This article isn't so much for the hardcore crowd, because you already know what you know and you don't care who knows it. It is more for the casual gamer and the average consumer that you (the hardcore gamer) are probably just confusing and scaring away from a purchase when they likely will be perfectly happy.
“The Xbox 360 Breaks Down Too Much”
There is no denying that the Xbox 360 had a rough first year or so in terms of reliability, and Microsoft has even admitted that something is wrong and has extended the standard warranty to a year and the "Red Ring of Death" warranty to three years. Systems do break for a number of various reasons, and it is just a risk you take with any brand new electronics, not just the Xbox 360. This particular problem has been magnified due to extensive coverage on forums and blogs where unhappy Xbox 360 owners (along with Sony and Nintendo fanboys) just love to whine about how horrid the Xbox 360 is.
I have also seen on forums where someone will have one problem, whether it has frozen just once or they got a ring of light error (usually from a faulty power connection thanks to the Intercooler …) but there will always be a chorus of posters telling them that it will inevitably break and they should call Microsoft.
I have come to a few conclusions about all of this.
- 1. False Diagnoses: I think that there is a percentage of “broken 360s” that can be counted as false diagnoses and weren’t actually broken. Like I said, people flip out when just one problem comes up, but they fail to realize that it could be a bad power cable/connection, a bad a/v cable/connection, it could be their Intercooler fouling things up, or it could just be sloppy coding in a game that makes their system lock up. Some games just have issues (Oblivion, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, etc. ) so you can’t blame your system when it very likely is a problem with the game instead. You can get the “red ring of death” for a lot of reasons, and not all of them mean your system is truly dead.
- 2. Poor Maintenance: You also have to attribute a percentage of broken systems to people that don’t take good care of their stuff. In their fits of rage towards Microsoft about their broken 360, people conveniently forget to mention that their system was buried in the back of a closed in and dusty entertainment center or it was sitting down on the carpet or something. Of course your system isn’t going to last forever if you don’t take care of it.
- 3. Some Things Just Break: And then, there are some systems that do just break for no apparent reason. My launch system from November ’05 only lasted about three weeks. In this situation, there is nothing you can do buy call 1-800-4-MY-XBOX and have it fixed.
What Do You Do If Your System Breaks?: If your system does break, it isn’t the end of the world. You aren’t the victim of some horrific crime as many people like to make it out to be. You just call up 1-800-4-MY-XBOX and have it replaced. The system now has a full 1 year warranty, and you can also get extended warranties from the store you purchased the system at as well as directly from Microsoft. I have heard some horror stores of bad customer service when people call up Microsoft, but I can’t speak from personal experience. These situations, again, you have to expect them to be embellished a fair bit, though, because people want to make themselves look good and the people they talked to look like the devil, so take everything with a grain of salt.
Bottom Line:
The bottom line in all of this is that it is perfectly safe to buy a Microsoft Xbox 360 system right now. Despite what “Generic Internet Nerd #232490” or “Sony Fanboy #9403948” keeps spewing on your favorite message board, there is nothing to worry about in terms of hardware reliability or potential upgrades. You can buy the Xbox 360 with confidence, and I am sure you will be very happy with it.
I just want to reiterate what I said at the top of this piece. This article isn't so much for the hardcore crowd, because you already know what you know and you don't care who knows it. It is more for the casual gamer and the average consumer that you (the hardcore gamer) are probably just confusing and scaring away from a purchase when they likely will be perfectly happy.
