Reliability issues
Published Saturday 14 Aug 2010 11:54pm |
23
Tags: Break Downs, PS3, Xbox 360, 360, Wii, Nintendo, PSP, PS2, PSX, Xbox
Remember the days when a console didn't break down, crash, freeze, red ring or yellow light? It only seems like yesterday that we were playing games on consoles that didn't have the issues that we face today. Sure there were probably people out there who experienced the rare faulty console but they were nothing like the problems todays so called "next gen" consoles get.
XBOX 360
The Xbox 360 has been plagued with the Red
Ring of Death (RROD). No console has had such a bad run with problems. Since
day one people complained that there
consoles were crashing. They explained the RROD and Microsoft had to figure out a way of fixing it. They did when they used better parts and then made the warranties for RROD 3 years (Which they have now stopped). The introduction of the new slim 250gbS model which has been a big success has seen more confidence in the product. The Original Xbox which Rivaled the PS2 had far fewer issues and was ten time
more reliable.
PS3
The PS3 had a much better release with their console. No real issues at first, but the PS3 had it's own version of the red ring with the Yellow light of Death (YLOD). This was pretty much the same thing as the RROD. Other issues the PS3 has had have been discs not reading which has been the biggest issue for thePS3 so far. Sony released their slim console first and it was popular out selling the Wii in Japan. However it hasn't all been smooth. The slim has had maybe more if not the same amount of issues the original model had. The first playstation and the PS2, like the original xbox enjoyed happier times in regards to reliability. The only issues to really come from them was the wear and tear of the lens. Sony could be forgiven for using cheap materials then.
Nintendo Wii
The Nintendo Wii has probably been the most reliable of the three consoles. Very few issues to speak of but still some that
frustrate people. Main issues have
been similar to the PS3's "not reading discs" issues. Even though the Wii isn't really considered next gen, it does get classified with the Xbox 360 and PS3because of it's Motion controllers. If we compare the Wii, PS3 and the Xbox 360 to the original gaming machines that most of us grew up on, the NES, SNES, Atari, Megadrive and all of the console prior and leading up to the PSX, we see consoles that were reliable didn't break down.
PSP & NDS
The PSP and Nintendo DS range have been good considering they are handheld even though the likes of the Gameboy's were far more reliable. The Problem being more parts and more complex machines which are not good for kids, which these machines are bought for.
Sure we have Hi-Def pictures, blu-ray discs, and online gameplay along with DLC, but have we traded in quality for looks? And does that mean that todays consoles aren't any good? No. Todays consoles are great. The things they can do are amazing and are better then previous models and years. Todays consoles offer a deeper experience that the consoles we used to play can't.
It would be nice though for the next consoles that come out, that maybe they do a bit more testing on them before we fork out hundreds or thousands of dollars for them.
COMMENTS (23)
Crappy build quality inevitably comes back to price. The one thing Joe Bloggs always wants, over and above everything else, is for [insert consumer good here] to be CHEAP. CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. That's the only reason stores like The Warehouse do so well. It's also why pirating software is so commonplace. People in general just like paying very little, or preferably nothing, for something.
If people were prepared to shell out the dosh required to have consumer electronics built to exacting tolerances from quality materials in hermitically sealed facilities in Japan or Germany, I have a hunch these thing swould break down a lot less. If a person wants their brand new console for less than a few hundred bucks, then they will have to accept that it's going to be frantically scrabbled together out of glue and arse-grade plastic by labourers being paid $2 a day in the hills of China.
Never had a problem with my PS3, got 2 red lights on my 360 when I had one. Don't know if that was fatal or not.
The fail rate on the main console is shocking though.
The tradeoff for quality over price is as LS says...the cheaper manufacturers can make their product the better. You don't pay for quality and trusted brands with consoles typically but if you did you could expect one hell of a mark up compared to current rates.
This then brings up another issue, how do we resolve the issues around reliability? One option is to do the PC thing and open up standardised hardware and allow other manufacturers to create hardware for a machine...however that competes with the main reason why people get a console - so they don't have to fiddle with stuff.
Or the developers could simply do 9001 quality checks, get higher quality hardware etc etc. But I would imagine they would use this as a selling point and consoles would effectively double in price.
This is more or less the reason why I like my PC :D
Red ring and YLOD are simply the hardware warning signals for hardware failure. There has been alot of talk about, if you get YLOD or Red ring "It is because the solder has melted..." Thats not entirely accurate. The lights could indicate a drive malfunction, blown board component, or the console could be full of cream cheese.
Great article dude. I argee that in the past, console's have been more hardy. That was primarily because they were more simply constructed- they were just as cheaply made, if not even more so, than modern consoles.
I had an Asian Mega Drive which looked like it was made out of recycled cardboard. The guy I sold it to still plays it today. Even if the solder is old Coke cans, and the wires were made of shavings from the side of a Honda. It still works.
I do miss the days when consoles worked. It's a shame, I sometimes wonder if it's somewhat done on purpose as a profit thing.
The thing you have to realize is that compared to the old consoles (PSX and Nintendo and what not) the next-gen consoles are ridiculously powerful. They are so insanely complex that the guys developing them can't possibly think of every scenario that they will go through, sometimes they even miss the simple things... like overheating... cough microsoft cough...
The original Playstation, NES or even the SEGA if you had about 20 of them each put them in an enclosed space without their heatsinks, it would not heat up nearly as much as a single 360 or a PS3 with all of its heatsinks and fans in said enclosed space.
The amount of bits that these things are processing in a second the original consoles couldn't process in days. So yeah....
And high def is so pretty!!
I've been lucky so far with my consoles. The 360 is a Jasper chipset and as long as you don't play Fallout 3 too long, it'll survive okay (seriously, Fallout 3 murders consoles). The PS3 is a bit older and probably more likely to break. If anything I think the Blu-ray drive first.
With solid state memory reducing (slowly) in price it would be interesting to see if any manufacturers start producing games on memory cards; and whether MS, Sony and Nintendo will support them.
I got the origional ps2 ($1000 on release date) and it hasnt ever skipped a beat.
Id like the blog more if you had the percentages of fail rates on here to back up your points... I really had never heard anything bad about the last gen of consoles... obviously the rrod and ylod are pretty well known tho.
QUOTE: The PS3 had a much better release with their console. No real issues at first
Um not sure if this is true as I got mine after the recall... but, when P3's were released they had a big problem, they shorted-out and caught on fire.
QUOTE: The PSP and Nintendo DS range have been good
PSP not really they had an issue of ejecting the game disks, DS has been ok but mine had a issue of crupting game data.
Other than that yeah I miss my SNES and N64.... I know I'm not the only one that has pulled the cart out of the console and thrown it at the wall then put it back in and carried on playing lol. Can't do that now though, well not unless you want to pick up the shattered bits of disk off the floor. Oh and just to add, I've never had any prob's with my P3 or 360...... YET!! knock on wood.
thats not good cause then we wastin money on things we bought with our own money
Had an xbox for 3 years, no problem at all.
Ps3..... 6 months before stopped reading disc's (was bought second hand so no warranty)
Same problem occured with two of my mates for ps3's and RROD twice for one mate with xbox 360's.
Shows 'next gen' consoles are more prone to faults than older consoles, which really shouldn't be the case, you would trust a new console to have less problems than an old one, just like you would expect a new car to have less problems than an old one.
Sony and microsoft should really have picked up on and fixed the problems associated with xbox 360's and ps3's before they were released, so many people have been cheated of there money due to these faults and it really isn't fair.
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