Ralph CarothersLife with the Xboxes, both good and bad.
May 8th 2008 14:40
So, turning away from WoW atm, I figured I'd post about one of my other loves at the moment.
My 360.
The little white box that currently rests above my PS2 (I'll discuss why PS2 and not PS3 some point soon) is probably the most used electronic piece in my house, barring the TV (and Direct TV box above it) and our PCs. Before this, my normal xbox was basically in this position.
We have a DVD player, and at some point I'll need to take a pic of my setup for you to see, but it largely gets ignored in favor of the original Xbox and the 360's display quality for DVDs. The DVD use Xbox Live and various games basically made our original Xbox "top dog" in the house. The 360 severely trumps its predecessor though with everything I can do with it.
For example, my wife and I both enjoy anime and various JDramas. (Japanese Dramas) We've downloaded a few in our time and re-encoded them for DVD in the past, but thats a pain usually. You only get 3-4 episodes on a standard non-dual layer disc to boot. (4.5 gig) So, enter TVersity. This program, combined with the new quad-core system I purchased recently, really ups what our 360 (and various other electronics) can do. Its useful for the PS3/PSP owners out there too since you can stream to them as well.
It doesn't just do video either, it can also transcode (re-encode on the fly) music and pictures. Its basically a beefed up form of Windows Media Center. You can share music from your PC, photos, video and even internet videos so that they can be displayed through some other form of device that can read the stream. It has a fairly large variety of devices it supports and is an excellent resource for extending your media capabilities. Its so easy to use that my wife and child (six) have both been able to pick it up without a problem.
Now, it may sound like I'm trying to be fanboyish here. I'm not really...so let me get to the negative side of life with the 360. I'm sure many have heard of this already: The dreaded Red Rings of Death.
Yes, I've experienced the ring myself. As soon as I did, I furiously searched Google for some possible way to alleviate the issue. Microsoft [MS] has a KB article dedicated to it even. You'll find various discussions on ways people have fixed the issue on their own, or just sent it into MS. When I had the issue occur, I was just ending a nice night of Rock Band with the wife/kid, and getting ready to play some Burnout Paradise when the rings showed up on my system. I had been expecting it to eventually happen though, as I was starting to see other problems creep in. The wireless piece that is in the unit was dying, because my controllers, even right next to the 360, would lose connection on a full battery charge. My dvd drive wouldn't shut correctly, etc.
Now, I did not do what I had done on my prior Xbox. (the original model) I had bought a warranty that MS offers right out of the box. Its pretty cheap (like 50-60 bux for 2 yrs) and they fix the unit for you. I was sort of worried that my unit, which was from the original series of units produced, would actually be a write off. The good thing is that MS has extended the warranty on any unit that experiences a RRoD by 3 years. So, I called them up, they did some basic trouble shooting, including a tip not many know. (More on that in a second) and they promised to send me a box out in the next few days with packing instructions/shipping labels. The turn around time was listed as 3 weeks, I received my unit back in 7 business days. They even went so far as to fix other issues with the unit such as the drive problem, replaced fans so it was cooler/quieter and such. I'm told for some people though, this is quite the occurance. While I waited for my unit though, I did get sort of impatient and spent 250 to buy the "arcade" version of the 360. It comes without a hard disk, so I simply took the one off the older unit, slapped it in, and it loaded everything just fine. Now I have 2 360's in the house, both can stream media for the family on different TVs, or, allow others to play a game I'm not playing. (The unit even came with a free month of live for my hassle)
Obviously, this is not the ideal situation you want your 350 dollar console to be in. Keep in mind though, some of this can be user caused as well. Traditionally, many people are pluggin their 360s into a surge protector. This is unneeded, and supposedly can cause harm to the 360 which already does it own voltage regulation and such inside of the large power brick that many complain about. The manual for the 360, last I knew, also detailed not using a surge protector strip. This is the first question I was asked about btw. (See above about my "tip" from the service rep.) My 360 though was a little over 2 years old at the point that it finally failed and needed repair. The supposed failure rate on the early model 360s is said to have reached something akin to 33%, which is why MS extended the warranty period. They didn't even just extend it, they went out of their way to absorb the costs of shipping and such. Out of their competition, only Nintendo ever really seems to come close to this level of dedication. (Sony's support has always been a nightmare for me and many friends)
The Xbox 360 is far from a perfect machine. It ranks up there for me in usability and reliability, though I do know some who have returned their machines 3-4 times since they received their units. MS has recently changed their 360 manufacturing though and cleaned up a bunch of the errors that were occuring. Any of the people I've known who had multiple failures have had that issue stop since about Dec of 07. Any unit made after Oct 07 should have the new "falcon" chipset inside of it. MS shrunk the components inside along with reducing the heat output fixing a majority of what caused the issues that spawn the failures. Thats not to say you'll never have the unit die now, but a majority of the issues have largely seemed to dry up for users.
So, overall, I'd have to suggest to anyone looking for a "next-gen" console that if you want one of the largest library of games at the moment, good online usability and the largest and most user friendly online service for a console...check out the 360.
I'll be posting up soon enough my thoughts on both the Wii (which I own/love) and PS3. (including why, and possibly when I plan on getting a PS3.)
My 360.
The little white box that currently rests above my PS2 (I'll discuss why PS2 and not PS3 some point soon) is probably the most used electronic piece in my house, barring the TV (and Direct TV box above it) and our PCs. Before this, my normal xbox was basically in this position.
We have a DVD player, and at some point I'll need to take a pic of my setup for you to see, but it largely gets ignored in favor of the original Xbox and the 360's display quality for DVDs. The DVD use Xbox Live and various games basically made our original Xbox "top dog" in the house. The 360 severely trumps its predecessor though with everything I can do with it.
For example, my wife and I both enjoy anime and various JDramas. (Japanese Dramas) We've downloaded a few in our time and re-encoded them for DVD in the past, but thats a pain usually. You only get 3-4 episodes on a standard non-dual layer disc to boot. (4.5 gig) So, enter TVersity. This program, combined with the new quad-core system I purchased recently, really ups what our 360 (and various other electronics) can do. Its useful for the PS3/PSP owners out there too since you can stream to them as well.
It doesn't just do video either, it can also transcode (re-encode on the fly) music and pictures. Its basically a beefed up form of Windows Media Center. You can share music from your PC, photos, video and even internet videos so that they can be displayed through some other form of device that can read the stream. It has a fairly large variety of devices it supports and is an excellent resource for extending your media capabilities. Its so easy to use that my wife and child (six) have both been able to pick it up without a problem.
Now, it may sound like I'm trying to be fanboyish here. I'm not really...so let me get to the negative side of life with the 360. I'm sure many have heard of this already: The dreaded Red Rings of Death.
Yes, I've experienced the ring myself. As soon as I did, I furiously searched Google for some possible way to alleviate the issue. Microsoft [MS] has a KB article dedicated to it even. You'll find various discussions on ways people have fixed the issue on their own, or just sent it into MS. When I had the issue occur, I was just ending a nice night of Rock Band with the wife/kid, and getting ready to play some Burnout Paradise when the rings showed up on my system. I had been expecting it to eventually happen though, as I was starting to see other problems creep in. The wireless piece that is in the unit was dying, because my controllers, even right next to the 360, would lose connection on a full battery charge. My dvd drive wouldn't shut correctly, etc.
Now, I did not do what I had done on my prior Xbox. (the original model) I had bought a warranty that MS offers right out of the box. Its pretty cheap (like 50-60 bux for 2 yrs) and they fix the unit for you. I was sort of worried that my unit, which was from the original series of units produced, would actually be a write off. The good thing is that MS has extended the warranty on any unit that experiences a RRoD by 3 years. So, I called them up, they did some basic trouble shooting, including a tip not many know. (More on that in a second) and they promised to send me a box out in the next few days with packing instructions/shipping labels. The turn around time was listed as 3 weeks, I received my unit back in 7 business days. They even went so far as to fix other issues with the unit such as the drive problem, replaced fans so it was cooler/quieter and such. I'm told for some people though, this is quite the occurance. While I waited for my unit though, I did get sort of impatient and spent 250 to buy the "arcade" version of the 360. It comes without a hard disk, so I simply took the one off the older unit, slapped it in, and it loaded everything just fine. Now I have 2 360's in the house, both can stream media for the family on different TVs, or, allow others to play a game I'm not playing. (The unit even came with a free month of live for my hassle)
Obviously, this is not the ideal situation you want your 350 dollar console to be in. Keep in mind though, some of this can be user caused as well. Traditionally, many people are pluggin their 360s into a surge protector. This is unneeded, and supposedly can cause harm to the 360 which already does it own voltage regulation and such inside of the large power brick that many complain about. The manual for the 360, last I knew, also detailed not using a surge protector strip. This is the first question I was asked about btw. (See above about my "tip" from the service rep.) My 360 though was a little over 2 years old at the point that it finally failed and needed repair. The supposed failure rate on the early model 360s is said to have reached something akin to 33%, which is why MS extended the warranty period. They didn't even just extend it, they went out of their way to absorb the costs of shipping and such. Out of their competition, only Nintendo ever really seems to come close to this level of dedication. (Sony's support has always been a nightmare for me and many friends)
The Xbox 360 is far from a perfect machine. It ranks up there for me in usability and reliability, though I do know some who have returned their machines 3-4 times since they received their units. MS has recently changed their 360 manufacturing though and cleaned up a bunch of the errors that were occuring. Any of the people I've known who had multiple failures have had that issue stop since about Dec of 07. Any unit made after Oct 07 should have the new "falcon" chipset inside of it. MS shrunk the components inside along with reducing the heat output fixing a majority of what caused the issues that spawn the failures. Thats not to say you'll never have the unit die now, but a majority of the issues have largely seemed to dry up for users.
So, overall, I'd have to suggest to anyone looking for a "next-gen" console that if you want one of the largest library of games at the moment, good online usability and the largest and most user friendly online service for a console...check out the 360.
I'll be posting up soon enough my thoughts on both the Wii (which I own/love) and PS3. (including why, and possibly when I plan on getting a PS3.)
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