Ring of Fire
The title refers to those Three Red Lights of Doom that every XBox 360 owner fears. If the circle on the console face turns from green to red you are effectively screwed. Last year, post launch, reports were rampant that more than the usual 1% of hardware was manufacturing. That points to a problem on the line somewhere. One year later, these reports persist without much drop-off in units malfunctioning. Reading IGN editor Matt Casamassina’s account of having to return three units in one year is slightly frightening. I know it doesn’t happen to all systems and I know all consoles are prone to issues in this day and age where more complex hardware rests under the hood – but why can’t they make systems the way they used to. I have a 21-year old NES in my basement that is in perfect working order.
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This post has 3 comments (now closed):
JFCC
Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:55 am
Where is he putting his 360? Either it’s overheating due to bad placement or the shop he’s been going to got a bad batch. The 360 seems prone to bad batches. I read a forum post by a guy who went to replace his 360 and made the clerks check the console in the store before he took it. They went through eight of them before they found one that worked.
Ed
Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:18 pm
If you read one of his earlier posts (on the PS3) he shows his set-up and it all open air. Plus he’s an IGN editor so he is defintiely in the know of proper ventilation. It’s been widely reported that MS is working on a quieter system with a more efficient fan which is supposed to launch sometime this year – so that tells me they feel the nit architecture can be causing some of these issues. The system is a great system but these bad batches are kind of easy to come across – at least a little more easy than they should be.
Sean
Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:25 pm
Also rumored to have a more efficient, and possibly faster, processor that will also help cut down on heat and power consumption.
They have a version that supports IPTV, which may also require a larger hard drive (which makes sense given they have you downloading HD content via Marketplace now).
I’d like all of the above plus an HDMI output with a built in HD-DVD drive.