LOL, Documents suggest Microsoft knew Xbox 360 could damage discs all along

[xtop]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/15/d...age-discs-all/

Microsoft long ago fessed up that the Xbox 360 was capable of scratching discs, and it even offered a (somewhat limited) exchange program for damaged games, but some recently unsealed documents from an ongoing lawsuit now suggest that the company was well aware of the issue for about as long as the console has been around. According to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft first discovered the problem in September or October of 2005, and it even went so far as to send a "team of engineers" to stores across the US to determine the best course of action. Apparently, they came up with three options, two of which proved to be impractical, and one of which (installing small bumpers in each and every console) proved to be too expensive, leading Microsoft to offer the disc exchange instead. What's more, the documents apparently also revealed that some Microsoft employees thought that the warning labels on the console were insufficient, and that the company has received complaints about the problem from more than 55,000 customers as of April 30th of this year. No word on any movement just yet in the lawsuits themselves just yet but one of them, filed back in July of 2007, is seeking class-action status on behalf of everyone that's bought an Xbox 360.


i love my 360, but this still makes me chuckle

[Forrestandjen07]

Uh ofcourse they new

They also knew about RROD

this is what happens when you use cheap shitty hardware

[Uniquely]

Neither of my 360's has ever scratched a disc..... including my launch unit


There's been plenty of hardware problems this gen, but all in all, I still think releasing early was the best strategy for them. Still I am really hopeful that they will have learned a lot about quality control and the NextBox will have hardware that is as awesome as XBL and everything else that makes the XBox great.

[xtop]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

Neither of my 360's has ever scratched a disc..... including my launch unit


There's been plenty of hardware problems this gen, but all in all, I still think releasing early was the best strategy for them. Still I am really hopeful that they will have learned a lot about quality control and the NextBox will have hardware that is as awesome as XBL and everything else that makes the XBox great.

i still dont know a single person who has rrod, including me. friends of friends tho, sure. i've heard of scratched discs too, but hasnt happened to me.

i think they would have been better off delaying a bit and fixing the problems. in a perfect world with no problems, they'd really be kicking sonys ass.

[Forrestandjen07]

Originally Posted by xtop

i still dont know a single person who has rrod, including me. friends of friends tho, sure. i've heard of scratched discs too, but hasnt happened to me.

i think they would have been better off delaying a bit and fixing the problems. in a perfect world with no problems, they'd really be kicking sonys ass.

I wish the two companies would be adults

and join forces with eachother and just make the ultimate gaming console

Could you imagine the possibilities

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Forrestandjen07

I wish the two companies would be adults

and join forces with eachother and just make the ultimate gaming console

Could you imagine the possibilities

sony hardware and microsoft software? count me in. never happen tho lol.

actually..i'd rather see the old sega and nintendo join forces..poor sega

[Deadset]

send a "team of engineers" to stores across the US to determine the best course of action.

This doesn't make sense to me (I cannot follow the link right now), but why would engineers go to the stores? Being an engineer, if my company has a problem with a product, we'd recreate it in the lab and red wire / dead bug anything we needed to, provide a bulletin for them to fix or recall and fix.

Going to stores across the US doesn't make sense, they went to Target to fix?

As for scratches etc...I have one from March of 2006 and no scratches or RRoD either.

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by Deads3t

This doesn't make sense to me (I cannot follow the link right now), but why would engineers go to the stores? Being an engineer, if my company has a problem with a product, we'd recreate it in the lab and red wire / dead bug anything we needed to, provide a bulletin for them to fix or recall and fix.

Going to stores across the US doesn't make sense, they went to Target to fix?

As for scratches etc...I have one from March of 2006 and no scratches or RRoD either.

I don't understand it either. I can see it now, a bunch of people in lab coats go into a store and flash a Microsoft badge at a Target employee and ask to leave with an Xbox 360. I think the only thing they would get would be an escort out of the building.

[mikejet]

Ford also knew that the Pinto could blow up but decided not to do anything.

Companies make gambles sometimes. They may work or they may not.

MS gambled and made the wrong choice. They could have managed it better.

[ThePhantomOak]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

Neither of my 360's has ever scratched a disc..... including my launch unit

"People die from getting shot"

I got shot, and I didnt die

[Clark Kent]

To be honest about the situation they made the right call from a business perspective. Going into this generation they simply did not have a strong enough of a brand as Sony or even Nintendo in the videogame world. Their decision to rush the Xbox 360 probably won them second place this generation. The product was clearly defective from the get-go but locking in millions of customers before they ever got to see a PS3 in action was very smart.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by xtop

i think they would have been better off delaying a bit and fixing the problems. in a perfect world with no problems, they'd really be kicking sonys ass.

I think the reason that they're currently beating Sony as badly as they are {which isn't THAT badly but it is pretty bad in the North American market} is due to the fact that people bought 2 or even 3 360's because they didn't want their games to go to waste in the first 2 years before the 3 year warranty came into effect.

Logan

[mattym]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

I think the reason that they're currently beating Sony as badly as they are {which isn't THAT badly but it is pretty bad in the North American market} is due to the fact that people bought 2 or even 3 360's because they didn't want their games to go to waste in the first 2 years before the 3 year warranty came into effect.

Logan

thats correct. if you sell 18million and 5million are dead after a while, there are some extra sales being added somewhere, no? there are tales of people buying 2, 3, 4 units to replace ones that crap out...i would be interested to see actual userbase figures rather than shipped or sold figures.

[FinalEvangelion]

The engineering team said the console wasn't ready for launch.

Management wanted to get it out before the holidays of 2005 so they can get their head start on Sony at any cost.

[camper]

Originally Posted by xtop

i still dont know a single person who has rrod, including me. friends of friends tho, sure. i've heard of scratched discs too, but hasnt happened to me.

I've had two RROD within 2 or 3 weeks of each other, but I personally am thinking its related to a couple power spikes I had. Which makes me wonder if the RROD isn't a flaw with the system, but with the power supply. But I'm no engineer...

As for the scratching discs, I've never seen it. I have my console lying horizontally though, because back before the proliferation of towers when computers were 'flat', putting a machine on its side often resulted in CD's getting scratched by the drive unless they were in a CD disc tray.

I just don't like any setup of any system that results in the disc lying sideways.

camper

[mikejet]

My first 360 was fine until RRoD. The one I got back from repair scratched discs. The second one from repair doesn't scratch but the drive is loud.

[Sussudio]

never had a console that scratched discs (i dont think), but i have had 11 RRODs

[sssick]

Originally Posted by DoYouBlu

never had a console that scratched discs (i dont think), but i have had 11 RRODs

11? Wow.

[Deadset]

Originally Posted by camper

I've had two RROD within 2 or 3 weeks of each other, but I personally am thinking its related to a couple power spikes I had. Which makes me wonder if the RROD isn't a flaw with the system, but with the power supply. But I'm no engineer...

As for the scratching discs, I've never seen it. I have my console lying horizontally though, because back before the proliferation of towers when computers were 'flat', putting a machine on its side often resulted in CD's getting scratched by the drive unless they were in a CD disc tray.

I just don't like any setup of any system that results in the disc lying sideways.

camper

From what I've read, the RRoD is actually just a fault event that will trigger the lights to come on, so that the Xbox won't function and requires some testing/service.

I'm not sure about your situation, but RRoD isn't death of the box, just an event that happened to trigger a threshold. If you got a surge from lightning that actually made it through to the box, I think you'd smell something. Then again it could have been a smaller surge to trigger an interrupt that sent them into RRoD.... Don't you just love speculating??

As for the system orientation....yeah I can't sleep at night knowing my xbox is on its side...call me neurotic, but it just doesn't bode well with me, so I never did it.

[dereksworl]

Originally Posted by DoYouBlu

never had a console that scratched discs (i dont think), but i have had 11 RRODs

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.....So what does that make 11 times?