“In another setback for Microsoft Corp.’s unprofitable entertainment and devices division, the company says it is planning to spend at least $1 billion to repair serious problems with its Xbox 360 video game console,” Jessica Mintz reports for The Associated Press.
“Microsoft declined to detail the problems that have caused an onslaught of ‘general hardware failures’ in recent months but said Thursday it will extend the warranty on the consoles to three years,” Mintz reports. The glitches, and the bad publicity, could weigh the company down as it claws for market share in the highly competitive console market. In May, the Xbox 360 ranked No. 2 in unit sales behind Nintendo’s Wii, but still beat out Sony’s Playstation 3, according to data from NPD Group.”
MacDailyNews Take: And if Sony wasn’t completely incompetent, Microsoft would be in dead last with their never-turned-a-profit Xbox.
Mintz continues, “‘We don’t think we’ve been getting the job done,’ said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, which also makes the Zune digital music player, a distant competitor to Apple Inc.’s powerhouse iPod.”
MacDailyNews Take: Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s President of Failures (Middling to Abject division). It seems like the average TV weatherman has more accountability than the childishly-forenamed Bach.
Mintz continues, “The software maker also said Thursday that sales of the game console fell short of expectations for the fiscal year that just ended. Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, estimates that Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division has lost more than $6 billion since 2002.”
Mintz reports, “A $1 billion write-down for one division in one quarter is significant. ‘It suggests the problem is pretty widespread,’ Rosoff said. Microsoft will pay for shipping and repairs for three years, worldwide, for consoles that experience hardware failure, which is usually indicated by three flashing red lights on the front of the console, something gamers sometimes refer to as ‘the red ring of death.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: So, now we have the “Red Ring of Death” to go along with the “Blue Screen of Death” – just how many “deaths” dealt to consumers from Microsoft does it take before consumers deal the death blow to Microsoft?
@Wade
My fault Wade, I didn’t research that, just took it straight from Pete’s post. And that, ladies & gentlemen, is how misinformation gets spread throughout the world.
Since the yearly profit is a negative number, the XBox will break even around 1954. Unfortunately, they started selling them in 2002, so they’ve missed their chance.
The PowerBook has a bigger screen, but other than that I think there’s really no advantage to get it. The MacBook is far better- it’s faster, can run windows, has iSight, FrontRow, etc etc.
DLMeyer being the voice of GL Horton’s whatever podcast is enough to make me not want to listen to the podcast. Rarely have I read a post that does not make me question why the post was even made, including this latest one.
I usually don’t comment on people’s intelligent or not-so-intelligent posts but these also advertise, presumably attempting to do so in a positive way, and the posts’ content does not convey a favorable impression of the affiliated product.
MW: face (a bit uncanny)
What does this have to do with the Mac? Well, when there’s an AppleTV article, someone invariably points out that they think the Xbox360 is better, cause it can play HD movies and download them too. Of course, they forget the fan noise which ruins the ambiance of a home theater, not to mention the red ring of death that awaits.
i saw this all over this morning, and wondered how long it would be until MDN decided this was worthy mac news. Clearly, a non-OS branch of microsoft relates directly to mac in that it doesn’t.
ign.com has just started console centric podcasts along with their usual all-inclusive podcast.
The Nintendo one is called “Wii-k in review”
The Playstation 3 one is called “Podcast Beyond”
And the problem with Xbox’s is so widespread among gamers that they called the Xbox one “Three red lights”
This is no joke I listen to their podcast everyweek and their it is in my iTunes. You can see yourself if you do a search for IGN on iTunes.
Anyway, it is so sad yet appropriate that this is what Microshaft is known for.
I posted a comment asking you all to pity M$ for they know what they do!
That is true of Sony as well, they only went and sacked the inventor of the Playstation just because it didn’t do well compared tot the Wii.
Sony and M$ have a similar background, they have never actually developed anything unique.
The walkman was a redesign of an existing product, Good on them for that, but the concept was an advance on the Ghetto blasters that were lugged along everywhere by the AfroAmerican population.
M$, we all know what they did…
Apple in all of this has been a creator, innovator and leader in not only the personal computer, but the Internet via NEXTBOX & NEXTstep, innovated the mp3 player by basing it on a modified hard drive and then advanced it to mp4, as if that was not enough they threw in Video capability.
Apple have created ground breaking standards, QuickTime, H.264 & Safari to name a few and of course THE IPHONE!!!!
Like Mr. Jobs said, “if it was a matter of spending large sums of money, Microsoft would have been on the bleeding edge of technology”.
Pity them, they know not what they do!
“Despite minor setbacks cause by hardware failures of the XBox, we’re now shipping increased numbers of units which should rise our market share well above Nintendo’s kiddy toy Wii thingy.”
[Warning: the above is a sarcastic imitation of Ballmer’s kind of spins on M$ failures]
(of course this is counting replacements of defective units, but SB would not menion that)
@MrMcLargeHuge
I hear ya man, I am a PS player, I’ve owned PS1, 2, & 3 and love what they are doing for the most part, but Sony has done a lot to keep with their own proprietary formats and designs, in a way it’s much like MS, only Sony does good proprietary stuff and MS does crap proprietary stuff.
I have seen some signs of change, the PS3 rips CD’s in AAC by default, and they are using an open media sharing protocol for hosting your music/movies/pics on a PC and sharing them (unfortunately not the same as iTunes & Bonjure).
Hopefully it’s a sign of better things from them.
Ps, When Mr. Jobs announced that he wanted Apple equipment to be at the centre by launching airport and then AppleTv, guess what? Media centres started showing up, how good are they? they were just cobbled up together to get the “we got it out there first” syndrome rather than conducting some serious research.
Same thing happened with the Touch table….anyone remember what that was?
Centre of the home!
MS should have known what it was getting in to when they bought a PPC design from IBM. As the former owner of a PowerMac G5, I can tell you they make nice space heaters.
From what I have seen and read, the XB360s are cooking themselves due to poor cooling. Heat will kill (or make seriously goofy) semiconductors. It’s no great secret.
“Blue Screen of Death”.
“Red Ring of Death”.
Next is the “White Cloud of Death” being created from the steam pouring out of Steve Ballmer’s ears. The man is a true patriot.
I have had a 360 since May of last year and have not any issues with it at all.
Say what you will, but the 360 is still by far the best game console currently on the market. The PS3 and the Wii can’t hold a candle to the number of AAA video games available on the XBOX, not to mention the added replay value of XBOX LIVE.
Most of the games I play the most are all over a year old. Their staying power is 100% XBOX live related.
As a Mac owner and Apple fan since 1989, I do not share the same hatred of MS as others here do. Windows sucks… No doubt about it, but the XBOX is a great system despite the small percentage of units that are having problems.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The problems with the Xbox 360 also point to pitfalls as Microsoft has moved beyond its traditional competency of software engineering into hardware<i>.
O…M…F…G.
MS? Competent? With <i>software?? And The Street feels matters might be WORSE off the PC desktop??
MS is only competent in strong-arming whatever they’ve purchased or stolen. And the days of doing that are numbered.
@ rolleyes,
Have a look at this web page from M$, it might help you put into perspective how much One Billion Dollars is a small percentage of the units having problems, since that is the sum of money M$ have put aside to sought the problem out.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY06/earn_rel_q3_06.mspx
this site is like the “Dead Parrot Sketch” at the moment….I am off!
This is hardware…M$ has been able to let the world do their testing for them on software, but the world won’t test M$’s hardware for them.
One more thing……For all intents & purposes, nothing new is popping up, ie No News = time to leave!!!
“Microsoft declined to detail the problems that have caused an onslaught of ‘general hardware failures’ …”
Reading between the lines and in other places… it sounds like there isn’t just one specific problem, but the things just overheat. Doh! Now I’ve never designed anything but software my entire life but I know that heat management is kinda sorta really really important in hardware design. So important that Apple switched processor families (and endians!) for it.
Hmmm… if they’re serious maybe they need to change the name of the company to Micro Corporation.
But instead of Hardware Engineering school, I recommend and undergraduate business course. The one where they teach that the whole point of business is to sell things for more than they cost to make.
Truly, the MS cash flow, which was put to great use long ago (when they used DOS to nuture things like Windows and Word along) has really become a strategic disadvantage.
MS can afford to lose $4B… but they’ve lost all sanity as a business. Actually, I’d argue they’re no longer a business at all…
It is not a coincidence that Bill Gates is no longer the richest guy on the planet.
Charko,
I call BS when I see it. I’m not afraid to get into a heated discussion about it either. I’m passionate about all things Mac and won’t hesitate to say so.
Also, I’m 34. Not a boy by any stretch.
I’m with rolleyes. I love my 360 and have had zero…count them…zero issues. I have had it since they were first released. The PS3 can’t compete. It’s not even close when adding Xbox Live. Sony had how many years to catch up and they came out with ‘that’!? Disappointing. I was hoping they’d give the 360 some competition. If Sony is going to make any showing they need to be about gaming and fun again. They got too caught up in the bells and whistles.
So…where is the Apple news site again? MDN needs to bury this axe they have with M$.
Every faithful Apple fan has the duty to return their mistakingly bought X-Box 360 as many times as possible
Supposely M$ returns a refurbished X-Box, which there has been reports that serious design flaw problems are not fixable.
Supposely the record is 12 returns.
Remember, the X-Box contains three PowerPC G5 processors all tucked in a little box with insuffcient cooling. My PowerMac G5 dual generates plenty of heat itself in it’s big case with powerful fans.
So kiddies, get on with it.
“Microsoft declined to detail the problems that have caused an onslaught of ‘general hardware failures’ …”
Reading between the lines and in other places…
…MS doesn’t really know what’s wrong. They’re just swapping major components hoping that fixes things.
But instead of Hardware Engineering school, I recommend and undergraduate business course. The one where they teach that the whole point of business is to sell things for more than they cost to make.
MS could also use people with hard experience from manufacturing industries, like automotive or aircraft.
But it’s hard to say if anyone could straighten MS at this point. The disciplines of quality control & product execution are not in MS’s DNA. MS got sloppy from years of “service packs”. Hardware is a lot harder to patch up once in consumer’s hands…
Feeling the need to add to your insight…
[But it’s hard to say if anyone could straighten MS at this point. The disciplines of quality control & product execution are not in MS’s DNA.]
Well, doing as little as possible, and charging as much as possible are most certainly ‘in’ MS’s DNA.
Starting with MS Basic — copy a public domain version of Basic, add some MS dependancies — using stolen computer time — and charge $400 per copy.
Then buy a crappy CLONE of CP/M (DR-DOS), add some MS dependancies and charge $400 per copy (don’t forget stonewalling Seattle Computing on the final payment and royalties.)
Then buy Spyglass, add some MS dependancies and charge $0 per copy — which fscks Netscape (don’t forget stonewalling Spyglass on the final payment and screwing Spyglass and NCSA on royalties.)
Hey guys, do we see a pattern, yet?
[MS got sloppy from years of “service packs”.]
Got sloppy? Or, allowed to be sloppy, ‘cuz SPs are convenient? And MS gives dorks power.
[Hardware is a lot harder to patch up once in consumer’s hands…]
Question. Which is EASIER for MS: dealing with 100K MS-lovin’ IT dorks or dealing with 10M angry MS consumers?
Personally, I want MS to make as much hardware as possible. When people see how absolutely fscking sh!tty their hardware is. Then, maybe they’ll question the ‘quality’ of MS software.
‘Ooops! Xbrick4000 set my house on fire. I’ll send a concerned, yet fair email — once I get Vista SP12 to stop crashing.’ “Oooo, SP13 has been released!’