<http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/Uplink/Uplink09.html>
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Nice job on the 360 reliability debacle Dennis.
Those of us who've been tracking the XBox Live forums saw this coming for some time.
At first a few gamers reported problems: maybe 2 out of ten. Later, the ratio started to climb and now somewhere between 5 and 7 out of ten of the gamers I interact with have experienced console failure.
To add insult to injury, prior to the billion dollar warranty extension 360 owners with red ringed units often had to pay $150.00 for repairs and received no guarantee the box they got back from MSFT was the one they sent. As one 360 enthusiast put it to me: "I know I didn't leave Cheeto crumbs and adolescent semen residue on my dead box so when I got one back that was all sorts of foul my customer satisfaction index plummeted southwards."
It's ironic: Peter Moore (head of MSFT Interactive for those who don't know) was understandably boastful when the 360 hit market long before the PS3 with a lower price point and a healthy game catalog.
The PS3 still lacks a well filled, platform exclusive library but the machine has proved to be whisper quiet and a solid performer whose full capabilities are barely tapped.
With HALO 2 due to hit soon, the 'what the hell are we going to do about these dying boxes?' meeting must have taken on a special urgency. Over at Kokatu et. al. console death was beginning to overshadow enthusiasm for new games such as HALO 2 and Bioshock.
Not a good situation for MSFT.
Meanwhile, the Wii continues to print money for Nintendo.
.d.