Xbox 360 Warranty: All is Not So Rosy in Microsoft - Land

Hot on the heels of E3 where Microsoft was gushing loudly about how the Xbox 360 is statistically the number-one game console on the planet – Microsoft gets the almost $2 billion bill.

 

Microsoft has posted a $1.89 billion USD operating loss for the Xbox 360 this year. The losses are mostly due to the $1.06 billion cost incurred for the big two-year contract extension from one year to a full three years due to the overheating issues.

 

The huge loss has forced Microsoft to cancel the X07 conference planned for Europe. According to one report, Aaron Greenberg, product manager for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, says they just can't afford it. EB Games Australia has issued a large scale recall of Xbox 360 consoles with store managers in Australia being ordered to return their entire inventory of Xbox 360 premium consoles.

 

Despite the rosy spin Peter Moore put on operations down at Microsoft entertainment and devices, things area a little tougher than they let on at E3. The console games business is a tough one that tends to operate out of an accepted loss up-front just to get your hardware into the hands of users. Once that's accomplished the money is presumed to be made when the hardware becomes indispensable because there are so many games available on your platform.

 

It's definitely not a business for the timid, only the tough minded with a strong stomach need try to compete with deep pockets like Sony and Microsoft.

19 comments
Posted by Bakari on July 30,2007 at 11:54 AM

I understand your point Dave but I don't think you understand mine. Figures aside the PS2 did not fail as much as the 360. Neither were acceptable though. Sony was sued as was Microsoft. I'm not bashing the 360 but this whole post started because you said people were bashing the 360 when PS2 had the same problem. I just wanted to say that PS2 and 360 did not have the same problem. That's it.

Sorry if I come off as a Sony fanboy but trust me I'm not. Doesn't matter I have been called a 360 fanboy, Wii Fanboy, SOny fanboy, Sega fanboy,etc.

Microsoft has been sued twice over RROD. Sony and MS are the same they won't do anything unless foced to. Sony didn't do it until they were forced and neither did MS. The reason why I think the 3 year warranty is good but not great is that it only covers RROD and nothing else. The system still has other things that goes wrong with it and if that happens you still have to foot the bill. Microsoft is currently getting sued over scratching discs.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134903-c,gameconsoles/article.html

I brought up the PS3 since that is the 360's class. The PS3 and the Wii. I have seen a PS3 fail (it just wouldn't turn on) with a game inside and Sony Replaced the PS3 and the game (that was a third party title) all for free. I had a rough time with MS. I agree with Dave the 360 is a great system when it works. Sorry If this got out of hand.

Hey Dave

I think Blu Ray is going to win the war and yes I have a PS3 but I think that HD DVD has more to offer right now in terms of coolness factor. To make my point the movie 300 will be so much better on HD DVD. Period. Just because of the added stuff. I like Blu Ray on my PS3 though since they can use it for games and that is what matters to me. If the HD DVD add on could be used for games I would applaud it but its not so I rather get a stand alone player.

Yes Microsoft is married to HD DVD but its something that they can just walk away from as well. If Blu Ray was to fail SOny can't take it out of the PS3 or revise it. IF HD DVD fails MS can just not produced the add on and stop putting it in their products. I think they did this smart. I think they want the format wwar to continue because people after getting over a format war being told hey now just download your movies it's moving a little too fast for the average person. If though the format war continues and MS keeps pushing the fact that hey you can download HD movies it doesn't matter if you have blu ray or HD DVD it comes as a welcome alternative as a downloaded movie shows very little way of losing money.

You get HD DVD, Blu wins, you lose money. You get Blu Ray, HD DVD wins, you lose moeny. You download movies either side wins, you never lose money.

Posted by dave on July 27,2007 at 9:47 AM

I've got no interest in HD either as far as i'm comcerned we've only just arrived at a point where recordable dvd players are cheap enough to be in everyones living room and i still know many who only have a player and use VHS for recording programmes.

I would have thought the next logical step would have been HD DVD simply because it can be manufactured on virtually the same equipment as conventional DVDs making it an easy transition, the picture quality is the same on both.

Blu-ray holds more data but i don't think space is going to be an issue for either format, i'm no an experpert so correct if i'm wrong but didn't Blu-ray win over more studios because they had a more secure DRM?

I don't think MS joined the HD DVD camp just as a spoiler, but i am beggining to  think neithr will be adopted by the mass market, anyway i'm not an early adopter so i'd be sitting this one out for now regardless of formats.

Posted by Wayde on July 27,2007 at 8:15 AM

"Just to point out Microsoft doesn't really care about the format war."

Interesting point Bakari. But I think we're still a 'disc generation' cycle away from downloads being mainstream.

DVD started in 1998 - it really started in 2000 when the first <$100 DVD players became available. It's only '07 and we're on the front edge of the next. This gen prod cycle only has about five more years if it ever even takes off. Maybe downloads will be ready then or maybe downloads will eventually slay both formats execution style while they continue pissing themselves with this stupid format war.

Make no mistake...Microsoft is married to HD DVD. A Microsoft product resides on every HD DVD sold, VC1 the compression format used to store audio and video. And it's far and away superior to Mpeg2 (used on BD). It allows movies to use less space whilst retaining more information, it has a higher decompressesion rate. It's just a newer, faster, smaller format than Mpeg2 which has been around since the dawn of digital cable TV.

This is what makes HD DVD better than Blu-ray. Plus HD DVD has been around longer.

Blu-ray still uses Mpeg2. The only viable defence of this practice is that Mpeg2 is still adequate. But it's old and has limitations. Read hi-fi magazines reviews of Blu-ray movies compared to HD DVD movies. HD DVD video looks consistently better and it's largely accredited to VC1. Personally, I've done head to head comparisons of movies on both formats and I can't tell the difference.

I am not a fanboy of either side, I don't care who wins anymore. I used to be a die-hard HD DVD supporter and signed the original petition back when DVD was still new to encourage the industry to get behind one and only format - HD DVD the true sucessor to DVD.

Posted by Wayde on July 27,2007 at 7:39 AM

True Dave. It seems perception is that a sudden wave of red circles must have hit the consumer when, if anything, they're on the way down.

I completely agree with you on the failure rates not really being known. What Microsoft says is probably low, what retailers are saying is probably high. Either way it's not a scientific tally. We may never know unless we get a third party audit. And the point is moot, Microsoft has extended the warranty and done a fine job at fixing its mess. The only impetus for an audit would be if consumers took legal action to get the warranty.

My personal experience with Xbox 360 failures here on GizmoCafe: Brando (former) fellow blogger on this site and I both got an Xbox360 and both failed. Microsoft support was excellent but that's a 100% failure rate for GizmoCafe.com

Posted by dave on July 27,2007 at 1:04 AM

fair enough mate but i guess my point before i got sidetracked was that before MS owned up to the hardware problems and extended the warranty the level of criticism was justified but as soon as they address the problem suddenly there getting lynched, what kind of message does that give out? "Don't admit anything, wait for a lawsuit and settle out of court like Sony did with the PS2"

Posted by Wayde on July 26,2007 at 11:09 PM

Dave, dude. This ain't no bash of the Xbox 360. I own one and it happens to be my fav console. But facts regarding the business are just... facts.

A bash on the console would be if I said it was not very good at playing games. Being that's its job, that would definitely be bashing Xbox 360. I think it's a good product, provided you don't get the red circle.

Posted by dave on July 26,2007 at 9:42 PM

@Bakari

You are a hopeless Sony fanboy with twisted logic, i can't be bothered to debate matters with you anymore because,

a) my last lengthy post did not for some reason apear and i can't be bothered to type it out again.

b) getting you to understand any of my points without trying to turn it into a childish fanboy flame war seems impossile.

c) to spite me already stating that my hypothesis of the PS2 failure rate was only to show the hypocrisy of using unreliable and unvalidated data, you still keep bringing in up and then spout the same equally unsubstantiated BS figures in responce.

The only official failure rates are those from Sony and MS and they both lie.

Update

After doing some digging i found out that sony did infact do a repair or replace scheme, it only ran for a short period, was limited to certain model numbers, was at Sony's discretion and only came about because of a  lawsuit Sony settled out of court and they still didn't admit to the problem!

Too bad i didn't get to hear about this within the short time this offer ran.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61630

Posted by Bakari on July 26,2007 at 6:19 PM

Just to point out Microsoft doesn't really care about the format war. They actually don't want either side to win. That's why they said they will not make a blu-ray add-on if blu ray wins. They want everyone just to download movies then they get a bigger piece of the pie. MS wants everything to be centered more around the PC and online where they have more prescence and domination.

Posted by dave on July 26,2007 at 2:39 PM

I am never going to get my point across to you as to spite claiming not to be a fanboy you still reading all my posts with the same fanboy logic. I've already stated that my comment on PS2s failure rate was a hypothesis based on the experiences of PS2 owners i know and myself and was intended only to show the hypocrisy of using anonymous and anecdotal evidence to calculate failure rates. you choose to believe or support unvalidated stories about failure percentages and "guys that has been through 11 and 12 systems!" because you're a Sony fanboy.

I'm not attacking the PS2, i still use mine and wouldn't have bought 3 if i didn't think it was a great console, i'm just making a valid point that MS is being attacked for admitting their faults and extending the warranty, while Sony had a smoother ride by denying the PS2 had faults.

It shows that you are a fanboy by even bringing up the PS3 when i never even metioned it let alone attacked it and i'm still waiting for you to show me a source that says Sony will repair or replace PS2s that died out of warranty, your hearsay wont get me my money back!

Posted by Bakari on July 26,2007 at 12:06 PM

"dave said:

I'm getting tired of the general 360 bashing, mine and all my friends consoles have worked fine from launch and we have a 3 year warranty. The PS2 sold 120,000,000 to about 40,000,000 customers to my reckoning as most people i know myself included are on their third unit, i didn't see Sony extend their warranty or even admit the problem with the optical drive. Thanks to the internet reaction to MS owning up to hardware problems, no electronics manifacturers are likely to own up and extend their warrantys in the future for fear of a lynching. Nice job people!"

Your first post just came out and bashed Sony since people said the 360 has failure problems. You said basically 2 out of 3 PS2's will fail. Thats about a 66% failure rate. You said Sony sucked because they didn't offer you a 3 year warranty. This whole thing was brought about because people dissed the 360 so you dissed the PS2 and Sony. The PS2 had some problems but nowhere near what the 360 is having. I don't think your a fanboy but why did you bring up the PS2? It has nothing to do with 360.

360 has a high failure rate so you come out and say "Well what about PS2, huh?" PS2 wasn't this bad. Period. Even when it launched it wasn't this bad. Yeah Sony replaced consoles for free and yeah they owe you money and that SUCKS. I know people who had PS2's go down when they came out and SOny replaced them for free so I'm not sure what happened to you but if they didn't treat you right that blows and I can understand your beef wuth Sony.

I brought up the PS3 since that is the system 360 is against. You didn't bring up the PS3 I give you that and it does look a little fanboyish of me and I'm not. I have no loyalty to any company. I applaud MS for what they are doing for GTA4 and wished Sony would have done it. I think Sony is arrogant and the 80GB PS3 is lame, just leave it 60gb and stop confusing people. One thing is I'm not going to applaud a company that half asses it. A 3 retro warranty that is not on the whole machine is half ass. Just covering only RROD when you know your system messes up in other ways is lame. It's better than nothing but how many times does a person have to replace their system, even for free, and miss out on gaming until they say I wish this would just work?

I have personally been through 2 360's. I know people who have been through 4 and read about a guys that has been through 11 and 12 systems! That is crazy. A 3 year warranty is nice but I just want it to work. I don't want to have to wait for the box and send it in and wait for a refurb system that isn't mine. I just want the system to work. That's why I brought up the PS3 and Wii since they have less than a 1% failure rate.

Your 360 is working fine right now and its 3 year warranty from when you bought it not when they announced there is a three year warranty. It will only be replaced if it's RROD and not with a cheaper more reliable 360. The 65nm are not in the 360 yet. They will give you a refurb model that isn't yours unless you ask for a new one which will take a lot longer to get. I rather not go through all that hassle and I want my system to just work. I don't want to roll the dice with that high of a chance of losing anymore.

MS makes people pay for to many things for them not to just pay for your system breaking regardless of what it is as long as MS is at fault. There are a number of lawsuits against MS for scratching discs. This is why I'm not applauding MS they are not fixing the it just putting a bandaid over a gunshot.

Sony wants to make money in the console wars, MS just doesn;t want Sony to dominate. They only got into this because Sony was like the PS2 is going to replace your PC. That pissed MS off so they made there own gaming consoles. They are not trying to make you happy just keep you from buying a PS2 or PS3. That is the only reason why they did this 3 year warranty thing because the press was getting bad, and then Sony was going to do a price cut. They don't want to lose money like crazy so they only do the bare minimum to get good press. They make a shoddy product and it would cost more money to fix the whole thing or do a recall than just to be like we will only fix RROD for free for a while.

If the 360 was a car or another electronic product it would have had a recall. PS2 never was that bad. Never.

Posted by dave on July 26,2007 at 7:48 AM

I have ALL previous generation consoles except the 3DO and PS1 which i traded in after getting my first PS2.

The PS2 was the only console i have thats not the original console, my first broke within the warranty and was replaced, my second broke out of warranty and was NOT replaced for free and my third which i use today is still working but plays only about 90% of my games because of some disc read errors.

I have tons of friends and acquaintances with PS2s and the general picture is that most of them who still use the console are on their 2nd, 3rd and in some cases 4th consoles.

I would as everybody else, like all the electrical items i buy to last forever and i am not condoning MS for faulty hardware but simply explaining that a 3 year warranty back dated to day 1 is a step in the right direction and something that i didn't get from Sony.

you said

"Pleae don't forget that the PS2 is still outselling the 360 so if it had such widespread problems it would be coming under fire just as much. PS2 had it's problem around launch time and they fixed it"

That's answering your own question, Sony have had 7 years to sort out all their problem so i guess it should be pretty reliable by now and i expect the new batch of 360 hardware which are already well into production should be reliable too.

Had MS not taken steps to address the problem then the level of criticism would be fair but as it stands you are just putting off other companys from coming clean and justifing Sony for not admitting they had similar problems with the PS2.

you said

"Sorry trying to bring up a 7 year old system to make yours seem ok is just not cutting it. Plus Sony agreed to provide free repair or replacement for the faulty consoles and continued to do so until February 2005. They fixed consoles for free that were broken at Sony's fault for 5 years. MS for 3 years only if it's RROD. Looks like Sony has the upperhand."

1) I don't need to make any console seem ok because i'm NOT a fanboy, i own nearly all previous consoles, i'm getting a Wii near xmas and i'll probably get a PS3 when the price drops substantially and it gets some good games.

2) Please show a source for Sony fixing out of warranty consoles for free because if that were real they owe me 2 consoles and have lied to me!

you said

"Of course you will not state this as no one owning just a 360 will ever say anything bad about it to make the PS3 or Sony look better."

Again i'm not a fanboy and would like PS3 to do well as i may get 1 in the future, the truth is that you are doing what you are accusing me of and trying to justify the high price tag of the PS3 by discrediting the 360.

I've not even mentioned PS3 in my posts so how am i trying to discredit it? I don't own 1 yet, as far a i know they may be very reliable and when they get to the end of the warranty we will see.

The bottom line is i have a 360 it's still working fine, i will not have to pay for another for the next 3 years at least and even if it needs replacing in 3 years, i'll be getting a cheaper more reliable model and still be better of than i was with me PS2.

If you want a 360 vs PS3 argument go to a fanboy site where you can get all the annoymous mud slinging you want, it doesn't interest me.

Posted by Bakari on July 25,2007 at 4:56 PM

http://www.dailytech.com/Retailers+Estimate+Xbox+360+Failure+Rate+High+as+33+Percent/article7892.htm

Your figures though for the PS2 were based on your experiences. I didn't based the 360 failure rate on my personal experiences because then it would be 50%. You and I both know that the 360 is the least reliable console ever to come out. We may gripe over percentage but the 360 is way out of control. Sony had a problem and then they fixed the console. MS has a problem but did not fix the console. It will take time before consoles with heatsinks get into stores and then into homes. If you buy any tier of 360 right now and open it up it will not have a heat sink in it.

Pleae don't forget that the PS2 is still outselling the 360 so if it had such widespread problems it would be coming under fire just as much. PS2 had it's problem around launch time and they fixed it.

MS offering 3 year warranty for RROD only. They do not cover the scrathing discs problem which is pretty high too. I don't think discs scrathing is nowhere near the overheating rate but its up there. They failed to put a little part that all DVD players have on the 360 so some 360's scratch discs because of it. Your dissing PS2 becuase of this problem that happened over 5 years ago but your applauding MS for ignoring it.

If they are so great why not a 5 year warranty. Are you going to stop playing your 360 after 3 years? PS3 and Wii have a failure rate of less than 1%

http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertainment/gaming/games-consoles/news/ps3-and-nintendo-wii-have-1-failure-rate?articleid=1927150344

Sorry trying to bring up a 7 year old system to make yours seem ok is just not cutting it. Plus Sony agreed to provide free repair or replacement for the faulty consoles and continued to do so until February 2005. They fixed consoles for free that were broken at Sony's fault for 5 years. MS for 3 years only if it's RROD. Looks like Sony has the upperhand.

Of course you will not state this as no one owning just a 360 will ever say anything bad about it to make the PS3 or Sony look better. I had all three of the next gen systems, I had Xbox and PS2. I have a lot of systems and the only one that has ever gave me numerous problems is the 360 and the only one I ever seen have such a web backlash of it failing is the 360.

Once again as much as you say there are no verifiable failure rate figures for the 360 or PS2 we both know the failure rate for the 360 is higher than PS2. It's higher than PS3 and the Wii.

Posted by dave on July 25,2007 at 2:51 PM

I'll tell you again there are no verifiable failure rate figures for the 360 or PS2  so why keep using the same one's, Sony might want you to believe their failure rate was as low a 3% but they never even admitted there was a problem and we know how economical with the truth they are.

MS also claimed 3-5% to start with so that makes them both liars but at least MS put things right in the end.

Posted by Bakari on July 25,2007 at 11:55 AM

I am not denying that PS2 had it's problem and I am saying that it's still unacceptable. I'm saying that the PS2 problem was not as huge as the 360 one. PS2's were a problem 360's ARE a problem. It is widespead that the failure rate of the 360 is around 30%, it was stated that some PS2's have problems. I don't condone it. Back then I was outspoken on the PS2's having disc problems as I am outspoken about the 360.

The reason I am saying something is that no matter how you wish to view the PS2 and the problems it had it still is pale in comparison to the 360. The 360 failure rate is just absurd. The failure rate does not even calculate the 360's that scratch discs either. Do you have an idea of what the failure rate is for the PS2? About 3% when it came out. That is still a lot of PS2's, a lot. When a 100,000 PS2s come out with a 3% failure rate that's 3000 pS2's that are going belly up. That's a lot. Sony corrected the problem and there is no way every machine is not going to have a problem. It sucks it happened to you.

 That still doesn't mean that the 360 is not having problems, wide spread problems. I say good to MS that they said they would pay to fix your 360, its better than nothing but it's not great. They still haven't fixed current 360's. You could go down to the store right now and buy an Elite and it might RROD on you since it has not been fixed. I have seen it.Another thing is that the warranty only covers RROD not anything else. When you 360's scratches your discs MS just tells you $100 plus shipping and we won't replace you game. I was listening on the phone when my roommate called MS and that's what they told him. The 360 went bad and damaged his game, why should he have to pay $100 plus shipping plus the price of a new game for something the 360 did? That's why I can't applaud MS cuz they are not taking care of the customer only doing what they need to get by.

 Also to be fair I have a friend and his PS3 went down. He called Sony and they sent him a box overnight. He had a game in the PS3 that was stuck since the PS3 would not power on. After he shipped it out. A NEW PS3 came back with a NEW game(the same game) to replaced the one stuck in the system in three days. That was customer service. They paid for everything yet no one is applauding Sony.

I'm not a Sony fan boy as it may seem that I am. I could care less which company wins. I just want to not have to pay for it when the company is at fault. I get tired when people are like bowing down for MS for this warranty thing when its cool but not great. They were forced to take an extra step but they should take the extra mile. This is pennies to them yet they still require you to sacrafice your time and money for thier faults.

How many times should a person have to replace a 360 for 3 years until he is just like I just want it to work? Remember you the console for tewo weeks to a month. That is lame. Once again I just want my system to work.

Posted by dave on July 25,2007 at 12:08 AM

Yes my figures were guessed based on the fact that most of the people i know have had at leased 3 PS2s. There are no confirmed failure rates for PS2 or 360 but when i speculate about the PS2s failures in the same way as the internet has speculaed about the 360's suddenly only confirmed figures count, can you see the hypocrisy?

Most of these anonymous failure rate claims seem to come from Australia, probably the same source that claimed all the 360 premiums had been recalled which later turned out to be untrue.

Sony fanboys might want to deny the PS2 had a high failure rate but i'm not a fanboy and remember having to buy 3 PS2s because Sony never publicly admitted to having hardware faults and never extended their warranty, well done to MS for doing so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1113698.stm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/12/sony_admits_some_playstation_2s/

Posted by Bakari on July 24,2007 at 3:11 PM

Hey I didn't make up the 30% number. This is coming from retailers such as Best Buy, Gamestop, leaks at MS. MS stated that the failure rate was above 25%. PS2 was at 3%. When they first came out they were horrid. 3% is not cool. It should be at 1% or less which is what the Wii and PS3 are at(both are about .5%).

I think Microsoft paying for your 360 is a great move but it's not the best move for the customer. The warranty only covers the RROD. When the 360 scratches your disc you are on your own and is $100 plus shipping to replace. 360's scrath disc too. That is a problem as they will not replace the game either or fix the 360 for free. Also they didn't fix the overheating problem.

Right now as I type there are thousands of stores that have 360s that will potenially overheat. Personally in my house I had a 360 as did two of my roommates. Mine went belly up, sent it in, that one went belly up and I got another one and traded it in to Gamestop.

My roommate has a 360, it went RROD after a long time, he then got an Elite while the other one was away. The Elite went RROD, The other came back and it scrathes disc and Microsoft told him we won't cover that just RROD. My other roommate's 360 is just fine. So in total we have had 6 360's with 3 of them crapping out due to RROD and 1 scrathing discs. Thats a 50% failure rate in my house just with RROD. Does that mean 360 has a 50% failure rate? No. I didn't make up the 30% number, I'm not the first person to say it and other news worthy sources have placed it at the failure rate. If you want to attack the PS2 thats fine but to say that only 40,000,000 people bought the PS2 and bought it 3 times each is just absurd. No matter what you say to defend the 360 it has the worst failure rate of any console ever to date. Done. End of arguement.

MS is helping with the problem but putting a bandaid over a gunshot will not stop the bleeding but it slows it very little. MS has proven it doesn't care about it's customers. They cut off support for the original Xbox, they only have a little over 300 titles for backwards compatiblity, they were trying to force Epic to make you pay for Downable content that Epic wanted to give you for free, they make you pay for Xbox live, They make you pay extra for an HD DVD, WiFi and HDMI. When the Elite came out they said it's not for existing customers. What is that about? Telling your existing customers too bad your stuck with the old 360.

PS3 is more customer friendly, Sony is arrogant about it but they give you the stuff you want.

Bottom line is I want a system that will just work. I don't want it to be in the shop getting worked on. I don't care if it's for free. I can't play games with no system. BTW all our 360's were in cool ventailated areas. We did not tilt them from side to side and we don't leave them on for extended period of times. I have a PS3, PS2, Wii, Saturn, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Xbox, Sega Master system, Nintendo, N64 and two PC's. I take care of my stuff and all systems work fine and are first generations. Only the 360 has been a problem.

360 has great games but is a Horrible system.

Posted by Zeph Greenwell on July 24,2007 at 2:25 PM

I actually went through 4 PS2s while living at my parents. I got one originally and used it for a while until we tried to install the then newly released hard-drive and the system wouldn't recognize it. Sony sent me a new ps2 and a new hard drive, which I was pretty happy about. Then later that repaired units DVD drive broke and it wasn't able to read games anymore. I then bought the new slimmed down PS2 to replace it and that one is still working. The last one we got because my brother is in the marines and bought it to use on base, but decided he didn't need to take it with him while he was deployed. So now we have 2 working PS2s. I am not sure how other people's stories compare but I'm sure my family is not an isolated case of purchasing and repurchasing the PS2.

I've only had one xbox 360 and have been using it for slightly over a year without a problem.

I feel Microsoft extending the warranty is a great move that is being spun in the worst way possible. This is great for anyone who already owns a 360 and anyone who is considering purchasing one. It is much better than anything offered on any system I can remember. Xbox 360 might have had some problems but I am sure they are greatly exaggerated.

Bakari said:

'"The PS2 sold 120,000,000 to about 40,000,000 customers to my reckoning as most people i know myself included are on their third unit.."

Wow. That is just someone just making up numbers right there. So your saying that everyone bought 3 PS2s? PS2 did have problems but it was in the acceptable 3% failure range which still is not great to me. 360 is about in the 30% range.'

The 3% and 30% number are both made up in this statement.

Posted by Bakari on July 24,2007 at 11:45 AM

"The PS2 sold 120,000,000 to about 40,000,000 customers to my reckoning as most people i know myself included are on their third unit.."

Wow. That is just someone just making up numbers right there. So your saying that everyone bought 3 PS2s? PS2 did have problems but it was in the acceptable 3% failure range which still is not great to me. 360 is about in the 30% range. Its has the worse failure rate of any console ever. Period. We can try and dispute the actual failure rate but it's the least reliable console ever. Thats just fact hence why Microsoft is doing this. What is failed to mention that this warranty only covers the red ring of death. It does not cover when the 360 scratches your discs. When cores, premiums and elites have this failure rate there is a problem hence the outcry. I watch an Elite get RROD within two months of operation. It was in a open space with not dust and was turn off. I saw a PS2 fail after it's seventh year in use.

The failure rate of PS2 is nowhere near the 360 period. Just your friends 360's work fine doesn't mean its all BS. Its a 30% failure rate so 7 out of 10 will work just fine. MS hasn't fixed the problem they just stated that they will pay for it when it happens. It's not a solution but it's better than nothing.

I'm not trying to bash you but 360 has a high failure rate so MS should answer. What does that have to do with PS2? So when your 360 goes down would you like Microsoft to fix it or say well PS2 had problems too? Well When it happened to me I said fix it and when it happened the second time, i had MS send me a new one and then I turned around and traded it in. I want my systems to work. If my PS3 goes down after the second time it's done with it too. I will wait on the sidelines until they get things fixed until then they will not get my dollars. Doesn't how many games 360 has if I can't play them since my system is off somewhere getting fixed.

Posted by dave on July 24,2007 at 10:31 AM

I'm getting tired of the general 360 bashing, mine and all my friends consoles have worked fine from launch and we have a 3 year warranty. The PS2 sold 120,000,000 to about 40,000,000 customers to my reckoning as most people i know myself included are on their third unit, i didn't see Sony extend their warranty or even admit the problem with the optical drive. Thanks to the internet reaction to MS owning up to hardware problems, no electronics manifacturers are likely to own up and extend their warrantys in the future for fear of a lynching. Nice job people!