its successor boasts three PowerPC cores running at 3.2GHz, the competition is still in the labs, and it has a ton of games lined up.
But the launch is turning into a Thanksgiving Turkey for Microsoft, with widespread reports of instability, bugs and other glitches marring the $400 console.

>>snip

The most common of these include failing to load a game, crashing while playing a game and freezes, according to regulars at the Xbox Scene and Team Xbox.
And what does a crashed Xbox 360 look like?
A bit like this, here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80491849@N00/65990158/

Note the interesting multilingual error message, the proportionately spaced fonts and the cool Matrix effect, indicating that this is very much a next-generation BSOD.
A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters that glitches affected only a "very, very small fraction" of the units shipped, and that "the number of calls was not unexpected". ®


I guess this is why M$ said they wanted to sell 3 million in a week.

[Occulus]

1. That is one UGLY crash screen.

Wow. I mean, the BSOD wasn't *pretty*, but it WAS legible.

This, though... I mean.... wow.


Ick.

[Brundle_Fly]

2. for the uninitiated...

BSOD is either Blue or Black Screen of Death.

you remember ever hearing of a nintendo crashing? or a genesis? or a playstation one or two?

I mean, they're have been crappy coded games on any platform, but these errors are M$ related, not poor external coding.

[TrueAmerican]

3. yes,

I have not only heard of them crashing, I have seen it. I also have Tivos and they crash on occassion, they are Linux.

[NuttyFluffers]

6. same here, plenty of times... consoles do crash...

not as often as regular MS PCs, but often enough to be mentionable.

seen crashing since old atari 1500 (or whatever i had) all the way up through all the systems up to now.

that said, this isn't good.

(remember: good rule of thumb, if your friend, acquaintence, local gamer geek lord said he never had 1 single problem with his electronic equipment, he's lying out of pride or has selective memory. all things fail, especially the more complex it is -- it's just the rate of failure that matters.)

[Brundle_Fly]

7. Linux and other forms of Unix do crash

welcome to computers, I have 2 apples and a PC, and all three crash.

the Apples crash when there is a kernel panic, happens maybe once every few months.

the PC crashes and generates general weirdness, much much more than that.



fyi

I am a power user, usually with photoshop, illustrator, indesign open and a 60 meg file on the clip board for starters. I know there is flame wars between the platforms all the time... but in my experience, the apples are 99% more reliable than anything running windows.

especially when you tax them with larger files.

[merwin]

8. you can't compare a nintendo or genesis

to the 360. the games are about 1000 times larger, require about 10000 more processing power... probably more. things that complex have bugs when they first come out. this system is a mammoth leap forward in technology. no project this big is bug free.

[GirlinContempt]

24. Nintendo's did crash

And SNES'. Some times it was the games, more often it was when they were screwing around with the voltage & security systems. Nintendo lost millions in Japan alone based on hardware malfunctions

[Spinzonner]

4. I am very impressed that Micro$oft

has put so much effort into improving the aesthetics of it's crashes

[andino]

The funny part is that people really expected a MS product to NOT crash...

It's Microsoft. Crash is it's middle name.

[merwin]

9. you try creating a revolutionary video game system

from the ground up with the time demands that they have :-) no new operating system is without bugs, and these are relatively minor and anyone with xbox live will get an update to the software if it turns out to be a software problem.

plus, it's probably the games causing the crashes, not the operating system... and microsoft does not do the programming of the games.

[Brundle_Fly]

11. most of the reports I have read

say it crashes upon boot, regardless of the loaded game.

so I think it must be something, bios driven or hardware related.


who wants to wait for a service pack in a game box.

[merwin]

14. ah. sucks to be the guy that got one of

those :-) i'm on a cell phone right now (running windows for smartphone. heh) so i can't check all reports atm. thanks for the clarification. probably a bad batch from one of the manufacturing plants. that's what you get with outsourced labor i guess.

[GirlinContempt]

25. I would put some cash

on it being heat

[Brundle_Fly]

31. I have been reading that its the powersupply

that is causing the grief, people have started hanging it from strings, so it wont sit on carpet or anything that will not conduct its heat.

possible I guess.

[merwin]

34. Could be... they moved the ENTIRE power supply outside of the XBOX

directly into the power cord.

The old XBOX had the power suply taking up about 1/5 of the XBOX (the right side). This is to make it smaller... however, probably not well thought out.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Everyone stunned as new Microsoft product

Turns out to be shite and keeps crashing. Shock Horror. ;)

Is this really LBN? OK, It's Late, and keeps Breaking, but it's hardly News... :D

[Jack_DeLeon]

10. What a waste of money...

I would just buy a better PC.

I have no problems buying $200 or less consoles, but when you are spending that much more money on a console an upgraded PC IMO is a better purchase.

[Brundle_Fly]

12. agreed.

although my video card cost more than a xbox 360.

but man is is sweet.

[Occulus]

23. Oh, I hate you. :)

ATI or NV?

[Brundle_Fly]

26. X800 XT

256 megger, got it a year ago, (dell deal) now there is a X850 maybe better, might be time to upgrade.

I got a NV 7800 in my new dual core powermac that should be here within a week too, still haven't dropped the 3000$ on the 30 inch apple monitor though, just a 23 coming with it.


mac = work
pc = play/and mal ware fixin'


fyi, i am a designer, and a geek, with powerfully bad technology expenses I don't really need to take.

[merwin]

13. a pc with that kind of horsepower is

really expensive. at the very minimum it is 5 times the price. you then end up with problems connecting it to your tv... hard to find a cheap pc to hdtv converter if you actually want to play it on your tv.

in reality it is very stupid to buy a new product such as this in the first month or two. any new system of this magnitude is going to have a few bugs at first.

[pimpbot]

27. Huh? PC to HDTV converter? Its called DVI

Most new higher end video cards have a dvi port. Hook that right to your hdtv and bam your set. Time will tell how successful the 360 is. Its off to a classic microsoft start though. I wonder how long before the first xbox360 service pack comes out?

[Brundle_Fly]

28. even my laptop has a dvi output.

I like to freak out the best buy crowd and plug it into the latest tevees.

[merwin]

32. They package service packs in new games and xbox live downloads.

The original XBOX had plenty of updates to the dashboard & XBL services.

The BIOS, however (which on the XBOX contains the drivers, etc) does not normally get updated/patched.

[LiberalVoice]

15. Fuck Xbox 360...I've got my eyes on Nintendo Revolution! nt

[DiverDave]

16. LOL LOL

People that were in a panic to get one, and now they find out it's just another M$ POS beta lol

ms is known for throwing out buggy crap, it's cheaper than paying someone to find the bugs. this way YOU are the tester.
gates screws them again lol

[Borgnine]

17. No problems with mine.

But I can remember that this happened with the PS2 as well when it first came out.

[Zech Marquis]

18. I also have one

Mine is running smoothly with no problems :-)

[lateo]

19. Multi-lingual

Read this as: Chinese

[lovelaureng]

20. I wonder how of the 360 actually really crashed.

This may be a little over hyped. I don't own one nor do I plan on buying
one in the future.

[Tempest]

21. What the hell do people expect?

The 360's operating system is Windows.

Windows has always sucked.

[brentspeak]

22. Read books, people! Forget the video games!

Sorry, had to insert that rant.

:rant:

[Brundle_Fly]

29. well recieved.

current books on my shelf are

A War on the Truth - Paul William Roberts

http://services.raincoast.com/scripts/b2b.wsc/fmp/155192/1551926881.htm

The Great Unravelling - Paul Krugman

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall03/005850.htm

The Truth (with jokes) - Al Franken.


brent makes a good point, I know so many people who don't read at all anymore.

[GirlinContempt]

30. Cause you can't do both!

:P

[dapper]

33. Typical MS

Microsoft needs to slow down and test things before they release them but I suppose Christmas is coming and Bill Gates is getting fat.

Dap

[merwin]

35. They've had the hardware out being tested for near a year now.

I played one of the dev boxes a long while ago.

It's not an issue of testing it. There's no amount of testing that will catch all possible situations.