I guess I'm lucky, I finally get to join the great army of people who's Xbox360 has died on them. What's even more fun is that it's 2 weeks out of warranty and Microsoft wants to make me pay $200 to get it fixed!! HA, they can get f***ed!

I just feel like making a website which people can go to when their console has failed so we can track how many people have had to send theirs off for servicing...would be great PR for Microsoft.

could be worse

old mate bricked his modding his and his mates

his mates, works fine, can play backups now and what not

his, dead drive

both identical boxes, same process on both

I'll give ya $50 for it, cash.

lol, no.

I doubt its a "great army" of people, it just that people rarely post on forums to talk about how unbroken their xbox is, so all you usually hear is people whinging about how theirs broke.

Out of the, what, 12 million xbox 360's that have been sold? I bet you'd find the percentage of ones with faults isn't all that high.

I've had 2 consoles, both failed.
The console I got at launch died the next day.
The replacement console died today - 1 year 2 weeks after I got it.

Am I just really really unlucky?
Also, I've owned about 7-8 consoles before the 360 and I've had NO issues what-so-ever, is it abnormal to expect a similar level of quality with this product?

Was it in a cabinet or somewhere it could get hot? Im keeping my new 360 out of the cabinet just because i fear for it overheating.

Nope it was upright next to my TV, plenty of space for ventilation.

eeek that's where mine is. i thought it was safe =S

Hey Tim, its happened to me too, luckily mine within warranty period..

Anyway over at neogaf there is an official thread of 360 deaths, i think its over 50 pages, each page has 50 posts, so yeah it's definitely more widespread than the 3% that MS reckons.

PS3's are dieing too, checkout the latest post on IGN editors site: http://blogs.ign.com/matt-ign

Anyway there is a trick to try, several people have done it on GAF and said it works. The towel trick.

1. Wrap 360 completely in towel
2. Turn on console for 10 minutes.
3. turn off console, remove towel
4. Turn on console, see if it works.

f***ed if i know what it's doing, you would think it's breaking the machine but.. here you go http://thexboxdomain.net/2007/01/15/the-towel-trick-fixes-360s/

last edited by partyhat at 21:28:08 06/Apr/07

Well I'm going to speak to our Microsoft TAM on Tuesday to see if he can pull any strings...if he can't then I guess I'll be selling a few games. Will post the list on Tuesday if I decide to sell.

you forgot 5. extinguish burning towel.

50 pages x 50 posts = 2500 faults.

12,000,000 xbox 360's sold world wide (prolly not exact, but its about that)

2500 / 12,000,000 = 0.0002 = 0.02%

Now obviously theres more faults than are posted in that thread, but if you're trying to say that thread is indicative of how many faults there are, I think Microsoft could easily be on the money when they say 3%. I mean, 3% is approximately 360,000 faults, surely thats a pretty believeable number.

And I'd also be interested to know how many of these "faults" happened to people who'd f***ed with their 360 or modded it in some way, because really, if you do that, you forfeit all right to bitch and moan when it breaks.

Not that I'm trying to be preachy, but one of my pet hates is these bulls*** threads where people cry and rant about how crap a product is just because a small percentage of them have problems. Sure, its bad luck if you get one of the 3% thats faulty, but it doesn't instantly make the product s*** just because you had a s*** experience with it. If it was a problem that affected EVERY xbox 360 you'd have a point, but otherwise its just a case of "s*** happens", get over it and move on.

We have no way of knowing exactly how many faults there have been. The only way we can try and figure out if it's a large volume is by internet threads and news reports on websites.

There's no way you can simply dismiss the sheer volume of complaints and issues people have had with this console compared to any other console before it! I've never seen anything like it. A simple 'google' search is a pretty good indication really.

There's no way you can simply dismiss

You probably dismissed them before it happened to you, and now the only stat you care about is that 100% of xbox360s you own dont work.

You probably dismissed them before it happened to you, and now the only stat you care about is that 100% of xbox360s you own dont work.

It's true, I did dismiss it to a degree. After my first 360 died after a day I went 'wow, that's unlucky' handed it in, got a new one. Now that this one is dead I know that it's not really me being unlucky but a s***ty system design - or perhaps a flaw with the manufacturing process.

I guess some people are just luckier than me, and I guess that's what you need to have in order to own one of these things.

last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 22:07:41 06/Apr/07

Hey sorry the math doesn't add up, but these products are definitely not great quality for the price they are, I guess it could be because gamers are more vocal (you dont hear too much about TVs or other CEDs breaking) but still, so many people in the community have had theirs broken, pretty much all staff at IGN have been through 2 machines. Even if it is 3% (360,000) that does seem like an alarmingly high number of failures.

Even Adam's had died on launch night remember khel. lol. Mine died 4 hours after I got it too. Modded it and has been okay since, so I don't think that has anything to do with it.

I've never had problems with previous consoles either, but they didn't have multi core cpu's, crazy gpu's, hdd's, internet connectivity, next gen optical drives etc. They are basically mass manufactured PCs which are prone to breaking and their QA doesn't seem to be as thorough.

The hardware is changing quite rapidly imo, with the Elite SKU coming out soon, and PS3 already having hardware changes (EE removal) just months after US launch.




last edited by partyhat at 22:14:17 06/Apr/07

last edited by partyhat at 22:16:28 06/Apr/07

Anyway there is a trick to try, several people have done it on GAF and said it works. The towel trick.

1. Wrap 360 completely in towel
2. Turn on console for 10 minutes.
3. turn off console, remove towel
4. Turn on console, see if it works.

f***ed if i know what it's doing, you would think it's breaking the machine but.. here you go http://thexboxdomain.net/2007/01/15/the-towel-trick-fixes-360s/

this may work, but there are other options, let me explain.
bassically the main reason the consoles break is because teh solder they use on the board is s*** and cracks, so heating it up can fix it but you have to get it pretty f***ing hot which can ruin other hardware on the board. there are other tricks like pulling it apart and getting a heat gun and heating the board up that way. i know reso has tried that and it didnt work which sucks s*** loads.

i personally was lucky, mine fried after about 9 months i sent it off it got repaired, 2 weeks later it f***ed up again, so i sent it off, it took them a month to repair it this time, and after alot of f***ing around by there call centre i finally got it back. i then got over it completely and decided i was going to flash the drive and play "back up" games. which is where i stand now.

it sucks yours f***ed out of warranty, if you really cant be f***ed paying them to fix it and want to try other methods *which void your warranty* then try what i suggested above.

good luck and hope you get it working again.

lol, 3% of 12 000 000 is 360 000...

So, there'd need to be more than 360 000 360's to be busted before Microsoft were wrong about how many faulty machines there are. Am I the only one who finds that funny?

Anyhoo, partyhat, 3% is such a small number. The pill and condoms have 1% failure and everyone still buys and uses them. Alarmingly high??? I think not.

check your states fair trading laws.

in nsw at least, the fair trading legislation stipulates that a product must be fit for purpose and function without fault for a reasonable lifetime, and the manufacturer must repair it for no charge if it fails within this reasonable lifetime.

what is a reasonable lifetime will vary depending on the product, eg a xbox360 costing $700 could reasonably be expected to last more than 12 months, but a tv you bought in 1992 that fails would likely have run its reasonable lifetime

manufacturers warranties are provided over and above the legal obligations set down in the legislation, and does not negate or override.

I have used this a few times to get stuff repaired at no cost after it breaks down outside of warranty. Check into your coverage...

Info for NSW at least here...

http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/shopping/refundsrepairs/warranties.html

last edited by Crusher at 11:27:53 08/Apr/07

I'm selling some of my Xbox360 games now if anyone is interested.
If you're interested please email me with an offer bob342@gmail.com

Guitar Hero 2
Gears of War
Fight Night Round Three
Enchanted Arms
Perfect Dark Zero
Table Tennis
Viva Pinata
Ghost Recon - Advanced Warfighter

I played the perfect dark demo how f***ing s*** is it. Like DuesEx 2 all over again very disappointing the n64 one was brilliant

also my 360 just died couple days ago, thank god for warrenty

The pill and condoms have 1% failure and everyone still buys and uses them.

HAHAHA, my brother falls into that 1% catagory!

You fall into the 1% failure rate for abortions.

Although some people *cough*Khel*cough don't think it's a widespread issue, I actually sent an email through to a few TV program that might be interested in covering the problem. One just responded a few minutes ago to say they were investigating the issue - so you never know we might get some TV coverage.

Today Tonight or ACA?

We have no way of knowing exactly how many faults there have been.

Well, you do - its jsut whether or not you believe MS's statistic.

Although some people *cough*Khel*cough don't think it's a widespread issue

Yeah, you're right, its a big cover-up, the failure rate is really 90% and Microsoft are paying off every retailer, gaming website, and gaming magazine in the entire world to keep it a secret. They'll probably kill me for coming forward like this, but I just wanted you to know, you were right all along.

you only ever hear of the people who have f***ed ones, so meh.

No offence, but if you killed 2 xboxes, i'd look at you.

My 360's fine, and hasn't got a fault, and i'ts over a year old now?

Reso's being dead isn't MS's fault.

TBH this thread is stupid, and trying to pull statistics out of anything on the internet is retarded.

I hope you do end up on ACA/Today Tonight, you'll just be another biased idiot that comes off as an asshat.

I'm sorry you got 2 bad 360's, but just grow up.

Khel if you stick your head any further into the sand then you could cause permanent damage.

Also my console sat vertically next to my TV with a good chunk of space around it for ventilation - what else do I need to do to make sure it doesn't break?

Also it's not just random stats, it's about people's experiences. I know of a few people personally that have had a similar problem as me, I'm not just relying on hearsay. I was a bit like you before mine died the second time as well, if yours failed too would you be singing the same tune?

last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 13:41:16 11/Apr/07

failure rate is really 90% and Microsoft are paying off every retailer, gaming website, and gaming magazine in the entire world to keep it a secret.

Well they didn't do a good job then

http://blogs.ign.com/Peer-IGN/ - go to the post on the 29th March
http://blogs.ign.com/Matt-IGN/2007/01/19/44024/
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6163599.html
http://www.dailytech.com/Another+Xbox+360+Bites+the+Dust/article6811.htm

all my friends who have them have had them fail at least once, 2 of them twice.

Well i know (and play online a fair bit) with about a group of about 10 people, all who have never had a problem for the last year.

So i'm gonig to run to ACA about all the people who post bs online, hopefully they investigate.

Khels not sticking his head in the sand, he's pointing out that the only people who ever whinge are those with a problem, those with out never say a thing. for the 2500 posts on neogaf there are 11,000,000 people who didn't post a positive.

Sorry don't have time to post, too busy playing crackdown on my xbox360...

about 30 of us at work all got given 360s last august, only 1 has failed that I know of.

^ How's that for stats?

Talking about tstats....The only thing we really can look at are the chances of having several consoles fail on you, do the math.

I've had 2 consoles fail on me, the first console had a 3% chance of failure (according to Microsoft) the second had a 0.0009% of failure...WOW, I'm pretty bloody unlucky.
Now what about the chances of having 3 or 4 consoles fail on them as some people have experienced...they are really REALLY lucky.

Try and rationalise that. The sensible way to look at it, would be to say that there is a problem with the manufacturing process.

You don't understand stats do you?
Your first console had a 3% chance of failure.
You got your next one, its chance of failure? 3%!

the rational way to look at it is to stop using the term lucky and start admiting that you are unlucky and that by chance you got 2 borked consoles.

mine broke twice and in no way was i stupid enough to make me think that that instantly means that the failure rate is huge. instead i did some reading and realised that the amount of posts with people with broken consoles is far less then those with working ones, and thats not even including those that didnt post.

You got your next one, its chance of failure? 3%!

Yes that's true, but the chance of having 2 consoles that are both faulty is not 3%, it's 3% per console, but it's not 3% for BOTH consoles.

But anyway. I've said what I needed to say, and I think some people agree, and some people disagree (which is the way with everything)...so yeah, I've said more point, enough said.

I think it comes down to this:

1) there's a massive problem with the Xbox 360 which is resulting in a failure rate that is much higher than Microsoft are saying. I believe this is not true, because most of the people I know with Xbox 360's aren't having any problems.

2) you're just hugely unlucky

3) there's something fundamentally wrong with the way you're using your Xbox 360 (eg, putting it in the dishwasher to keep it clean). Probably unlikely though.

my 360 is problem free (/me knocks on wood) but I know of 3 people (not including any of you fags posting in this thread) that have had problems/had it die.

mine locks up sometimes or gives me 'disc unreadable' error and i have to reboot it. what you expect from MS tho the things probably running embedded xp... just like our TAB terminals lol

Yes that's true, but the chance of having 2 consoles that are both faulty is not 3%, it's 3% per console, but it's not 3% for BOTH consoles.

But the two are separate, isolated events. Your first XBox failing has absolutely no impact on the odds of your second xbox failing. Its like flipping a coin, you can't say "Well its come up heads the last 5 times, so it just HAS to be tails this time". I bet you're one of those people who go to the casino and look at the scoreboards on the roulette and bet all your money on Red because black has come up more often.

Also, if a plane was on a runway, but the runway was a treadmill, would it take off?

1) there's a massive problem with the Xbox 360 which is resulting in a failure rate that is much higher than Microsoft are saying. I believe this is not true, because most of the people I know with Xbox 360's aren't having any problems.

Why does it have to be a massive failure? How about 8-10% failure rate? Is that totally unreasonable with what you've heard around the place?

but the two are separate, isolated events. Your first XBox failing has absolutely no impact on the odds of your second xbox failing.

Yes, if you look at the situation as an isolated event, according to Msoft the chances of a failure is 3%. But if you look as the situation as a whole, so having 2 consoles both fail, the chances of that happening are not 3%. It's .03x.03 or 0.0009%. We actually had this argument last night with a few friends of mine, and one of them is still adament that the failure is only 3% :)

the failure IS probably around 3%. Because of the massively high volumes of xbox 360s sold, there is a corresponding number (as a ratio) of dead xboxes.

I think it is a similar situation to hard drives. There is about a 3% failure rate on those too. Some people get dead ones within a week, get them replaced under warranty and then they fail just outside the warranty period. That does not make the failure rates super high. That just makes you unlucky. The fact that other people have also experienced dead hard drives (given that there are millions of hard drives in australia, let alone the world) makes it seem high, but it is really only a small percentage.

Microsoft says 3%. People think, that's tiny. I disagree, that is huge. Failures, if designed correctly, should be categorised in parts per million.

Failures, if designed correctly

??

yeah, i realised i'd worded it wrong.

It was meant to be:

If the product is designed correctly failures should be measured in parts per million.

yeah i get ya now - personally i think the product design is excellent (especially since the new fire proof power supply hehe) MS were just dumb to rush the testing phase and push out a console full of bugs. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - if only MS had known they had about 2 years on the PS3 LOL

just typical microsoft stuff here. you don't buy the first. you don't become an early adopter cos their products aren't good yet.

yeah and your maths is wrong too

to have 2 consoles fail consecutively is .03 * .03 = 0.0009 = 0.09%, not 0.0009%

but yes, as said, the failure rate of your second one would still be 0.03% as it is a separate event :)

yeah, i realised i'd worded it wrong.

It was meant to be:

If the product is designed correctly failures should be measured in parts per million.

or it could be the fact that we are a piss weak country and nobody designs or tests there products to run in our climate.

our climate is not that different to that of a fair amount of north america, microsoft's biggest clients.

to have 2 consoles fail consecutively is .03 * .03 = 0.0009 = 0.09%, not 0.0009%

but yes, as said, the failure rate of your second one would still be 0.03% as it is a separate event :)

Heh, you just did what he did.

Well to close off the saga.

I had a call from the PR manager at Xbox Australia today, she's going to send out a replacement console for me. So my complaint is sorted. Yippie!

did she sound attractive on the phone?

So my complaint is sorted.

At least until you break this one =)

did she sound attractive on the phone?

She did, seriously, she honestly did.

still gonna buy a ps3?

Ya, I will...I will just wait until near the end of the year. That was when I was going to buy one in the first place.

did she sound attractive on the phone?

She did, seriously, she honestly did.

You made me think of this.

so my bloody 360 died the other day - thing keeps resetting itself randomly. The xbox is under 12months old however i seem to have lost my receipt whilst moving house >_< am i completely f***ed?

so my bloody 360 died the other day - thing keeps resetting itself randomly. The xbox is under 12months old however i seem to have lost my receipt whilst moving house >_< am i completely f***ed?

yes

I doubt it, ring Xbox support and as long as you have an idea when you got the console is should be OK.

yeah i didnt have my reciept when i got mine fixed.

just quote the serial number, they should track all that :)

sweetness thanks guys i was getting depressed