Don't worry guys, I've given up on this thread. It seems to interest only two people anyway. Feel free to rumble!

@jiyong

Quote:

And as long as MS doesn't disclose any details about what went wrong and telling us what exactly they have done to fix it, are you going to trust them it's back to normal for the 360?

Assuming your assumption is right and Microsoft doesn't tell us exactly what the problems were and exactly what the changes were we'll still find out. We have numerous websites, businesses, and news outlets covering the issue. I'd expect that these same sources will publish pictures of the revised console hardware along with good news that these consoles have issues which are nearly non-existant. This will however, not be in time for Christmas so I'd hope Microsoft does disclose what hardware was improved.

@BrianK

You just can't resist bashing Sony in a 360 thread, can you?

IMO you (and some others) are the reason MikeB is talking about Sony/PS(2,3) in this thread.

Now note I absolutely have no problem with this thread going off-topic, but it is ironic you are the one that started complaining about it and it also seems you don't care about jtsiren.

Now back to the 360 failures, I don't think MS has been honest with their shareholders. Shareholders and customers would like to know what exactly happened with the production of the 360's, but MS is really quiet about things. They only say they "made improvements", whatever those might be, but I have the feeling the launch units are actually more stable than the later ones. Makes you wonder...

And as long as MS doesn't disclose any details about what went wrong and telling us what exactly they have done to fix it, are you going to trust them it's back to normal for the 360?

@MikeB

Stocks are a funny thing. One just can't compare $$ to $$ for example Apple is in the 140s, Sony in the 50s and Microsoft in the 30s. Now take for example if one of those companies magically went away. The one in the 30s would impact more businesses and nation economies, IMO.

Good thing the PS3s are winning somewhere, I think we can fairly agree the PS3 has mostly no where to go but up.

So even with the 360 issues it seems Microsoft has set software sales records in Austraila..
'Daniel Morse, Account Director, GFK Australia, says, "Hitting the one million mark in a mere 14 months means Xbox 360 has reached the milestone faster than any previous console, and is currently outperforming other next generation consoles in terms of software sales. '

Quote:

In effect their gaming devision suffered only a loss of 240 million USD for the quarter, far less than Microsoft's game devision losses. The aim is to break even for this year, which seems entirely feasible based on these figures.

Yeah it's easy to compare quarter vs quarter and see since Microsoft took the $1B hit this quarter that they're somehow failing, they're not, it was a one time hit. It made sense for Microsoft to take the hit last quarter 07 so they wouldn't see it finanically impact the entertainment 08. At the end of things it'll be interesting to compare the consoles. The Cell alone cost $2B to make, then another $1B for manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. Sony's really closer to more then $750 per console loss considering everything. Of course as they sell more this loss ratio will only improve, for example the $2B for the Cell development is one time fixed cost. You claim that Sony gaming will again be profitable is likely correct, but this is due to the ability to push the last gen PS2 and cost revisions to the PSP models. The PS3 will still lose them money in FY08. They've not revised their 5 year projection for the PS3 breaking even. I wonder if a price cut in under 1 year was considered in that projection. I think in the short term the 360 issues probably pushed a few high end users to the PS3. But, it's the summer months the low time of the year for console sales. Microsoft getting their console fixed, a strong Christmas release, and pushing a large marketing campaign at year end will likely bring the users back. We've already seen Microsoft pushing 3 year warranty = best in the business and protects users, they'll only make this claim more frequently towards Christmas.

@BrianK

Quote:

In related industry news Nintendo surpasses Sony and becomes the #5 company in Japan.

The stock market is a funny thing focussing on short term profits. If Wii and/or DS sales hit a wall, like Be Inc which was once worth over 1 Billion USD as a company, shares may drop rapidly.

Sony is still about 54 times the size of Nintendo when it comes to the company's amount of employees. They could fire half their work force to make their profits skyrocket for the short term, but that's not a good long term strategy. Also in terms of product diversity and market strenght Sony is a far more important company.

The bottom-line, Sony's profits have more than doubled, despite making huge investments. Their game devision losses dropped because:

1) Lower PS3 shipments than anticipated, keeping down their losses. (currently over 6 million units sold to retailers around the world)



Note according to GFK's tracking it is currently 64,000 units sold to consumers in Australia to date, so the data is a little outdated. The PS3 has outperformed all rivals (excluding the PS2) since release in Australia.

2) Great PS2 sales.
3) Great PSP sales.

In effect their gaming devision suffered only a loss of 240 million USD for the quarter, far less than Microsoft's game devision losses. The aim is to break even for this year, which seems entirely feasible based on these figures.

Last edited by MikeB on 28-Jul-2007 at 11:52 PM.
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@MikeB

Quote:

They only admitted to these huge problems when they had to talk financials with the shareholders revealing about 1 million XBox 360s had died unrepearable already and the warranty extension in that sense could be seen as a method to prevent lawsuits (Now there's more than enough evidence! They couldn't cover this up for the shareholders), but they do cover up some of the actual costs by including these hundreds of millions in a one billion+ USD extended warranty write-off package. I think they are lying to their shareholders they will be profitable next year like they claimed last year. Even without the billion dollar write-off they were still many hundreds of millions short from making a profit for fiscal year 2007

I disagree. Microsoft was honest to the share holders about their issues. They disclosed the full value of the extended warranty along with the total loss for the entertainment division. They disclosed that the 360 is selling well though below what Microsoft's inital projections were. Websites and news outlets have carried the news, at least in the USA, that Microsoft was profitable, above projections, even with the losses from the 360. Any investor that doesn't know even with the $1B write off that the entertainment division isn't profitable is simply very very bad at math or didn't pay attention to the data and news.

In related industry news Nintendo surpasses Sony and becomes the #5 company in Japan.

@Lou

Quote:

360's break MS extends warranty thread closed?

I don't think it's that simple for Microsoft. First of all lots of people are complaining about the repair times of between 4-7 weeks, while legally it should be within 5 working days + shipping time. Secondly the warranty does not cover all hardware failures, but specifically the 3 red light of death issue, while this issue regards even all models of XBox 360 sold today.

Also Microsoft lost a lot of confidence from consumers by denying the issue for this long, meanwhile there was a huge outcry all over the web and clear evidence these issues are not mere incidents as Microsoft claimed. They only admitted to these huge problems when they had to talk financials with the shareholders revealing about 1 million XBox 360s had died unrepearable already and the warranty extension in that sense could be seen as a method to prevent lawsuits (Now there's more than enough evidence! They couldn't cover this up for the shareholders), but they do cover up some of the actual costs by including these hundreds of millions in a one billion+ USD extended warranty write-off package.

I think they are lying to their shareholders they will be profitable next year like they claimed last year. Even without the billion dollar write-off they were still many hundreds of millions short from making a profit for fiscal year 2007.

@ clebin

It was just announced that Rockstar is working on 2 new PS3 exclusive games, to quote the announcement:

Quote:

Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc and this deal lets them do just that.

They complained earlier about the DVD storage limitation and a lack of a default harddrive for caching on the XBox 360 with regard to developing GTA IV. I'm looking forward to see them developing a game towards their full developing potential.

Rumour Metal Gear Sold for the XBox 360!! This rumour simply won't die.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYmrz4XoP0

Last edited by MikeB on 28-Jul-2007 at 01:28 PM.

@jtsiren

Quote:

jtsiren wrote: ...back on topic?

360's break
MS extends warranty
thread closed?

...back on topic?

@MikeB

That's incredible!

I suppose GTA3 wasn't particularly anticipated for a long time. It's funny to think that Driver 3 was probably more highly anticipated for a time!

Even though GTA appeal to the non-hardcore as much as anyone, I'm really surprised by that!

I wonder how NeoGAF rated GTA:San Andreas before it came out. Everything I read about GTA4 convinces me that it's in a totally different league to San Andreas, and that didn't do too badly!

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 27-Jul-2007 at 02:49 AM.

@jiyong

Quote:

Even a console with severe quality issues?

Heh, I already have one of those!

I'm just resigned to the fact that consoles don't last. I bought a 2nd hand slimline PS2 last week to replace my broken one and found that both my PS2 controllers are broken. I'd hardly even used them! (EDIT: they were recent replacements for other broken joypads)

Worse, I bought Canis Canem Edit (Bully) and they just announced it for Wii and 360, both of which I own!

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 27-Jul-2007 at 02:50 AM.

@clebin

Quote:

Right now, I'm just looking forward to Grand Theft Auto IV. I don't think any game has the power and significance of GTA and this is a major update. I'd buy any console to play it and almost any price!

Certainly a game I am looking forward to, surprisingly it's not amongst the top 10 most anticipated games on NeoGAF (biggest multiplatform games community forum)

NeoGAF top 10

1.- Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
2.- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
3.- Mass Effect (360)
4.- Little Big Planet (PS3)
5.- Killzone 2 (PS3)
6.- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC,360,PS3)
7.- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
8.- Halo 3 (360)
9.- Resident Evil 5 (PC,360,PS3)
10.- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)

Most anticipated games in Japan (Famitsu)

1. (1 / 1) Dragon Quest IX NDS Square Enix
2. (2 / 2) Final Fantasy XIII PS3 Square Enix
3. (3 / 3) Biohazard 5 PS3 Capcom
4. (5 / 6) Monster Hunter 3 PS3 Capcom
5. (4 / 4) Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 Konami
6. (6 / 7) Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii Nintendo
7. (8 / 8) Everybody’s Golf 5 PS3 Sony
8. (9 /11) Lost Odyssey Xbox 360 Microsoft
9. (10/ 9) Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII PSP Square Enix
10. (13/16) Doubutsu no Mori [Animal Crossing] Wii Nintendo
11. (14/10) Zelda no Densetsu: Phantom Hourglass NDS Nintendo
12. (16/14) Final Fantasy IV NDS Square Enix
13. (16/13) Subarashiki Kono Sekai: It’s a Wonderful World NDS Square Enix
14. (20/18) Super Mario Galaxy Wii Nintendo
15. (17/15) Final Fantasy Versus XIII PS3 Square Enix
16. (11/12) Devil May Cry 4 PS3 Capcom
17. (12/22) Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 14 PS2 Konami
18. (15/17) Gran Turismo 5 PS3 Sony
19. (19/21) Halo 3 Xbox 360 Microsoft
20. (21/19) Layton Kyouju to Akuma no Hako NDS Level 5

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@BrianK

Maybe download the new Heavenly Sword demo available on the PSN. Do you have Super Stardust HD yet (it rocks!)?

@jiyong

Quote:

Quote: I'd buy any console to play it and almost any price! Even a console with severe quality issues?

Certainly I would. I have a console with severe quality issues that hasn't had issues and spends many hours gaming. I also have another console with severe lack of quality game issues which is actually more disappointing.

@MikeB
My 360 broke! Yup you can add me to your count. The spring loaded door covering the USB where we plug in the Guitars won't spring back into place. Damn PoS!

@clebin

Quote:

I'd buy any console to play it and almost any price!

Even a console with severe quality issues?

One odd thing about the forza 2 threads, is that people report grinding sounds or clicking sounds from the dvd drive. This seems to suggest to me that the disc is either improperly pressed or that the data is really fragmented which forces the drive to be strained and stressed much harder.
Someone i know just bought forza 2 and we played it for hours without a single freezing issue or graphical issues. We did however notice on two occasions that it sounded like the drive was strained very hard, like it had some difficulties reading the disc, which was also the case when i lended the game and played it on mine.

So to me it sounds like a issue separate to the overheating issue. There are reports of xbox 360 fitted with new cooling system to be experiencing the same exact problem.

Last edited by Tomas on 26-Jul-2007 at 07:15 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

IMO the XBox 360 is heavily overpriced for the hardware features and quality you get.

The xbox 360 premium here costs nearly the same as the wii, while the core version is actually much cheaper. I believe the Xbox 360 gives me more bang for the buck than my Wii.

@billt

Quote:

billt wrote: @MikeB Mine hasn't failed, but it did crash twice last night playing Need for Speed Carbon. The first crash was actualy helpful, I'd won a race but was then chased by the cops after the finish line, which I find to be a horribly annoying aspect of the NFS line, it saved my race win and earnings but the crash meant I didn't have to bother with trying to outrun the cops, which I've not managed to do successfully with this car. The second crash happened while it was uploading a picture of a car, you can snap pix of things but I don't know how to retreive them yet from wherever they upload to. It also crashed once previously in Burnout Revenge some time ago.

Crashes can be a warning sign. Do you experience any graphical glitches?

@all

A link from Ars:

Nintendo the big winner, PS3 dead last for the first half of 2007 (EDIT: of course, 360 is equally covered in the main text)

Right now, I'm just looking forward to Grand Theft Auto IV. I don't think any game has the power and significance of GTA and this is a major update. I'd buy any console to play it and almost any price!

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 26-Jul-2007 at 01:30 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Square is using their own game engine for the upcoming Final Fantasy games

Thanks for the correct yup I jumped the gun a bit. Here's some news from this year surrounding the issue.

Quote:

Final Fantasy XIII, exclusive to PS3, is to be the last game to utilize Square's White Engine exclusively. In an effort to ensure top-quality in its next-gen games, Square Enix is building a "combined technology platform." In a press release issued this morning, Square noted the new platform would be used "throughout the company, utilizing proprietary technologies as well as third-party solutions such as Unreal Engine 3."