[The E]

Remember the first XBox? That was a pretty solid piece of hardware. In fact, the few things that Microsoft sold in terms of hardware (Keyboards, mice and the incredibly awesome Sidewinders) were always pretty much rock solid. Until the 360, that is.
Oh, and Win 98SE, NT, 2k.... those were pretty solid as well.

[MR_T3D]

Remember the first XBox? That was a pretty solid piece of hardware. In fact, the few things that Microsoft sold in terms of hardware (Keyboards, mice and the incredibly awesome Sidewinders) were always pretty much rock solid. Until the 360, that is.
Oh, and Win 98SE, NT, 2k.... those were pretty solid as well.

on the 360, i blame the 12000prm disk drive (for better load times, but at expense of reliability vs. traditional mere 7200rpm peices)

[The E]

No, the problem was that the XBox was, for all intents and purposes, built using stock hardware. The only thing that was custom about it was the graphics chip. That meant that they basically only had to hire a few guys who had designed industrial PCs before to come up with a solid design for the whole thing. The 360, on the other hand, had far more custom parts with no benchmark on the thermal stresses that would ensue in every day use. Thus you got all the cracked solder failures that caused RRODs. Note that the first-gen PS1 had very similar issues.

[Kosh]

Remember the first XBox? That was a pretty solid piece of hardware. In fact, the few things that Microsoft sold in terms of hardware (Keyboards, mice and the incredibly awesome Sidewinders) were always pretty much rock solid. Until the 360, that is.
Oh, and Win 98SE, NT, 2k.... those were pretty solid as well.

The first XBox was pretty much a PC, everything about all its parts was off the shelf. It is true that MS actually has made some good hardware, I'll concede that point.

And no, 98SE was definately not solid, although it was an improvement. NT was much much better in every way, but compared with what it was competing against it was significantly inferior, and nowhere was this more appearent then when MS purchased Hotmail. Hotmail was originally running Solaris, but when MS took it over they tried to put NT on hotmail's systems......only to discover that NT couldn't handle it so they switched back.

And like I said, 2000 was the first time they had anything that was really able to compete with Unix based workstations and servers, although it still wasn't as good.

[Fenrir]

Hey, anyone hear about Wii's breaking down?

No?

Neither have I.

Leaving WiiConnect 24 on can cause the GPU to slowly fry if the console's someplace where it can't properly dissipate heatl. And some have issues with reading dual-layer discs. Other than that, the thing's pretty solid.

[BloodEagle]

Running a console in an enclosed space can cause damage? Surely thou dost jest!

[Mongoose]

Crap...ours is in an enclosed cabinet.

[Fenrir]

The problem with WC24 is that when the Wii is in standby mode, the fans aren't running. So you've got part of the hardware turning itself on and no system to get rid of the heat. Smooth move, Ninty. That's why I have standby mode turned off on mine.

[Colonol Dekker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mwfpz/Watchdog_24_09_2009/

Watchdog follow up.

Didn't really pay attention, but the Gas SAfe bit was good. I like rogue traders

[Mongoose]

The problem with WC24 is that when the Wii is in standby mode, the fans aren't running. So you've got part of the hardware turning itself on and no system to get rid of the heat. Smooth move, Ninty. That's why I have standby mode turned off on mine.

I just checked out the family's, and I didn't realize how warm it runs when it's in standby mode.  I wound up turning it off too, just to be safe.