The reason behind 360′s RROD: “Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC vendor”

You might want to re-consider this news… you know, given that the 360 was never recalled

It was recalled at retail level, but not from the consumers. A full recall would have been impossible. The replacement scheme was the best solution until they were manufacturing enough stable units.

Was never recalled at retail either Tiger. Though many people thought it should have been. Besides the fact that if they did recall, it would have done nothing… the problems weren’t ironed out until the falcon model which didn’t even involve a new GPU – just a die shrunk CPU and motherboard modifications.

In fact… this story is pretty much all wrong. ATI designed the GPU from the start.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9487/ATI-Releases-Xbox-360-GPU-Technology-Papers/

The story is total and utter bollocks.

I’m not sure if his right but I’ve learned in the past always to trust fanboys when theres an article about ‘their’ console.
So…

/me trusts Psycotext

haha… you don’t know me very well if you think I’m a fanboy Newbie. I hate all the consoles equally, but I hate bullshit more. =)

The RRoD / 360 failure rates is just a pet interest of mine. I’ve been doing stats on it for a while now over at NeoGAF.

“Recall” is the wrong term, you’re right. I’ll edit it.

In fairness, it’s what they use over on the article. It’s just that the article is all sorts of un-factchecked wrong. =)

I’m amazed EE Times ever published it, it’s like the ramblings of the pub drunk who doesn’t appear to know anything about the subject he’s talking about but proclaims to be an expert.

Gartner needs a better chief analyst if that’s the BS their current one spouts.

I think it’s OK to change the headline: it is actually incorrect. You’re right, it was never recalled. They just extended the warrantee.

By the way… if anyone wants to know more about this I would read “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked” by Dean Takahashi. Interesting reading if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

I’ve still never read that. I keep meaning to.

It’s not as good as the first book, but it’s still interesting. Especially now as you can see where some of their decisions have had a lasting effect.

Just to reiterate, this article is just wrong from the start, middle, and end.

Indeed it is. It doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny bearing in mind the modifications (especially the initial ones in the Zephyr unit) made to the machine once RROD became an issue.

Is there any bit which is right? Maybe we could salvage something here?

Blerk: They are indeed correct that the 360 is a Microsoft product.

OMG! Teh revelations!

Maybe I was wrong with the term ‘recall’ but I’m pretty sure that Zephyr units without the heat-exchange modification were sent back to MS to be upgraded.

Tiger: No, that never happened. Would have been nice if it did though. There was an Australian retailer that sent their stock back at the time, but that was apparently related to a bunch of busted drives.

Isn’t there supposed to be some more revised hardware on the way soon? Or did I imagine that?

Few different versions apparently.

Opus: Falcon minus HDMI for replacing RRoD original machines.
Jasper: 65nm shrink on the GPU to match the CPU shrink in Falcon.
Valhalla: 65nm single die (CPU / GPU).

The CPU had a die shrink to 65nm in the “Falcon”, the GPU has the same done in “Jasper”, which is now in production.

So it should get cooler/quieter/more reliable. Probably.

When are we likely to see Jasper units on the shop shelves, then?

Not until the old ones sell out I would imagine, which could be a while given we’re into Summer in the northern hemisphere so console sales aren’t going to be that high. Probably the Autumn at the earliest.

That’s fine. I don’t want one yet anyway. I might never want one. But I might. One day. Six months, maybe. Possibly.

Yeah, Jaspers are going to be hard to find. Partly because of old stock, partly because it’s doubtful there will be an easy way to differentiate them and falcons.