£500m bill for Xbox red ring of death

Old news is old!

Yeah, I really thought before running that.

Some Elites are based on the old hardware design, aren’t they?

I’ve not heard of many people with Elite problems, tbh. I’d be interested in seeing where this story actually came from.

Yeah, launch UK elites were are the Zephyr model. That aside… they will never “solve” the RRoD. It’s the code for the general hardware failure so there’s bound to be a few, even if the new models are reliable.

I bet they’re seriously going to reconsider the light ring in their next console though.

I’ll ask Microsoft, but I’d expect the “rumour and speculation” thing, tbh.

Yeah, putting something on the outside that shows when it’s gone wrong was probably a pretty bad idea in hindsight!

Pff.. that’s only a month without the extra pocket-money for Microsoft. >_>

This sounds to me as if the Daily Mirror author mixed up the name of the 360 console as a brand (not a single sku), naming it “Xbox Elite”. There’s no way that only Elite 360s caused this $1 billion figure approximated on the warrantee extension (which I also assume the badly researched article refers to).

Badly researched is probably a given however they seem fairly clear that Elite’s are being affected when they were thought to be a lot more reliable. It would be interesting to know what have happened to failure rates with the Falcon editions. My second 360 has just died a death from the RRoD – first died of GPU failure in the first year and was replaced with a brand new one – so I’m looking to upgrade to an Elite whilst the old one is in repair.

You see I odn’t think the biggest mistake that Microsoft made in this generation was the RROD, at least not on the original machines. I think that was a gamble worth taking. I think that MS really messed up with the Elite. It was a real opportunity missed. They really needed to overhaul the hardware in the same way that Nintendo did with DS.

@Klanger13
I agree RRoD was not initially an issue, it was worth the pain to get such an early release out compared to the PS3. I don’t think the Elite revamp was required – or indeed possible – at that point. It would have been better if it was clear to consumers that if they bought machine X then it will have the improved internal design though.

The DS needed a redesign – the original was nasty. The 360 design is fine if a little large for some markets – but a reduction in size is only possible with a significant combination of things happening. I don’t think they were in a position to do that when they launched the Elite.

klanger13: A bit early in the lifecycle for that sort of hardware redesign. It’s likely to come late next year with the combined CPU / GPU motherboard design.

Well, just to be controversial, and generate some hits for patlike, I’d say that the 360 is pretty nasty. Having had one, and now having a PS3, it just starts to look a little…well….’cheap’. Personal opinion I know but I do think that the mass market think that as well.

I think if Microsoft had brought a machine to market that was slimmer, quieter, more reliable, and had a much tighter interface, they would really have hit it home.

On the plus side for them though, it’s a lot better than the original Xbox! Though not in reliability terms

I have a Falcon X360 Elite and it’s had no probs at all. I can leave the thing running for hours without so much as a hiccup.

klanger13: I don’t think the mass market think… at all. Hence the success of the Wii.

ohnoiwentthere

PS3 certainly has a lot more or a quality feel to it, they cut lots of corners on the 360. The technical core of the 360 is better designed and therefore more capable in general though, and where it counts in game terms the 360 has a huge lead (IMO).

@Psychotext
There are some great things on the Wii, but lots of dirge and lots of Nintendo trotting out IP with waggle controls and no one really daring to pick them up on it.

Psyshchotext: The Wii is a great piece of kit, even better than the PS3. Its just so accessible as well. Nintendo headquarters is the vault from Duck Tales, Miyamoto swimming in money Well done to them I say too, after all the stuff thas was written when they first announced both the DS and the Wii!

klanger13: It does look A bit dated now but maybe they will eventually bring out A slimline?
just A tought.

Microsoft responds to the story, claims “old!”.

Couldn’t even be bothered writing it. Note to self: don’t listen to newspapers.

Slacker!

Heh. I should have done it, I guess. It just seemed so obvious, though.