Xbox Sales Drop - Microsoft Fight Back!

[Wizzo]

As the Sony PS3 has been winning in Japan, Microsoft has decided to launch an entry level Xbox 360 in that country to try and gain ground on the newer next-gen games console.

Microsoft are trying to create more interest in its console in Japan, from March 6th a new Xbox 360 which is the Japanese equivalent of the Xbox 360 Arcade will sell for tax-inclusive ¥27,800 (about $260).

The entry level Xbox 360 will come with an extra 256MB memory unit, game pack and wireless controller.

[CrazyHorse]

i got the ring of death once on my xbox, and my 360 has had it twice. Just got the thing back a few days ago. After-sales service is good from microsoft, they're like the marx n sparx of the games industry, thats why i'll buy another one when the next one comes out

have thought about buying a ps3, but its just a waste of money cos im happy with the 360 notwithstanding the dodgy electrics inside it, which is down to the greeny eco fascists complaining about some dodgy chemical in the solder thats really harmless, but to keep the moonbats happy, bill gates used crap stuff that keeps breaking when it gets hot

 

[Wizzo]

which is down to the greeny eco fascists complaining about some dodgy chemical in the solder thats really harmless, but to keep the moonbats happy, bill gates used crap stuff that keeps breaking when it gets hot

Doesn't shipping all the xbox's back and forth to Microsoft for repair totally negate any benefit from using an eco friendly solder?? What a crazy world we live in!

[CrazyHorse]

  

[cosworth151]

The solder is fine. It's what I use here. It's just Microsoft's board and production methods that are crap.

Does all of this mean that my Atari 2600 will soon be out of date?

[Steven Roy]

Boring technical bit

The european union brought out a law around 3 years ago which relate to recycling of electrical and electronic equipment(WEEE) and another (ROHS) which bans certain substances to make recycling, re-use, reclaim easier.

ROHS bans lead, cadmium, chomiumV1, mercury and two classes of brominated flame retardants.  Although these are european laws China has their version, California has their version and all sorts of other countries either have or intend to introduce their own.

Most international electronics companies switched to ROHS compatible manufacturing so that they don't have to run parallel process.  Traditional solder is 63%tin/37%lead.  The lead in ROHS compliant solders is generally replaced with a combination of more tin and silver and <1% copper.  This is when it gets really stupid.  The biggest source of silver is ...lead ore.  So to avoid using lead in electronics which eventually ends in landfills we dig up lead ore, extract the silver and send the lead ore to landfill. Utterly insane.

If silver is bad tin is so much worse you will struggle to believe it.  Tin is known as the most political metal.  I work in the electronis industry so I spent two years reading up on all this stuff and used to have a desk stacked high with evidence to back it up.

Tin is found in alluvial deposits.  So as we speak there are teams with high pressure hoses blasting away the floor of the Brazilian rain forest to extract tin from that material.  In Indonesia they are dredging a coral reef to extract tin from it.

So the reason you have such poor quality soldering in your electronics is to protect the environment by putting more lead to landfill than necessary, by blasting away the floor of the rain forest and by dredging coral reefs.

Unbelievably Insane.

[CrazyHorse]

its dosnt help sometimes when i have the thing on 24/7, but kicking 12 yr old kids asses takes a lot of practice   

[Alianora La Canta]

It's strange. Other consoles (and computers requiring solder) manage to be built without the "ring of death", so why can't the Xbox avoid the problem?

[Steven Roy]

The ROHS soldering processes are not as tolerant to abuse as traditional eutectic tin/lead.  With the traditional process you could put all sorts of errors in and still get good results.  The new processes are a lot more knife-edge.

In addition to the previously mentioned envoronmental 'benefits' the new process run at temperatures around 30 Celsius higher than traditional and most of them require a nitrogen atmosphere because they react with oxygen.  It would only take one day's production to go wrong somewhere to create a massive problem.

[Wizzo]

SquareTrade deals in selling warranties for electronics, and has amassed their over 1000 warranty purchases to come up with some interesting data.

The findings were a 16.4% failure rate of Xbox 360 systems, versus a roughly 3% rate for the Sony PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii.

Some retailers have put the percentage as high as 33% of all Xbox systems and advise taking out the extended warranty from Microsoft.