Are you a bit surprised? Why would a site dedicated solely to Microsoft’s platform encourage you to steer clear? Don’t spend your cash on the Xbox 360 and here is why.
by:
March 05, 2009
Stay away from it, at least for now. I am as surprised as you that I am writing this. This site has been ran by gamers like you doing this in their spare time between finals in college, and for something to do while the wife is busy watching the latest episode of House. Since we run the site on the basis of the Xbox 360, as unbiased as we try to be we do have some stake in the Xbox 360’s success. However, I think it would be wrong of us having less than satisfying experiences with Microsoft’s hardware to sit back and act like nothing is happening. There are a few problems with Microsoft’s hardware and new ones popping up to this day. Why would you want to spend $300+ on a console only for it to break on you in a year or less in this economy?
Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 have limited hardware problems, and have not been widespread enough for them to invest over a billion dollars into fixing the problem. If you just got a nice fat tax return this year and aren’t doing so bad on bills, you might be thinking of buying an Xbox 360 because you have heard how great Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 is. It pains me to say it but maybe you should pick up a $400 PS3 and Killzone 2 instead. The hardware problems are many on the Xbox 360, the first of them being three red lights flashing on the Xbox 360 when the console malfunctions better known by the colloquial Red Ring of Death or RRoD.
The video above demonstrates the pain Xbox Evolved’s extra sensitive Jason Solorzano experienced without his precious Xbox 360. RRoD can be a number of things, but the end result is that it sucks. Thanks to the three-year warranty extended specifically for RRoD you do not have to pay for repairs but you have to wait an average of three weeks to get it back. There is something to be said about the bond between a man and his Xbox 360 and Microsoft’s Xbox Live ecosystem encourages this bond to the fullest. To compensate you for your time, Microsoft gives you 1 month of Live and typically a brand new Xbox 360. If you are reading this and waiting for your Xbox 360 what should you do with your time away from the Xbox 360? Well we have a few ideas in a previous RRoD article.
Red Ring of Death is thankfully not as big of a problem as it was in the past. Microsoft has since shrinked the size of the parts that cause the issues therefore reducing the number of Xbox 360 consoles that could have the error. Xbox Evolved staff has seen fewer reports of RRoD and Microsoft exec Shane Kim promises the issue is under control in a interview with GameDaily.
There are two other issues Xbox 360 hardware has that are popping up more nowadays. The first, “Error 74” or “E74” is gone into thorough detail by XE writer Michael Ogunnubi in his article Error E 74...360’s New Outbreak?” The second issue is disc reading errors. Tell me if this sounds familiar current 360 owners: You put in a game it winds up once and a second time loudly while giving you a “Reading Disc” message, only to get the “Open Disc Tray” status afterwards. After buying my second Xbox 360 in October with hopes that it would be cooler and quieter (which it was) I figured it was 100% good to go. Less than five months later. Thankfully I was within warranty and can get the repair for free. I have had dozens of emails, personal friends and Xbox Evolved staff ask me about the problem very recently though, and many people were out of warranty and had to pay nearly $100 just to ship the Xbox 360 and get it fixed.
If you find yourself in this situation the best thing to do is the ole “Towel Trick” making the console RRoD and then they will have to fix it for free. Refer to my RRoD article for details. Otherwise, if you are a gamer on the fence about what to buy, well get off the Xbox 360 fence until it has its act together. If you must buy an Xbox 360 though, I would recommend you check to make sure the manufacturing date was within this year. You can do this by looking on the side of the box and an opening shows you the info on the actual Xbox 360. The RRoD problems seem to be simmering down in the latest hardware, and the disc drive problem seems to have happened to more people that bought the Xbox 360 within the last year and a half.
The sad thing with these issues is that nearly all Xbox Evolved staff has had RRoD and either E74 or disc errors, and we know many people online and personally that have had at least two of these errors also. I can count all the people I know with PS3 and Wii errors on one hand. We love the games on Xbox 360 and we would love to encourage everyone that doesn’t own an Xbox 360 to buy one, but right now it is incredibly difficult to make that suggestion. Hopefully Microsoft will nail all of these issues down and we will be changing our tune later this year.
