MS showcases Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 at expo
Whoops
Microsoft executives will be a little red-faced today after an Xbox 360 on display at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco contracted the infamous ‘Red Ring of Death’ disease.
Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com
The console was set-up as a demo unit in an area dedicated to Microsoft's XNA, a software toolkit for videogame development. A video of the problematic but publicly placed console, filmed by a BBC commentator at GDC, has already appeared online.
The video will make uncomfortable viewing for Microsoft bosses because the hardware headache has already cost the company more than $1bn (£500m/€650m).
Last week, electronics warranty trading firm SquareTrade concluded that an Xbox 360 has a 16.4 per cent chance of breaking down and that, of those that do, the Red Ring of Death will be at fault in 60 per cent of cases. It based its findings on a study of 1000 warranty claims for the console.
COMMENTS
RROD on very first power-up, SOB!
... not what you want to see after getting home an excitedly plugging in your new toy!!!
[this was at start of Feb 08]
Still, took it back to PC World where it obligingly did it again… and I got a replacement. But, this makes me wonder about those people who have to play Halo3 for 45 min before getting the RROD. What do PC World do then? Do they make you play for 45 min in shop until destruction, or do they just believe you???
So far so GROJ on 360 II. [Green Ring Of Joy; first use - no hits on Google!] Still, not really pushed it heat wise yet as I am still playing the Boogie Bunnies two level demo!
@Highlander
True, true. If I had a 1 in 6 chance of dying in a fatal car accident within the year I might strongly consider finding an alternate mode of transport (or simply staying at home). Granted, a 360 failure isn't anywhere near that serious but the point stands.
And I agree with most - "Prologue" versions are just pants. It's like having a woman tickle your balls only to say she won't go any further, for a while anyway.
Jeez I seem to be on it with the sexual metaphors today :)
johny giles anyone?
i fixed my red ring of death with some cream from the chemist.. have to watch them hot curry's though...
@Iain
Point taken with some of that. But some of it is slightly misleading.
"Current XBox 360s have one proper HDMI socket on the back, just like the PS3." Well the PS3 has 2, but I'm just being pedantic there.
"Re: Processing power, there is one particular benchmark that gives the PS3 a peak rate of twice the 360"
Yes - Floating Point Operations Per Second. The XBOX 360 performs 1 teraflop, the PS3 performs at 2. This one I think is really quite misleading, because thats the only real true measure of processing power.
"The 360 also has a faster GPU than the PS3, so overall it's a wash"
This one, true, but as bit of a cheat on Microsofts part. A small area of the GPU which can access 10mb of special memory has a speed nearly 10 times that of the PS3. When accessing the other 512mb the speed is about 2/3's that of the PS3.
"both machines have bottlenecks in different places."
Yeah, thats true. I still think the PS3 has less of a bottleneck, but with current games not really stretching either of them, it's very hard to say.
"If you want to play Halo 3 buy a 360, if you want to play GT5, sit on your hands until it comes out; there's bound to be a price cut in the meantime"
Completely true. My mistake, I keep thinking GT5 is out. Yeah you can get prologue, but you don't get much for your money with those half games.
Mostly that was all fair, but some of it IS spin from Microsoft. Despite their terrible track record, I think some of the PS3 was underhyped. With the Bluray drive in, it really is a much better deal.
@Iain
I am talking quite specifically about the statistical chances of failure. Of course the failure of your 360 is not lethal, unless of course it shorts out and causes a fire.... However that's not the point, the point is that 1 in 6 odds are not good odds. I remember having an SLA discussion years and years ago with someone who was trying to persuade me that 99.9% was sufficiently reliable for a mission critical network system. I sat there and asked which working day he thought we would like to lose due to system failure. Imagine if he'd tried to suggest to me that 84% was sufficient!
I used the Russian Roulette concept because it fits nicely due to the old 6 chamber revolver. You can't deny that it is a good fit to illustrate a point regarding 1 in 6 odds. And that is rather the point, isn't it? 1 in 6 Xboxes according to this report, 1 in 3 according to earlier reports and reported insider information from the Xbox team itself. Even just the 1 in 6 failure rate is ridiculous for any consumer product. I don't honestly know how you or anyone else can be so enamored with the 360 console that a 1 in 6 failure rate is deemed a price worth paying.
As for the Prologue version of GT5, agreed. I don't like 'prologue' games. They seem pointless to me when the real game is coming soon.
