[StratComm]

Deepblue, use the edit function.  Your posts look slightly less annoying if there are not in groups of three.  And quite frankly, I have read through much of this thread and I can't find a single point with which I would side with you on.  The design flaws of the 360 (and they are design flaws) are significant.  End of story.  Of course, I seem to remember the same type of thing being an issue with the original Xbox back in the day; it wasn't until the second revision that the things got truely stable.  Anyone else sense a trend here?

[Deepblue]

Remember PS2 DRE??? Yeah, it happens with every new console (except Nintendo, they make damned bulletproof hardware).

Incidentally, it's a quick fix. Just place a few foam pads inside the top of the DVD drive and you can prevent the disk from hitting the lense. I'd expect it to be fixed in V.1.1.0.

[aldo_14]

Ah, the perils of a rushed release........

[Spicious]

Incidentally, it's a quick fix. Just place a few foam pads inside the top of the DVD drive and you can prevent the disk from hitting the lense. I'd expect it to be fixed in V.1.1.0.

Does the omission of such a quick and important fix not then suggest the extent to which it was rushed?

[vyper]

I'm still thinking about lemons.

[Grey Wolf]

* Grey Wolf gives vyper lemons

[WeatherOp]

* Grey Wolf gives vyper lemons

I'll asume that you have enough of these "lemons" to go around?

[Grey Wolf]

No.

* Grey Wolf gives WeatherOp a lime

[Nix]

About the drives though.  I honestly cannot believe that the lens would hit the disc.  If it did, that would render the lens useless.  I would think so anyway, because the lens focusing mechanism be borked in the first place, along with the possibility of a scratched or sheared off lens.  If the disc is wobbling inside of the unit, why not make a drive that operates like a laptop drive, where you have to snap the CD into a spindle?  Dell makes such crappy drives for thier desktops, the low-profile drives that is, and THEY seem to work just fine.  I know you cant go and shove a 5 1/4 DVD drive into that 360, but there ARE low-profile drives available that are specifically made to withstand movement.  We wouldnt have CD/DVD combo burners in our laptops without that sort of tech now would we?  Honestly.  What the HELL was M$ thinking? 
It's bad for M$ to do thier test marketing whenever the product is FOR SALE.  This should be done BEFORE they release.  Give me a break.  It's an honest-to-god rushed release.  Even if these problems honestly happen on a "very small fraction" of units, the potential still exists for it to happen to YOUR deck, if you have already purchased one.  Releasing "versions" of decks is incredibly dumb in my opinion.  We have overheating power supplies, overheating graphics systems, hungry hungry CD-Rom drives, and the to-be-expected trademark M$ crashing.

[BlackDove]

Are you bloody kidding me?

"There is blatant disregard for your property by releasing an unfinished and abysmally dissapointing machine onto the market."

I'm willing to bet you would have no bloody idea whatsoever. I doubt you have played any of the games, much less played them online or with a friend. Furthermore, what's to stop me from accussing you of being a PS Payroll PARASITE!!! Oh wait, BECAUSE I'M NOT AN IDIOT.

OMG LIKE OMGZORZ HAR HAR YOU CAUGHT ME!!!!!

To reiterate, the difference between you and me is that I don't post and start threads about how anything is so AWESOME, that "anything" being a retarded piece of overpriced equipment, that two weeks ago you knew nothing about yourself. I post opinions on subject matter that I'm unbiased towards, using logical deduction of facts, then deciding.

We all KNOW that you, your friend or your family depends on the 360 selling well, as well as its games. Your posts SCREAM it. Mine don't.

Get it?

[Ransom]

mummy and daddy are fighting again

[vyper]

* Grey Wolf gives vyper lemons

* vyper creates lemonade and shares

See, we can all be nice!

[SadisticSid]

I just find it amusing that a Microsoft fanboy is aghast at SONY for what amounts to 'poor business practices'.

But as for the crashes and defects, I maintain that anyone who buys a first-generation version of a console is just paying to beta-test it, especially with the dearth of games that are currently available. If Oblivion had been out as planned, it would've probably been worth the risk.

[CP5670]

mummy and daddy are fighting again

Who is who?

[BlackDove]

The one who does the beating is usually daddy, so that'd be me.

[Grey Wolf]

* Grey Wolf gives vyper lemons

* vyper creates lemonade and shares

See, we can all be nice!

It's hope for ze internets!

[StratComm]

About the drives though. I honestly cannot believe that the lens would hit the disc. If it did, that would render the lens useless. I would think so anyway, because the lens focusing mechanism be borked in the first place, along with the possibility of a scratched or sheared off lens. If the disc is wobbling inside of the unit, why not make a drive that operates like a laptop drive, where you have to snap the CD into a spindle? Dell makes such crappy drives for thier desktops, the low-profile drives that is, and THEY seem to work just fine. I know you cant go and shove a 5 1/4 DVD drive into that 360, but there ARE low-profile drives available that are specifically made to withstand movement. We wouldnt have CD/DVD combo burners in our laptops without that sort of tech now would we? Honestly. What the HELL was M$ thinking?
It's bad for M$ to do thier test marketing whenever the product is FOR SALE. This should be done BEFORE they release. Give me a break. It's an honest-to-god rushed release. Even if these problems honestly happen on a "very small fraction" of units, the potential still exists for it to happen to YOUR deck, if you have already purchased one. Releasing "versions" of decks is incredibly dumb in my opinion. We have overheating power supplies, overheating graphics systems, hungry hungry CD-Rom drives, and the to-be-expected trademark M$ crashing.

It wouldn't be the lense itself, it's the casing around the lense that's crashing into the surface of the disk.  Even in the most high-end CD drive, the possibility still exists for contact between the lense and the CD itself, so you need to protect the lense at the expense of the CD as the drive is the more expensive part.  You do try to minimize the number of times that happens though, which apparently MS forgot to consider.

As for the revisions of consoles, the truth of the matter is that all console makers do just that.  Usually it's so minor that the revision differences would take a hardware expert to even notice, much less understand why it was important (economics more often than design flaws).  The problem is that the latest round of console makers (Microsoft being the best example because it has no prior experience in that market) are trying to get away with Beta testing on the first release version, rather than doing a proper test in-house first.  And sadly, they will probably come out ahead as the cost of replacing the machines that are defective is likely less than the cost of actually doing a development run of hardware.

[kode]

noone a fan of test driven hardware development?

[aldo_14]

noone a fan of test driven hardware development?

Not when it costs 350 odd quid.

(50 quid for the broken game, in case you're wondering....)

[Night Hammer]

did anyone show deepblue that link that we had over at SG about the 360 repair tool?