Warning for those considering buying a 360

[sroz39]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I think what bothers me more than the arguments over the merits of MS' customer service is that people are just accepting the horrible failure rate of the 360. They're just taking Microsoft's horrid design, parts sourcing or quality control right up the azz because, "Oh, well, we bought a warranty."

First, doesn't it bother you that 360's are failing at an alarming rate? Don't those who have had 360 failures wonder if the three red lights of death will turn on every time they load a disc into their refurbished or exchanged new machine?

That's not a comforting feeling for a product for which you've spent $400.

And I know electronics are finicky, but are we so accepting of sh*t quality control, parts sourcing or design that a $40-60 warranty -- the price of one game -- is just accepted as part of the cost of buying a new console?

It never used to be like that, and it's complete horsesh*t. That extra $40-60 should go toward a game or a peripheral, not peace of mind to counter lousy design, parts or manufacturing by a company.

Take care,
PK

Great post. At least Nintendo is giving us some nostalgic value with the Wii and giving us a pack-in. When's the last time a launch system came with one of those?

[Pared]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Pared:

Well said, man. I posted my thoughts about warranties BEFORE I read your thread.

Sorry.

No worries! Great minds think alike.

[aholbert32]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I've posted this elsewhere and I'll post it here as well: It is completely INEXCUSABLE that gamers should feel they need to purchase a "warranty" for a video game system. Console makers should be putting out a quality AND RELIABLE product. It's a complete sham that they can sell you a system for hundreds of dollars only to say "whoops, you mean your 360 stopped working in 4 months? We can fix it... for $215.53 cents." These damn systems should be made to function and last. We're not even one year in yet since release and I've read horror story after horror story with the 360. It froze, 3 red rings of light, my HD won't come up, I lost all my gamesaves, my system won't turn on... it's absolutely ridiculous.

EB, GameStop, CC, Best Buy... all these stores live off customers purchasing warranties for anything and everything. Worried your bag might break on the way home? Purchase a warranty for $.50 and we'll replace it free of charge.

I completely disagree with that. I purchase a warranty with every major electronic purchase I make. Why? Because **** happens. Consoles break no matter who makes the. My NES and SNES broke in the first year i had them. My launch PS2 broke within 5 months of buying it and my 360 broke twice in its first year. With my warranty, I was able to get them back in a week.

Now I agree that MS really needs to work on the 360's reliability but half of the blame goes to people who refuse to pony up the 50 bucks to protect themselves. By now everybody knows that 360s have certain issues so if you buy one without a warranty its partially your fault. Its like having sex with the town slut w/o a condom and getting mad because you get burnt.

[Bacardi151]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I completely disagree with that. I purchase a warranty with every major electronic purchase I make. Why? Because **** happens. Consoles break no matter who makes the. My NES and SNES broke in the first year i had them. My launch PS2 broke within 5 months of buying it and my 360 broke twice in its first year. With my warranty, I was able to get them back in a week.

Now I agree that MS really needs to work on the 360's reliability but half of the blame goes to people who refuse to pony up the 50 bucks to protect themselves. By now everybody knows that 360s have certain issues so if you buy one without a warranty its partially your fault. Its like having sex with the town slut w/o a condom and getting mad because you get burnt.

Aaron, this warranty thing started with the ps2 generation. i dont ever remember having to purchase a warranty for any gaming system released previous to current gen( now last gen). This is not a phenomenon that has been around for 20 years or so. I dont remember at age 11 walking in with my parents to purchase a nes and having my parents being asked to purchase a warranty. Hell. i didnt even see this with the psx, though this is when people started noticing the system would break down.

[born_bad]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

My 360 has been fine. I bought it January and use it just about everyday, so it gets used regularly. So far, no problems at all. This is the first console I've ever bought an extended warranty for. I bought Best Buy's warranty, so I don't have to deal with the hassle of mailing it off and waiting. I can just go to Best Buy and walk out with a new one, if something happens.

Of course, since I bought the warranty, I have a feeling nothing will go worng with this one. I had 2 original Xboxes die on me without warranties, so I vowed I would get a warranty from now on (on consoles only). Each one only lasted a little over a 1 or so and the drive died.

I predict the PS3 to have tons of failures at launch. All consoles have a percentage that fail right out of the gate. Unless someone can show me stats that show the 360 is higher failure rate than any other console, I don't question the 360's reliability and I don't get nervous about turning it on and expecting red lights. It seems like a lot because people are "vocal" now than ever because of the iternet. The original Playstation had ridiculous amounts of failures, but there weren't message boards for people to let everyone know their Playstation died.

It does seem like some people have had some bad luck with the 360s - going threw a few of them in a year. That's all I credit it, too, though - bad luck.

[Pared]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I completely disagree with that. I purchase a warranty with every major electronic purchase I make. Why? Because **** happens. Consoles break no matter who makes the. My NES and SNES broke in the first year i had them. My launch PS2 broke within 5 months of buying it and my 360 broke twice in its first year. With my warranty, I was able to get them back in a week.

Now I agree that MS really needs to work on the 360's reliability but half of the blame goes to people who refuse to pony up the 50 bucks to protect themselves. By now everybody knows that 360s have certain issues so if you buy one without a warranty its partially your fault. Its like having sex with the town slut w/o a condom and getting mad because you get burnt.

lol I'll be sure to wear a condom from now on. Thanks Aaron!

I know where you're coming from, but my point is that gamers shouldn't feel they *need* to purchase a warranty with a system. At this point, if you're interested in purchasing a 360, I would think you feel you almost "have to" because of the unreliability of these systems. That is who is at fault here: Microsoft for making such a shoddy product. Because of that you feel you almost have to purchase a warranty, and it shouldn't be that way...

We're not talking about a car. We're not talking about a house. We're not talking about a $3000 HDTV. This is a video game system... and it should just work. Wouldn't you be pissed if you bough an iPod, then 4 months later it ceases to function? Should you really blame yourself, or the company who made it for selling you an unreliable product?

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

So EG let me get this straight. Let's say my 360 died, I walk into EB get a new system. I come home and recover my gamertag with the new serial # from my brand new 360.

You're saying I would lose my marketplace points and all the arcade games I purchased? If that's the case I would be pissed (excuse my French) as well and I would ditch the 360 and XBL forever.

You don't lose marketplace points, or purchased arcade games to your gold account when connected to Live. But you do lose anything your silver account had (if you have one) or the ability to play/use anything purchased while not on Xbox Live.

[PlayaHataSupreme]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Aaron, this warranty thing started with the ps2 generation. i dont ever remember having to purchase a warranty for any gaming system released previous to current gen( now last gen). This is not a phenomenon that has been around for 20 years or so. I dont remember at age 11 walking in with my parents to purchase a nes and having my parents being asked to purchase a warranty. Hell. i didnt even see this with the psx, though this is when people started noticing the system would break down.

Maybe one case isn't much, but I purchased the PS1 warranty at Circuit City, I think it was like around 30 something dollars. It ended up being worth it. I went through at least three PSXs between March of 97 and November of 99. That's not even a PSX a year.

[Rodster]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

You don't lose marketplace points, or purchased arcade games to your gold account when connected to Live. But you do lose anything your silver account had (if you have one) or the ability to play/use anything purchased while not on Xbox Live.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

[Motown]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

You can take a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a bull's azz, but wouldn't you rather take the butcher's word for it? lol... as much as these machines cost, you should NOT have to fork out MORE cash...that's ridiculous bro. take GM for instance...should you purchase a warranty on a new car? their priorities should be Q U A L I T Y...and we shouldn't have to drop ANY more cash on an already overpriced machine imo.

[pk500]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Now I agree that MS really needs to work on the 360's reliability but half of the blame goes to people who refuse to pony up the 50 bucks to protect themselves. By now everybody knows that 360s have certain issues so if you buy one without a warranty its partially your fault. Its like having sex with the town slut w/o a condom and getting mad because you get burnt.

So we're just supposed to accept MS' shoddy design, parts sourcing or manufacturing? It's OUR fault that these things were designed, sourced or manufactured poorly?

That's asinine, almost as if we should feel grateful to MS for bestowing upon us such a wonderful system despite its proven and admitted flaws with launch units.

Let me ask you this: If you bought a car or a motorcycle that failed in the same spot three times, would you continue to return to buy that car or bike, even if you had a warranty? I sure as hell wouldn't; I'm not that much of a lemming.

Sure, there's a difference in the amount of cake spent on vehicles and consoles. But a principle is a principle, especially when the cost of new consoles is more than double those that they're replacing.

Take care,
PK

[aholbert32]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Aaron, this warranty thing started with the ps2 generation. i dont ever remember having to purchase a warranty for any gaming system released previous to current gen( now last gen). This is not a phenomenon that has been around for 20 years or so. I dont remember at age 11 walking in with my parents to purchase a nes and having my parents being asked to purchase a warranty. Hell. i didnt even see this with the psx, though this is when people started noticing the system would break down.

You are right that it began with the PS2 but I wish I had a warranty option when I had a NES and SNES. Shoot, do you know how pissed people would be if they had to blow on disks and use alcohol to clean disks (cartridges back then) just to get a game to play. I went through a few NESs and SNESs back in the day and rebuying them wasnt cheap. If we had an internet back then I'm sure the same number of people would have been complaining about how unreliable they are.

This doesnt exucse MS's shoddy product design but they way I look at it is any time you are buying a high dollar electronic device, you should buy a warranty.

[cjonesfan921]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

So we're just supposed to accept MS' shoddy design, parts sourcing or manufacturing? It's OUR fault that these things were designed, sourced or manufactured poorly?

That's asinine, almost as if we should feel grateful to MS for bestowing upon us such a wonderful system despite its proven and admitted flaws with launch units.

Let me ask you this: If you bought a car or a motorcycle that failed in the same spot three times, would you continue to return to buy that car or bike, even if you had a warranty? I sure as hell wouldn't; I'm not that much of a lemming.

Sure, there's a difference in the amount of cake spent on vehicles and consoles. But a principle is a principle, especially when the cost of new consoles is more than double those that they're replacing.

Take care,
PK

[aholbert32]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

So we're just supposed to accept MS' shoddy design, parts sourcing or manufacturing? It's OUR fault that these things were designed, sourced or manufactured poorly?

That's asinine, almost as if we should feel grateful to MS for bestowing upon us such a wonderful system despite its proven and admitted flaws with launch units.

Let me ask you this: If you bought a car or a motorcycle that failed in the same spot three times, would you continue to return to buy that car or bike, even if you had a warranty? I sure as hell wouldn't; I'm not that much of a lemming.

Sure, there's a difference in the amount of cake spent on vehicles and consoles. But a principle is a principle, especially when the cost of new consoles is more than double those that they're replacing.

Take care,
PK

You have to read my post again because its clear you posted your response without totally reading mine. I never said that it was OUR fault that the 360's are poorly designed. I said its PARTIALLY your fault if you buy a 360 now (or anytime after the launch window) knowing that its likely to break down and not buying a warranty.

Also, lets not act like we dont have a choice. Its not like it was in Nov. 2005 when no one knew about the widespread issues with the 360. Now everyone has heard about it so you can either choose to wait until MS figures out these issues, buy a ps3 and wii or be happy or buy a 360 and a warranty. There are plenty of alternatives out there.

[pk500]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Its like having sex with the town slut w/o a condom and getting mad because you get burnt.

One other thing: When you bone the town whore, you know you're not getting quality. You're getting sloppy seconds, 12ths and 15ths.

So by making the above analogy, are you admitting that the 360 is a sub-standard console, that if you buy it you better get an extended warranty because it's a piece of sh*t worthy of that extra protection?

It sure reads that way to me.

Aaron, your analogy to a town whore would be apt if we were buying a $20 handheld single-title Pac-Man game at a checkout. But this is a $400 device that's supposed to be both the Rolls Royce and Land Rover of its industry.

An extended warranty shouldn't be an accepted part of the program, and someone who sees their 360 fail without a warranty is a victim of shoddy design, parts sourcing or manufacturing, not an idiot. The reality of the defect rate of the 360 states otherwise, but my point is that it shouldn't be this way, and gamers are MUCH too willing to accept it and be lemmings to the hobby.

Take care,
PK