Did Microsoft know about Xbox failures?

[2Times]

Did Microsoft know about Xbox failures?

Report casts new light on reliability woes

By Mike Smith


Has your Xbox 360 ever failed unexpectedly? If it has, you're in good company -- in February, warranty company SquareTrade pegged the console's failure rate at a shocking 16%. But a stunning new expose claims that Microsoft knew over two-thirds of the consoles produced by its contracted factories in the run-up to the Xbox 360's November 2005 launch date were faulty, and opted to push the machine out to consumers in spite of its problems.

The report, published this week in VentureBeat and written by technology journalist Dean Takahashi -- author of the critically acclaimed The Xbox 360 Uncloaked -- blames numerous factors for the now-infamous "Red Ring of Death" failures, including a rushed design process, the machine's groundbreaking complexity, and cost-cutting initiatives that hamstrung quality assurance tests.

As one anonymous source told Takahashi, "There were so many problems, you didn't know what was wrong. The [test engineers] didn't have enough time to get up and running."

Even though Microsoft eventually extended the Xbox 360's warranty program in an effort to reassure consumers, incurring an estimated $1 billion bill in the process, public confidence in the Xbox 360 was harmed immeasurably. Many online reports indicated purchasers had to go through four or more replacement machines before receiving one that worked, and Microsoft amassed a "bone yard" of 500,000 broken consoles in the process, Takahashi claims.

Here's the link.
Did Microsoft know about Xbox failures? - Video Game Feature - Yahoo! Video Games
Saw this and thought we all knew this was the case.

[dmiller68]

Microsoft knowing is probably a little strong if your not doing any QA work do you really know?

Before Monkey jumps on me I'm not defending MS...

[Wondermonkey]

We always knew that the failure rate was higher than MS was stating, within our contained group here it was over 75% right?

I don't think they knew per se, but I think they knew what they were doing could result in exactly what we saw. I think they hoped for the best.

[Crippler]

I have no doubt in my mind that MS knew they had an EXTREMELY fragile and potentially insanely unreliable console when they shipped. All they did was hope for the best as Wonder stated. They simple cut too many corners when it comes to electronics validation trying to push a global launch ahead of Sony.

This is a MUST read:
Xbox 360 defects: an inside history of Microsoft’s video game console woes » VentureBeat

Our failure/functioning ratio here on PGL is basically inline with what this article states MS was seeing coming off the production line.

[Jon Liu]

As much of a drastic change the 2% to 16% failure rate is that they were originally claiming, I still think the percentage of defective Xbox360's is much higher.

Even based upon the numbers of failures we've had here at PGL and other forums that I frequent or used to frequent, it seems that the failure rate was MUCH, much higher.

[Jon Liu]

Oh, and I think Apple should release a game console. They should call it iBox.

Just kidding. That one was for you, DMil.

[Crippler]

Originally Posted by Jon Liu

Oh, and I think Apple should release a game console. They should call it iBox.

Just kidding. That one was for you, DMil.

And then we can play ALL 3 games for it.

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Crippler

And then we can play ALL 3 games for it.

Well, I bet you could at least play Spore or the nine other EA games they're developing for it.

Of course, you can just play Spore on the 360 I guess.

If it existed!

[Jon Liu]

Isn't spore out or coming out for the iPhone/iPod Touch?

Maybe Apple's console shouldn't be called iBox. It should be called the iStation. Or iiW!

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Jon Liu

Isn't spore out or coming out for the iPhone/iPod Touch?

They are demoing it now for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Did you know that there are 700 games on the App Store for the Touch/iPhone? I had no idea. I only have 1!

EDIT: It's actually already on the app store for $10. Spore: Origins.

[Jon Liu]

Craziness! Unfortunately, with the unlocked iPhone that I am using, I still haven't looked into updating to anything beyond 1.1.4...

So I don't get the benefits of the first party apps and such. If there's an upgrade for 2.0+ and the unlocked phones I might bite, though!

Maybe it's time to switch providers!

Back to topic, Microsoft products have failures?!

[Quo]

Originally Posted by Jon Liu

...Or iiW!

How would you pronounce that? It looks like "eeewwww" Sadly, that's not much worse than Wii.

As far as games go, anything that pushes the envelope is generally good. I'm not real big on phone games for any platform. I have a hard enough time playing on the little PSP with its somewhat functional controls.

[Jon Liu]

I love playing games on my iPhone. I think the screen interactivity just makes it that much more doable.

[dmiller68]

Originally Posted by Wondermonkey

Well, I bet you could at least play Spore or the nine other EA games they're developing for it.

Of course, you can just play Spore on the 360 I guess.

If it existed!

It doesn't surprise me that EA is developing games for the iphone we all ready have several EA games on nGage.

/offtopic
So I heard a interesting fact believe it or not Nokia has a Music store that mostly is aimed at Europe and APAC. According to the report this morning we have a chance to pass itunes in number of music downloads this month. I guess we have been growing like gangbusters of the last two months with the latest phone releases. They expect to stomp itunes when they release the all you consume model next month. Buy a new phone and download all the music you want for a year for one price and you get to keep the music (on that device) forever.
/ontopic

It is interesting that if MS cut all these corners when they where / are trying to build respect in the gaming community. I guess they thought they could use the EA game model, build crap and people still come back.

[Jon Liu]

Well it worked didn't it? I've been through how many? Eight? Nine Xbox 360's? I'm still playing it...