f13.net

I found this out the hard way; my boys were having problems loading one of the British missions in COD 2 so I took a look at the disc thinking it might be dirty.  I found deep circular scratches in the disk.  After doing some searches I found articles about other people having the same problems.

Basically if you move the console even one degree while it is running or put anything on the top of it (when it is lying on its side) it causes the laser housing to contact the disk.  Great design.

Ouchie!  If you have a typical family with 2 kids and a pet, it's hard to keep everything perfectly still. 

For some reason some people STILL don't get the fact that a game console is a consumer electronics device. A console is really closer to a discman than it is to a computer. Not architecture wise but in terms of design and use.

Nintendo seems to be the only hardware manufacturer that can make consoles that don't have horrendous first-gen issues. Yes, some Nintendo consoles have had problems but not at nearly the rate of other manufacturers.

Yes and all consumer electronics devices I know of are by design stackable. A laser housing that touches the disc if another component (or your cat) sits on top of your shiny new x-box is bad design and nothing else. I'd laugh at the first one who'd try to tell me that I shouldn't put any other high-fi component on top of my Compact-Disc player because it might damage my disc and wouldn't probably ever buy anything from such a company again.

Waiting for the first Servicepack obviously isn't only for software anymore when you buy Microsoft products.

The whole thing was rushed to be ready for the Christmas market, and it really shows.

I don't buy that brand of bullshit. Neither me nor any of my friends who have a 360 have had nary a hitch. If there's problems, it's on the consumer end. This ain't no first generation PS2.

So basically everybody is a liar because you don't have problems?

I don't know one way or the other because I don't own a single piece of Microsoft hardware. but that sounds a bit far fetched.

It's not that everyone is a liar. Just because the xbox 360 can be sat vertically doesn't mean it should be. And most CD Roms will scratch discs if they aren't level. More than that, anything that isn't made for stacking shouldn't be stacked. Would you stack something on top of the Playstation 2? Hell no, why would you do it on the 360? Also, 360 over heating? Take it out of the goddamn tight home theater unit or take it off the carpeting. Treat it like a computer, it's more powerful than any computer you're buying these days and sucks up just as much power if not more. And you don't have the ability to slap a good cooling unit on it.

Obviously the 'more powerful than a PC' argument has been rehearsed before. But the 'sucks up more power' one is new.

XBox 360s only use 160W of power.

They have no right to be overheating anything, seems someone took the same approach to specing the PSU as they generally do when supplying these things with RAM. (From my very limited understanding of things Xbox, the overheating was down to the PSU being stuffed out of sight behind the home cinema stack rather than the box itself)

As for the disc scratching. /shrug. For better or worse each generation of consoles pushes the damn things out to a wider and wider market, it's always going to mean users will find new ways to abuse them, and so I guess these things are going to happen.

At least it teaches the kids how to look after electronics before they get a real computer.

Given the size of the PSU and the power of the xbox vs the size of my entire computer and the wattage on my power supply, I have a tough time buying that the xbox only pulls 160W. I'm probably completely wrong and the specsheets would prove me wrong, so I've no problem admitting that. My gripe comes from the fact my computer pulls 360 watts and is less than double the size of the 360 PSU. Desktop computers are unoptimized pieces of shit.

To be fair there are optimized Desktop computers as well and you have to oversize the power supply if you don't know beforehand what it will supply power to.

Desktop computers are generally optimized components put together by unoptimized pieces of shit.

Consoles are a bag of unoptimized bargin bin components built by shiny optimized robots.

That, of course, is half the fun of your PC.


Your desktop PSU has to fit in a desktop PSU space, so it got designed to do that; XBoxes have no such restriction so they won't waste time and money on it.


PS. Because I'm (a) nice (b) paranoid (c) back at work [delete as applicable], I looked for confirmation on Xbox power, it didn't take long...

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=xbox+360+power+watt&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Consoles WERE unoptimized bargain bin components. There's nothing unoptimized about the Gamecube, PS2, or 360. The RSX on the PS3 will be an unoptimized piece of shit while the rest will be performance art. The Revolution is an unknown.

Edit: Oh, and I give it 6 months and someone will come out with a PSU for the 360 that's 1/3 the size of the current one.

You are confusing the maximum power output of your power supply with the actual amount it puts out to power the components in your computer. As you can see here (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=7800gt) an Athon 64 X2 4400+ with a 7800 GT draws about 200 Watts under full load. And that includes a 10K RPM hard drive, DVD drive, and 1 GB of RAM. Here's another article (http://www.silentpcreview.com/Sections+index-req-printpage-artid-265.html) that gives a more detailed breakdown of power draw from the major computer subsystems. This is how companies like Shuttle can power their XPC systems with dinky (by destkop standards) 200W - 250W power supplies, though some of Shuttle's high end boxes do include 350W power supplies now.

My 2 year old Shuttle came with a 350. I still don't see how a 360 runs efficiently at 160 - or rather - I don't see how the power supply or 360 could possibly overheat unless there was zero air flow to either/both.

schild is right, people are just making this disc scratching stuff up.


Just because you treat your 360 like your firstborn, schild, doesn't mean everyone else does. In fact, many people have kids and kids are unpredictable. Microsoft designed the 360 poorly from the overheating issue and the disc scratching issue. There's enough concern to warrant not buying a 360 until these design problems are resolved in the first hardware revision. Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit if it's as powerful as a computer or what-not. If it looks like a console and tastes like a console, it's a console.

Well given that the power brick is fanless it's not hard to imagine how it could "overheating". The real question is why are high power supply temperatures affecting the power output, if at all (somebody needs to hook that thing up to a Kill-A-Watt or something to test this out). Good PC power supplies will maintain their output to a max operating temperature of 50 C or so (and then fall off from there) while cheapo PC power supplies often drop their output well below 50 C. Did Microsoft try to save a few bucks per system and spec out a power brick that cuts its output at a relatively low max operating temperature? Or maybe their supplier isn't building the bricks to proper spec?

Fuck kids and Joe Sixpack. If I bought a $400 TOY I wouldn't let my kids anywhere near the damn thing. It's like the masculine version of fine china. Kids don't play with their mommy's china and they don't come within 10 feet of daddy's electronics. Otherwise, they deserve scratched discs and overheating units. For the very few problem cases that are probably Microsoft's direct fault, I'm pretty confident that MS is expediting repair on those units. Otherwise, what did you want me to say? Awww, poor guy got screwed because Microsoft didn't try the 360 out on a shag carpet with the power supply being sat on by a cat? /sadf.

From a quantum physics POV electron drift mobility is inversly proportional to temperature.

More heat = less current.

Although this is probably a case of cheap parts and shoddy manufacture.

Oh come on consoles are still largely a bunch of bargain bin components put together. How else could you keep your $299 price point? The case looks shiny and they might have even designed some kind of heat dissipation solution and optimized the layout of components but they still buy everything from the cheapest supplier available. Economics of scale have to be taken into account yeah but a prt from the processor everything else is of the shelf components put together on a custom designed motherboard and a custom designed case and that is something that every EE graduate can do and that you can get from any cheap chinese oem for a dime.

What takes real engineering is the design of the heat dissipation system not exactly something where the 360 shines

The DVD drive is most certainly cheap OEM stuff from the lowest bidder and the PSU most probable the cheapest design that they could get away with when regarding conformance to standards. One could built a 200 W PSU that doesn't need a fan or two but that would be more expensive.

You can be all the X-Box 360 fanboi you want, I don't care but don't be silly. The 360 costs 299 dollars and has a cutting edge processor and video subsystem a DVD drive and everything else that is needed to make it a game console. At the moment the processor itself in my estimate takes up 3/4 of the budget for the whole console.

Face it even the newest shiniest cutting edge console baby jesus is featuring the most low cost solutions from the cheapest suppliers that those companies can get away with otherwise, even with subsidies, they wouldn't be able to keep the 299/399 pricepoint especially with version 1.0 of the hardware.

I don't know, the damn thing seems expertly designed. The connection at the 360 is the single most sturdy connection I've seen ona  console to date. It's like one of those plugs Dr. Octopus had in Spiderman 2. Only stronger. I think whoever is making the passive cooling unit is the weak link.

Crappy engineering is crappy engineering.  The people who designed the part knew exactly what kind of conditions would be required for it not to fail and they decided to stick it to the consumer rather than build in a little extra leeway.  Fanbois r luv.

I had a response for Jeff Kelly. But it's been deleted since Murgos decided to play the fanboi card on me also.

Are you people fucking buffoons? Is this like a circus act? Have you ever had to help the video game consuming public? These motherfuckers have no clue what they're doing. The engineers at MS could have made the best goddamn piece of equipment in the universe and there still would have been widespread problems complained about on the intarweb. That was no amount of little extra leeway anyway could have put into the system design. This isn't about being a fanboi, this is about knowing the consumer. Just wait until there are widespread complaints about the Nintendo slot loading drive on the Revolution (or the PS3). People will jam discs in them and no amount of testing from the labs will protect Sony and Nintendo from redneck customers with heavy hands. THE FIRST GEN DVDROMS ARE TEH SUXX0RS LOL.

Seriously, more often than not, it's the consumers fault. So as I said earlier, fuck'em. Take better care of your shit.

Why do you guys always go down this road with Schild on the hardware front?  He lives in another world where electronics are children and anyone who says they should be durable end-user devicesjust 'dont get it' or don't take care of their shit. He's a geek to the Nth degree about this type of thing, and neither party can see the other's case.

I guess they go for something quotable once another company with better work ethics makes a comparable console without all those faults and he will have to eat his words.

Of course then it will be "They were the first, so the others profited from their pioneer work", so its futile anyway.

I just hang around him because someone told me he was one of the cool kids.

I should think, however, that most people buy these things for their kids and they should be, at least, somewhat durable.  You can stick the thing in a cage on a pedestal and some 13 year old with huge feet he has no control over, will find a way to knock it over.  That over heating problem was in the plain old Xbox, too.  I received a recall letter from them about it.  You would think they'd fix that issue for their $400 model.

I love when schild gets all worked up because people don't build shrines for their consoles.

My xbox sits on carpet when I use it, but the cat won't sit on it.

Yes, my ability to not have broken hardware and to never having experienced ANY of the problems on ANY of the consoles that people talk about here or anywhere surely is a fault of mine. I mean, comeon, I'm MR. First Gen Hardware. At least ONE of my consoles surely should have fucked up by now. But no, Guitar Hero broke one and monster cables (wretched pieces of shit) wrecked the A/V inputs on another. Yes, I'm the funky outlier.


If the PS3 and Revolution have no problems, I'll gladly eat my words. I just don't see it happening. Nintendo normally would be the obvious frontrunner here but now that they're switching to a drive that plays both Gamecube and the new almost regular sized discs along with the whole aforementioned slot loading design decision, I smell trouble.


Now that is totally not my style. I could care less who profited from whoever's pioneer work. I'd be the last one to say Everquest was better than WoW or that DnD is obviously better than any console RPG. Or that the original Gameboy is the only portable worth having. Oh, and how could we forget about the great How Many Generations of Consoles argument of 04? Basically, your ass is talking. I don't know how it sprouted hands and got to the keyboard, but there it is.

No but I work as a systems designer in germany and the first thing our customers ask when they want us to design hardware is "how can we cut the costs and get away with it". The reality is that usually the cheapest thing is chosen that barely satisfies the requirements for the components.

If too many units of a certain kind of hardware die the contract is given to another china manufacturer who will be more than eager to deliver especially when it is such a large contract as microsoft

I can relate to the fact that you are infatuated by your 360 I am a technophile myself and own quite a bit of high end tech toys (why would I be here otherwise?) but saying that the designers of the 360 have somehow found the holy grail of hardware quality when faced with economic realities is somewhat naive.

1st generation PS2 drives died like flies because they chose cheap hardware, hell even psones to this day die like flies. Consoles are a commodity and the cost of the parts of the 360 are already high enough that Microsoft has to subsidy each console with a significant amount of their own money. They will cut costs left and right, they will pressure suppliers to reduce rates or risk cancellation of the contracts, everybody in the consumer electronics business does it otherwise you wouldn't be able to buy shit for $99 at Wal Mart.

I do not know whether or not these scratches occur because of a hardware fault or not I just tried to argue your assumption that PS3 hardware=crap, XBOX360 hardware=robot jesus


Yeah but then you wouldn't be able to buy it for $299. After previous experiences with expensive shit dying because of crappy parts (blown up capacitors, parts dropping of mainboards because the system was getting too hot etc.) and my experiences in the field developing hardware and software I refuse to buy the first revision of anything.

People are idiots yes I agree but more and more companies use them to beta test their hardware and if I had to place a bet whether or not this was a design issue or customer incompetence I'd bet the money on the former.

lol. internet.

Ohhhhhh, I see the problem here. No. See, words are hard. I'll try that again. Slot loading cd readers are notorious for breaking. You push a CD or DVD or whatever too hard into a slot loader and you will eventually break off the arm that grabs it, or completely grind the little wheel that pulls the arm in down to nothing. The xbox 360 hardware is by no means robot jesus, but the disc scratching is happening because of movement occuring to the xbox while the reader is reading. Like someone picks up an 360 after they've turned it on or it's on an unstable surface. Basically, it's totally user error. As the first post said, even one degree of movement. Well, sit the goddamn thing on a flat surface and don't move it after the drive closes. It's Not That Hard.

Yes, they could have made it a top loader with a littler clapper of a CD holder and fixed the whole problem (think Gamecube or PS2 slim), but man, I'd rather have that tray than a slot loader. But that doesn't result in bias. I'll get a PS3 on day one. I love the playstation and will cherish it and will buy every turn-based strategy game and survival horror title that comes out for it. Unfortunately I'm going to have to baby the thing more than the 360.


I gotta be honest, after what you've said, I just don't want to buy anything from your company.  :roll: And you gotta stop using that $299.99 number. The xbox 360 costs $400. That other crippled thing? That's not real.

I gotta be honest as well. You might not say that and I certainly take your word for it if you say so. But it will be said and my hatred for those apologists is boundless and it might have swapped over to you.

And that's completely unrealistic in most households I've ever been into.

"DON'T WALK NEAR THE TV...THE XBOX IS ON!!"

There hasn't been a console invented where I haven't tripped on the controller cord causing some sort of minor catastrophy. 

Me too.  I'm a disaster area all on my own.  I can trip over something in the next room, especially if there's an important reason for it not to be moved... just ask my husband.  And what about all those poor people in California?  They have to buy a new Xbox everytime the earth moves?  That's just mean.

I'd be glad if it was just our customers who'd want it cheap. As far as I know it is more of a state of the industry address. Big retail chains like Wal Mart, Best Buy in the US or Media Markt or Saturn in germany have pretty much ruined quality hardware development regardless whether we are talking about televisions, hi-fi systems or computer equipment. Media Markt recently sold a no name DVD player for 19 Euros, this is less than the cost of manufacturing, hell with a $5 licence fee for the mpeg2 codec you coudn't break even at this price. They pressure deliverers and simply refuse to buy hardware from anyone that doesn't meet their price points. They can because they have nearly crushed most small retailers and have virtually no competition anymore.

Every week another manufacturer of vintage consumer equipment dies because they cannot compete against the cheaply produced sub-par hardware coming from china or taiwan. And if the $99 stereo dies after half a year who cares? Just toss it and buy something new. Nobody will buy the Euro 5000 Loewe LCD Television if Media Markt sells a no name china brand for Euro 1999. It might not be HDTV ready and will die after 2 years because of crappy components but it will still sell like shit

Saturn even has the slogan "geiz ist geil" (avarice is cool) to drive the point home.

No the reality of the business is cheap >> quality except for a few select brands that cater to the uber crowd. We constantly lose business to other companies that produce shit 10 cent or 1 euro cheaper than we could. Well ours might be better quality but no one cares as long as it is good enough or meets some magic price point.

So you probably shouldn't buy anything from any company if you want quality.

Cords? But anyway, accidents happen. Blaming Microsoft is weak sauce.

Yes, cords.  I use the goddamn standard controllers.  Is 360 wireless? Hooray, if I got one there's still the possibility two of my cats would start a fight on top of the damn thing.  Or my nephews would bump it or something else. 

It's not weak sauce; you go into ultra-apologist mode anytime someone questions a console you like.  A console that eats it's own babies is not a technological marvel, it's a piece of shoddily designed and manufactured crap.   My gamecube has survived being dropped down stairs, my xbox has survived in an area with very little ventillation and living in an atmosphere composed of 5% cat hair, and hell, my laptop is dropped daily into the backseat of my car (in the case, but it's still an impact).  I've come to expect my consoles and electronic devices in general to put up with my clumsiness and the fact that I don't game in a clean, sterile environment. 

It's OK to like flawed things. This is clearly a severe flaw in the 360.  It's fine to acknowledge this and still enjoy it.  Trust me, I play WoW.  I can put up with flaws and crap like a pro.

You dropped your gamecube down stairs and your laptop off your back seat while the drives were spinning and they didn't scratch discs? It's like hi-tech evil keneival. There isn't any ultra-apologist here. If my 360 isn't on I could spin the damn thing around or play quarters off of it and it wouldn't scratch discs. My consoles put up with clumsiness. I've dropped my PS2 before, my gamecube, and my original xbox for that matter. The 360 slipped out of my hands the first time I put it on the basket it sits on and dropped about 3 inches. No scratched discs from any of that. Are we seeing my point? Do you shake your laptop when it's on? If so, it's an etch-a-sketch, not a laptop.

Edit: Also, laptops are designed to be moved around. Consoles? Not so much. But I guess that goes without saying.

That was my first thought also. OMG IT MOVED! SAVE US!

Anyway, I also have tripped on my cords a time or two, so far none of my consoles have eaten a disk due to that. I think it IS a design flaw that a slight wiggle of the system (pull the controller cause its cord is stuck on some thing?) can destroy a disk. For the majority of console owners this is just not a feasable way to have to treat a console, weather thats the way is needs to be treated or not.

What if im playing and my cat jumps up and attacks my controller cord? this could joggle the system. Do I have to put my cat in the bathroom every time I want to play 360? Dropping it on the floor or some shit I can understand its hardware and its fragle, but it shouldnt be so fragle that a slight joggle or even just playing on its side will ruin a game. And thats just how it goes.

Rules for owning a Xbox 360:

1. No pets
2. No kids
3. No carpet
4. No earthquakes
5. No sudden movements

The goddamn 360 doesn't have controller cords.

And Shockeye is just posting in this thread because he wants one.

I don't want a Xbox 360 as it is right now. I want one after they fix the overheating issues and the disc scratching issues. There is also no reason to buy one until I have a HDTV. I also don't want one until the price drops. Also it would be nice if there was more than one decent game for it. I don't want to hear about how great CoD2 is either. FPS games with a controller suck. That's it, that's all. Take your Xbox 360 can do no wrong fanboism and put it where the sun don't shine.

I couldn't read any of that through all the green fog.

See, I agree with all this and yet I still really want to play DOA 4.

So does Shockeye, but he has desert sand in his vagina.

DOA4 is the only reason I can see to buy a 360. One game isn't worth $1050 + tax, though. ($400 for 360, $50 for the game, $600 for the HDTV).

But when 10 other games come out worth playing it'll be worth $1050 + $500 (or so) + tax? I just fail to see the difference. But then, as mentioned before, early adoption never bit me in the ass.

Sure, the 360 is a piece of delicate consumer electronics...but seriously, it should be able to take a certain degree of abuse - Shit Happens.

Trying to tell everyone and yourself that it's not MS's fault (at least in part) is just delusional.

Remember the IBM Deathstar drives?

Oh, in part it's Microsoft's fault, but everyone's giving them 100% of the fault. Under the proper conditions, the 360 alone would not scratch the discs. That trick requires the help of clumsy folk.

We're here.  We're clumsy. Get used to it.

Proper conditions = a clean room cooled to 65 degrees.

Stop being bored.


"Hi, Swarovski? Yea, I bought one of your crystal animals but I was clumsy and dropped it from about an inch off my desk.... Yea, an ear fell off. How could you make something so fragile?"

Would that fly? No.

"Hi, Microsoft? Yea, I bought one of your 360s but I was clumsy and turned the damn thing on it's side while it was reading a disc and the disc got scratched.... Yea, the disc can't be read anymore. How could you make something so non-portable?"

Comparing something made of crystal to the 360 is stupid beyond belief. Get some new material.

Saying people jostle their consoles on a regular basis is stupid beyond belief.

Children will jostle their console. Fuck, the old Atari 2600 used to get beat to fuck and back. It's being sold as a game, and as a game, kids/teenagers will want one. They WILL fuck it up, even with wireless controllers. The fact that Microsoft apparently made the fucking thing as delicate as a Fabrege Egg sounds to me like a design issue as much as consumer rutting issue.

Which I agree with, unfortunately blaming Microsoft shouldn't be an option. When I was 5 I didn't kick my Nintendo when I got mad at it. I didn't swing it around while it was one. I didn't try turning it vertically or whatever. What the fuck makes kids start doing it now? If they do, they obviously don't deserve one. It's just that simple. Now, if the 360 when sitting still scratched discs, I'd be right there with my own torch and pitchfork. Unfortunately it doesn't. It just sits there and acts fine. We've had ours on for 15-20 hour stretches before without so much as a hitch.

You are not normal then. I don't know any kids who didn't abuse the fuck out of their Atari/Nintendo as a kid.

Yes it should. The fact that you don't think so is beyond comprehension.

What the fuck are you talking about?

"Yea, Microsoft, your system scratched my disc."

"What were you doing at the time it was scratched"

"Well, my son bumped into it while it was on and knocked it off a table."

"Sir, we don't warranty against children without coordination."

"Yes, I know, but the Nintendo didn't break whe-"

"Sir, buy your kid a Nintendo then. It's cheaper anyway and it'll keep him from scratching up your 360 games. Thank you for calling Microsoft and have a nice day."

All in all this is a very simple situation for Microsoft to deal with. It's the customer's fault, whether or not it was their kid or it was an accident or whatever. Basically, fuck that passing the buck shit. Electronics aren't made like they used to be. That was already said near the beginning of the thread.

Only if the PS3 and the Revolution are made as shitty as the Xbox360 is.

Why don't we postpone the discussion until then. You just state here that this is a new industry standard by console makers, everybody else disbelieves that. Only time will tell.

What if the answer was instead, "My son bumped it and turned 15 degrees while the next level was loading"?

What should the Microsoft guy say then?

"Sir, your 360 needs a 5' halo devoid of human presence in order to operate properly. Should anyone enter this area of sanctuary, your system may be in grave peril.  Grave peril, sir, I stress this. By the way, we sell cones in an eye pleasing XBOX green to help demarcate this area for 19.95. The child and small animal approved shock collar, which will activate within 3' of the system can also be ordered on our website.  Just be sure to give both proper ventillation or they could very well burst into flame or explode."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No sir. This is a gaming console. Serious business."

I didn't beat my NES either....

I probably would have been beat if I did.

$400 for anything is serious business. And it's not 15 degrees left and right, you could spin the damn thing around. It's 15 degrees on vertical axis. As in tippiing it left or right. Where the fuck are these people keeping it that that could even happen? On the edge of a table? On a seesaw? Supporting the top of a jenga tower?

Edit: You know what all this complaining is going to result in? A warning on the side that says "Caution, the xbox 360 is not a step. Do not use it to reach the top shelf."

What if I had the Microsoft approved safety cushions on each side of it? /poke /poke

Makes me all the more happy that I've only spent $100 on a slim factor PS2, to which both my daughter and both cats have stood ontop of the CD drive while it was on (ACK!), without incident.

PSP?

People do the damndest things when they are parents.  Babies cause senility, and you just don't think or care about things the same way.  It doesn't excuse idiocy but these people exist.  For the record, I don't let my son anywhere near my breakables.  My consoles are as off-limits as they can be and still be attached to the TV.  He managed to get his hands on my We <3 Katamari manual.  Hilarity did not ensue.

I don't think this is anything to get bent out of shape about.  People letting kids play with a $400 appliance will get what they deserve.  People buying a sensitive electronic device and subsequently abusing it will also get what they deserve.  Microsoft underengineering their consoles will get what they deserve.  Computer parts ride the backs of early adopters, but home appliances ride the corpses of the stupid; we are just seeing the crossing of the two fields.  The good news for me is that the 2007 edition of the 360 will be even better than I originally thought.

I'd like to say that this emergent scenario is why I didn't get a 360 at launch, thereby sounding smug and superior, but really it was because I didn't have $400 to jam up a hog's ass and yell "SOOOWEEE!"

My buddy is a walmart employee still (meat receiver, hehehe) and he said they got 50 more 360s in over the weekend. The line formed, sold out instantly. Looks like I won't be able to get one until the second revision anyway. It's all about the pc version of Oblivion in my book. If it has the same hassles with widescreen as Morrowind did, I'll probably get the 360. Shit, I probably will anyway as I'll need a gpu upgrade just to get teh shiney on the pc...and nowadays that means new mobo/gpu/ram, too.

AND I'LL PUT IT ON THE CARPET! :)

Didn't the original Xbox have problems with damaging DVDs?

Bold mine.  Is this an exaggeration?  Because if not... well, it's not hard for me to imagine a momentary one degree tilt or equivalent jostle in the course of normal operation. If it's that sensitive, your disk would get fucked up every time a large truck goes by.  Or if you brush against the console while you're reaching for something next to it (like the other controller).  Or if you look at it funny.

Schild, you are like the people over at [H] who are good folks, I used to frequent those boards for PC advise during upgrade cycles.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTM5LDE=

You are not normal when it comes to consoles, how can PC gaming be dying because "drivers are hard"tm yet Xbox360 can't be bumped into without eating a disk.  I've lived in regular gamer households, you know a bunch of college aged guys who sit around and play games all evening except on poker nights.  The consoles will get hit, you can only throw so many parties at your house before somebody has kicked everything in your living room.  So dont tell me it is user error to have a cat, or a kid.  Thats not user error that is just typical Microsoft bullshit.

Only $400!

- Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to the XBox 360.
- Caution: The XBox 360 may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
- The XBox 360 Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
- Do not use the XBox 360 on carpet.


Discontinue use of the XBox 360 if any of the following occurs:
- Itching
- Vertigo
- Dizziness
- Tingling in extremities
- Loss of balance or coordination
- Slurred speech
- Temporary blindness
- Profuse sweating
- Heart palpitations

If the XBox 360 begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

The XBox 360 may stick to certain types of skin.

When not in use, the XBox 360 should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...

Failure to do so relieves the makers of the XBox 360, and its parent company Microsoft, of any and all liability.

Ingredients of the XBox 360 include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

The XBox 360 has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.

Do not taunt the XBox 360.

The XBox 360 comes with a lifetime guarantee.

The XBox 360

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

Apparently if you take a running XBox 360 and move it enough to pull a cord out from underneath it that can maul discs. It's a design flaw. If you tilt the machine will the disc is spinning the disc grinds into some casing.

My favorite line was "just because you can put it on it's side doesn't mean you should." Are you for real? If they advertise that you can put it on it's side and in pictures it is on the side putting it on it's side shouldn't cause problems. What next? Just because you can play games on it doesn't mean you should?

As I said, consoles are consumer electronics devices. They should be able to withstand minor bumps, be placed on a carpet, etc. Part of the whole appeal of consoles is the appeal to a more casual play environment - play on a couch with friends eating pizza rather than at you computer at your desk.

It's just bad design, and there is no reason to apologize for it. The PS1 and PS2 also had pretty bad problems initially with the lens getting out of alignment. It happens. It doesn't mean the system as a whole sucks, but it certainly isn't a good thing.

God Damn!  What started as my simple attempt to warn people about scratching their XBox 360 discs has turned into a hand grenade chucked into the forums.

To get back to the original subject I burned a crap DVD and tried to replicate what happened to see how fragile the system is.  While I was able to get some light scratching by "adjusting" it's position while it was reading the disc, it was nothing like what happened to the COD 2 disc.  I didn't want to stress it too much so thats the limit of my motion experimenting.  

The kids say it wasn't bumped, and it is in a corner so you would have to work at bumping it.  It did have 2 of the wireless controllers on top of it but my testing of that did not result in any scratching.

So, I'm not sure what happened.  The kids did have some friends over and any parent knows what that means.  Am I pissed at Microsoft?  No, not yet.  I'm not sure how bad this problem is yet.

I wouldn't worry, this is pretty much the natural state of the forums when discussing the inadequacies/robot-jesus-nature [delete as appropriate] of console hardware.

Dynamic equilibrium. As my old chemistry teacher would refer to it.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/26/technology/xbox/index.htm?cnn=yes

More XBox evil.  We need to get Schild and the rest of the xtrolls on the defensive to curb the inevitable anti-Revolution lies.  :evil:

"It's not that our game are derivitive suck-ass pieces of shit that are overpriced by $10-$15.. it's that Microsoft didn't sell enough X-boxes!"

Riiiiight.

I dunno if I'd call that evil. Their logic seems to be that people were waiting to buy 360s so they didn't buy the other console versions, and then didn't get a 360 either because of the shortage. This really only applies to companies that have 360 versions of games that are also available on other systems. I'm sure Rare sales didn't take a hit this quarter.

I love CNN.


Yes, because most kids LOVE to get games they can't play for systems they don't own because there weren't enough shipped. Most kids really just stare at the fucking box and DROOL instead of wanting to put it in the system. What kind of retard thinks that statement above is anything but common sense?

Microsoft didn't produce enough, produced a generation with flawed hardware simply because they wanted to be first. This seems to be "Same as it ever was" v. 2.0, the Console Years.

Am I wrong for enjoying Schild getting burned by shitty hardware he fanboyed up again?

If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

But i'm not getting burned. Apparently everyone else is.

Ive seen the PSP and 360 game libraries.  You got fucked right there.  Even if you do treat your systems like 1000 year old vases.
The shitty software fucked you alone.

Yea, because Fantavision made the PS2 so worth buying on launch day. Seriously. If it's a matter of getting fucked by early adopting, I've been fucked by every console released. Whoopdy fucking doo.

If you wanna talk about fucked, I bought the Jaguar the first week it was out. Thank god I didn't spring for a 3D0 or CDI.

That's a shame- you could have reviewed the greatest of all Zelda games for us.  Wand of Gamelon ftw!


(http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm/06c.jpg)

(http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm/06b.jpg)

I laugh at the man who thought making the art assets for that game in MS Paint was a good idea.

Good friend of mine bought that, I thought it was a pretty slick little system.  Would have gotten one myself if I had the scratch.  Too bad it never caught on.

Cannon Fodder is still the only console RTS I ever thought was good.

Cannon Fodder should be played on a Amiga damnit.

But then you don't get the lyrics for the music. And trust me, everything about that music was just out there.

You did get the "War, never been so much fun" lyrics, not sure if there was anymore songs with vocals in the game.

Awesome reply, considering that it's one of the points that MS is selling the thing on, not to mention showing it as.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/xbox360/default.htm

If it really shouldn't be set vertically, they really shouldn't be showing it off like that in 50% of their adverts... guess that's just dumb consumers, thinking that setting it up like the one on the box is okay.  :roll:

I wonder how many people sat the original ps2 vertically. I'd imagine tilting that tray loader while it was running would scratch DVDs also. But then, I still can't see why, while a system was running (especially one with wireless controllers), it would ever be tilted. Ever. There aren't cables for a kid or pet to trip over. And that's where my real problem lies, all the complaints I've heard of this involve people tilting the system while it's reading the disc. I also don't see why that's only strange to ME.

I don't know either, but there sure are a fuckton of those vertical stands available several years into the console's life, and 3rd party ones, too. So someone must be.

I second the Cannon Fodder thought for Amiga. Though I never thought of the game as a RTS.

Finally, fanboi-ism and fanboi-taunting aside, if Schild is happy with the libraries for 360 and PSP, then more power to him. If he's happy, then he probably hasn't been fucked. Or maybe he got fucked in the good way. Either way, it's no skin off my nose if he's having a great time with his new toys.

Wow!

That would be, what? 6 whole first-gen consoles that didn't fuck up? Maybe 10?
360-XBox-ps1-ps2-GCN-PSP-Saturn-DC
um..
DS (did that have problems?).. are we counting the catridge-type consoles? they seem pretty damned robust (GBA/SNES/Gen/etc) - Virtual Boy FTW~!


Or 1 in each release of about 1,000,000 or so machines's initial splash?

Yeah, pretty easy not to hit those odds, actually. Unless the release fuckup rate is like 20% or higher on each new machine. And even then, very doable to make your saving throw each time and get a "good one". Add like a 5% bonus to your saving throw if you keep your electronic toys as carefully as you seem to.

So yeah, taking care of your consoles will obviously lessen the chances of some of these fuckups, but it's still easy enough to buy 1st-gen each time and get lucky. It's not like a new console comes out monthly, or even annually, after all.

hm, thought I posted this one earlier..

Never said I was happy with the libraries. And in a thread where someone was asking how to spend money, I said they should buy the DS if they want fun now. And only 3 of the systems you named were tray loaders - The Xbox, the 360 and the original fatty ps2. Of those, only one has an actual first party stand, the ps2 and the original xbox was never meant to be sat vertically - you'd be covering up one of the air flow passages. So really, how did discs not get scratched til now? I bet they have, actually. But in 2001, console bitching and moaning on the internet wasn't exactly the IN thing to do. So while the problem may or may not have existed, it wouldn't have spread like wildfire. I'm tempted to go buy a $0.60 copy of Madden 2001 to test this theory out actually as having worked at EB Games and Gamestop, I've seen concentric rings on PS2 discs, though they may have been caused by total idiots seating them wrong in the new PS2.

What I'm getting at, this PARTICULAR problem can only exist in three of the systems. Hard drive failure can only exist in two systems. Overheating was a problem consistant with first gen PS2s, so that's not new. Basically, Microsoft is taking a lot of flak publically because the internet is the devil.

That said:

The PSP has had a terrible run lately. They need games. But I'm happy with it's ability to run emulators, and PSP UMD movies are luv. There's also a small handful of games I really enjoy. Lumines is still better than anything on the DS. But for the most part, I'd rather have the variety of the DS (and it does have Battles: Prince of Persia, card based TBS 4tw and whatnot). HOWEVER, the PSP has massive pile of games coming out that I'm eagerly awaiting PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient (the sequel to intelligent qube) comes out this week, and in the next six months we have: Mega Man - Maverick Hunter X, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, Mortal Kombat: Deception Unleashed, Xyanide, GT4 Mobile, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Generation of Chaos (fuck yea!), Untold Legends 2: Warriors Code or sommat, Splinter Cell Essentials, Monster Hunter Freedom, the remake of Mega Man 1, Field Commander (SOE rips of Advance Wars and makes it realistic modern combat? yes plz), Metal Gear Ac!d 2, Guilty Gear Judgement, and Me & My Katamari. That's all that's been announced I believe. There's been no firm release date on Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (much to my dismay, but it doesn't matter since Squeenix doesn't have their shit together).

The Xbox 360 has a lot of games in the pipe I'm looking forward too. Dead or Alive 4 and the upcoming release of Street Fighter II` Hyper Fighting is reason enough for me to purchase the system. Sure, I love innovation and look forward to Lost Odyssey, Lost Planet, Alan Wake, Mass Effect, and a mess of other [admittedly less innovative] titles (it is the console's first year after all). But they aren't here yet. Your average consumer has no reason to purchase a 360 yet (which is in my 360 writeup that I haven't posted yet...because it's nowhere near complete) and would be wise to avoid the first gen - as it seems your average computer can't tell which side is up on the goddamn console and likes to spin it like a top while waiting for a game to load.

No, I seriously wasn't knocking you for your PSP or 360 love. If you're enjoying them, then by all means love it!




Um, I was replying to you calling yourself "MR First-Generation" and asking why you've never had any of these problems you hear about on teh intraweb. Nothing to do with tray-loaders vs pop-tops vs carts so much as relating to the problems people were reporting on 1st-gen PSPs.. one of the buttons not working properly, or the D-pad, or whatever the issues exactly were.
That's why I listed all those systems, basically assuming you were referring to more than the last few years of console toys in your self-title.

I certainly wasn't proposing that people were standing the original X-Box on it's side, I was talking about 3rd party ps2 stands and the new ads all over the place showing the 360 on it's side. Note that the images we've seen of the Rev and PS3 also have the units depicted on their sides. I'd also hazard that most scratched discs end up that way because people don't take care of their shit, rather then the console grinding them down into a fine powder.



As I said just then, I wasn't talking about just this specific problem, I was talking about how you've avoided the 1st-gen fuckups of the various consoles, and pointing out that it's not really that hard to have done, even if you've bought every mainstream gamebox since the SNES/Genesis era.




Now this has the potential to be interesting. I'm sure that Sony is eyeing off the new video iPod with interest. Considering that video mp3 players allow you to put whateverthefuckyouwant onto them, and that they're trying to stamp out homebrew in favour of selling shitty little UMDs that can't be played anywhere else (PS3, I'm sure, later).. yes, interesting to watch Apple's upcoming sales figures, and Sony's PSP reaction,  if any....

I'm willing to buy something based on it's potential. I really love Xbox Live right now - what they've done is amazing. As far as a total package goes, the games are still lacking. As to be expected.


The square button problem was fixed when the PSP came to America. It only exists in a small batch of first gen 1.00 models in Japan. As for other problems, I don't know. Look at the random people you group with in MMOGs. Would it shock you to find out that they're fucking idiots with their consoles too? And they're the type of people who would yell about that shit on the internet? If the glove fits...


Yea, I've bought the first gen of a lot of stuff. Some stuff I regret, like the Game Gear, TG16, N64, Jaguar (and the Jaguar CD), etc. But that's because the game support was never there. And I'm not being half jokey when I say the N64 wasn't worth it. The 3D shit on that system never felt right to me. And positively nothing about the system felt like next gen stuff when it came out. The playstation and eventually the dreamcast positively blew the pants off of it. Also, cartidges? I remember paying $60-$70 for most N64 games and they looked like muddy shit. But ANYWAY, yea, I've purchased a lot of first generation hardware.


I've addressed this. The PS3 and Revolution are slot loading systems. They will not have the issue the tray loading 360 has. It's a terrible design decision. As for the PS2, it's not meant to be stood up on it's side without a stand, probably for this exact reason. If you look at the stands that came out for the original fatty ps2, they were very wide and basically doubled or tripled the thickness of the system at the base to it wouldn't tip in the slightest. The system was already pretty sturdy standing on it's own, but not sturdy enough. If it fell over, surely it would have a good chance of fucking up a game. Sony recognized this and fixed it big time. By putting one of those little noduled rings in a top loader, the edges of the DVDs have no real way of touching anything, even if you were to spin the system. I wouldn't be surprised if some day Microsoft has a solution to this problem. But for now, it's just a matter of being careful - and my gripe is with the loud ones scattered across the net making a huffy puffy sound because they can't be careful.


Won't happen. Resolution on one of those is 480x272.

But you aren't willing to buy MMOG's on potential.  :evil:

I'm not willing to buy anything based on its potential, only what it has done/can do for me lately.

Is it just me, or is this thread infused with the spirit of Sir Bruce?

I don't think Ys: The Ark of Naptshim counts as a reason to have a PSP seeing as you can already get it for the PS2.
Ports don't count as reasons to buy a system.  Otherwise I can say my Mac runs the Call of Duty games as a reason to
own one.  (Original and expansion out now, CoD2 due this year some time, but Aspyr is trying and failing to keep the
port a secret.  Even though they mentioned it in the CoD collected box..)

Honestly, that's my biggest beef with the PSP at the moment. Its 90% watered down PS2 ports you still have to pay
50 fucking dollars for.  (Hell, 360 too.)  And the games that aren't ports are watered down portable versions of games
we already have on the half the price home consoles.  Yes, Nintendo does this too.  But its CHEAPER on the portables,
and is designed for the portable platform's strengths, giving fans another reason to buy the system and the game, to
have a new game of their favorite series on the go.

Im so glad I bought an N Gage instead.  Yes it did suck.  No it doesn't now.  Packed full of inexpensive, exclusive, and
GREAT portable games, plus giving me a cellphone for emergencies.  Pathway to Glory > Every other turn based
tactics styled game of the last 2 years, portable or not.

This is why I refuse to buy a console at launch nowadays. The last, and only, time I got a console at launch was the N64, which I actually liked. I was perfectly happy with Mario64 and Pilotwings64 as launch titles.

A little bit of patience now saves a whole lot of money and headache.

Actually Nintendo is pretty good in this regard. You can't get Fire Emblem or Advance Wars games on consoles, or really any 2d tactics games. (I'm discounting the newest GC Fire Emblem since it just came out) Mario Kart and Animal Forest have network play compared to their console counterparts, and then there are games like Under the Knife, Phoenix Wright, etc. There are very few basically straight ports on the GBA.