Re: What the heck, Sony?!?
Bilge Merk
> So, my PS3 died tonight.
>
> I literally haven't even logged 50 hours of use on the thing over the past
> year, and now its blu-ray drive no longer recognizes any discs.
>
> We were watching a blu-ray movie when the playback froze. If this were a
> DVD, I'd just assume the disc was scratched, but wasn't blu-ray supposed
> to have that funky coating to prevent that?
>
> I tried cleaning the disc regardless and for awhile it seemed to have
> helped, but then it froze up again. This time, I couldn't even get the
> remote to eject the disc. I had to use button on the front of the PS3 to
> get the disc out.
>
> I tried updating the PS3. Well, that took an hour (stupid PSN!) and
> didn't fix the problem. The PS3 now refuses to recognize any blu-ray
> movie, PS3 game, or DVD movie disc.
>
> Good Job, Sony!
>
> --
> It's not broken. It's...advanced.
Continuing evidence that the "red ring of death" is no longer an Xbox
360 exclusive.
Mattinglyfan
"Bilge Merk" <drich...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:b19c768f-79e9-4060...@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
-------------------------
Yeah, that's it you idiot. There is NOTHING in video game electronics
history that compares to the RROD. It doesn't matter how many pro-360
fanboy bost anectdotes about how their PS3 stopped doing this or that, it
doesn't take way from just how catostrophic the RROD problem has been.
elr...@pop.uky.edu
> "Bilge Merk" <drichte...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yet, even in the face of RROD problem, people still prefer the 360
over the PS3 for games. I don't know if that's a testament to the
quality of 360 exclusive games or a sad statement about the dearth of
decent PS3 exclusives (or both). Nonetheless most people seem more
willing to put up with the annoyance of RROD's than to buy a PS3, even
with its blu-ray playing bonus.
Granted, I own both machines myself. But I generally just use my PS3
as a blu-ray player. Even when a mutli-platform title comes out, I
usually opt for it on the 360 (for the achievements feature and
because all my friends are on Live). The only thing that has excited
me about the PS3 is user-generated content in games like Unreal and
Little Big Planet. I also have hopes for Playstation Home and for
forthcoming MMO's (though these haven't materialized yet).
But for now, I'll take my 360 for games. Even though I've already had
to have it repaired after RRODing on me once, it has still served me
much better than my PS3 as far as providing much entertainment.
The PS3 is a good blu-ray player, with two major annoyances on that
front: the GOD-AWFUL remote (which can't be replaced by a universal
remote because it's blutooth) and the periodic blu-ray movie that
actually requires a system update to work (doing a system update on
the PS3 is like having your teeth pulled very slowly, and always means
having to go dig up my game controller since Sony, for some reason,
decided not to let you use the GOD-AWFUL remote for system updates).
-Eric
The alMIGHTY N
Most people don't know about the RROD problem because most people
aren't like us. Unless they happened to catch glimpse of when the
story about the $1 billion plus bailout was on Yahoo's front page,
they likely didn't hear about it.
The only way they would have known about it was if they experienced it
themselves and most people didn't experience this. Even if they were
unlucky enough to have been crapped on by Microsoft's lacksadaisacal
quality control, they're going to send it back for repairs and forget
about it, not spend $400-600 more on a second gaming system with less
games.
> Granted, I own both machines myself. But I generally just use my PS3
> as a blu-ray player. Even when a mutli-platform title comes out, I
> usually opt for it on the 360 (for the achievements feature and
> because all my friends are on Live). The only thing that has excited
> me about the PS3 is user-generated content in games like Unreal and
> Little Big Planet. I also have hopes for Playstation Home and for
> forthcoming MMO's (though these haven't materialized yet).
LittleBigPlanet and Uncharted are two reasons to own a Playstation 3
but unfortunately are not reason enough by themselves to buy the
console. If you're really into movies, though, the Blu-Ray feature
helps a LOT.
> But for now, I'll take my 360 for games. Even though I've already had
> to have it repaired after RRODing on me once, it has still served me
> much better than my PS3 as far as providing much entertainment.
I got the red ring on my original Xbox just the other day. The modchip
must be out of whack. Does that count? :-D
> The PS3 is a good blu-ray player, with two major annoyances on that
> front: the GOD-AWFUL remote (which can't be replaced by a universal
> remote because it's blutooth) and the periodic blu-ray movie that
> actually requires a system update to work (doing a system update on
> the PS3 is like having your teeth pulled very slowly, and always means
> having to go dig up my game controller since Sony, for some reason,
> decided not to let you use the GOD-AWFUL remote for system updates).
I just went through a system update the other day and it specifically
stated on the screen that I could use the remote to navigate.
Wolfing
infrequent thing, And whoever got it probably was kicking the Xbox
360, I'll take better care of it I'm sure!' and then 6 months later
BAM! red ring of death.
> > The PS3 is a good blu-ray player, with two major annoyances on that
> > front: the GOD-AWFUL remote (which can't be replaced by a universal
> > remote because it's blutooth) and the periodic blu-ray movie that
> > actually requires a system update to work (doing a system update on
> > the PS3 is like having your teeth pulled very slowly, and always means
> > having to go dig up my game controller since Sony, for some reason,
> > decided not to let you use the GOD-AWFUL remote for system updates).
>
I don't even have a remote, and I use the PS3 as a bluray player
pretty much every day (Netflix subscription). The controller works
just fine for me. I haven't had any movie that required an upgrade
though. I've had a few Blurays that had asked if I wanted to download
some extra content like actors bios, etc.
Mattinglyfan
"The alMIGHTY N" <natl...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9a9fd1a6-0c27-4ce6...@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I beg to disagree. Since my 360 RROD'd a couple of months ago, I have had a
fellow teacher and 3 former students who knew I was a gamer come up to me or
send me a text asking, "What does it mean when the rings are red on your
Xbox?" As a matter of fact, one of them was just yesterday. So if when you
say "most", you mean more than 50%, you are correct but if you say "most"
and mean a very large percentage of owners, then that isn't right. As God
is my witness, my class is doing a project so they are mixing in a lot of
socialization with their work. Right now, I asked, "how many of you have a
360?" 7 out of the 18 kids raised their hands. I then said, "How many of
you have had the red rings on your Xbox?" 4 of them kept their hand
raised. One girls asked, "What's that?" and I told them. Then one of the
kids who raised his hand said (angrily), "I had that shit happen to me 6
times!" After chastizing him for his choice of words, I needed
clarification. I asked, "On the same Xbox?" He responded, "No, it kept
happening to the replacements". Now they are talking about "old school"
systems. LOL. They think that the Nintendo Master System is "Old School'.
I know this is anectdotal evidence but after experiencing this same
conversation enough times, I have my own source body of evidence from which
to draw my own conclusions.
Doug Jacobs
> I just went through a system update the other day and it specifically
> stated on the screen that I could use the remote to navigate.
Up until the last update I tried, I was able to do this too. Now my PS3
doesn't recognize the remote at all. I think the settings got wiped.
Minor issue, but it shouldn't happen.
Unknown
LOL. Right, so, if North America had one malaria incident in the last
few years, compared to a few million in Africa, I guess you'd be
saying that North America's malaria infestation is just as bad
Africa's, right?
Fucking dildo you are.
elr...@pop.uky.edu
> > The PS3 is a good blu-ray player, with two major annoyances on that
> > front: the GOD-AWFUL remote (which can't be replaced by a universal
> > remote because it's blutooth) and the periodic blu-ray movie that
> > actually requires a system update to work (doing a system update on
> > the PS3 is like having your teeth pulled very slowly, and always means
> > having to go dig up my game controller since Sony, for some reason,
> > decided not to let you use the GOD-AWFUL remote for system updates).
>
> I just went through a system update the other day and it specifically
> stated on the screen that I could use the remote to navigate.- Hide quoted text -
That must be new then. Because every time I've done it in the past, it
gets to either the downloading screen or the install screen and asks
you to hit the Playstation button or the O button, but it will only
recognize it if you hit them on the game controller, not on the
remote.
-Eric
elr...@pop.uky.edu
> I don't even have a remote, and I use the PS3 as a bluray player
> pretty much every day (Netflix subscription). The controller works
> just fine for me. I haven't had any movie that required an upgrade
> though. I've had a few Blurays that had asked if I wanted to download
> some extra content like actors bios, etc.- Hide quoted text -
I've had it happen about three times in the last year (and I don't
even watch that many blu-rays). "The Dewey Cox Story" was one of the
first movies that required it (and I mean REQUIRED it, there was no
option to NOT do the update if I wanted to watch the disc).
I'm actually tempted to just unplug the network cable from my PS3,
since I'm pretty sure it only forces updates if you're connected to a
network. And that would pretty much end ANY chance of me ever using
the fucking thing as a game machine (since going online would mean
constantly plugging in/unplugging the fucking thing between games and
blu-rays).
Why can't Sony just do it like MS and make updates simple,
unobtrusive, and OPTIONAL?
-Eric
ThealMIGHTYN
There wasn't a whole lot of coverage in the mainstream media but if
someone heard about it they also likely heard about the cause of the
problem (the system gets too hot) and would have taken steps to avoid
it (which is not to say that it would have changed much).
In any case, there isn't much point to bragging that despite the RROD
problem people still prefer the Xbox 360 since there wasn't much
dissemination of information to the mainstream consumer base.
Most gamers don't hang out here or in other forums. Most gamers don't
read IGN or GameSpot or Joystiq or any of the many other gaming
websites or read the print publications.
As the mainstream coverage wasn't widespread, the typical consumer is
only going to know about the issue from experiencing it themselves or
hearing about it from their friends (a Best Buy or Circuit City
employee isn't going to tell the customer about RROD).
At its height, RROD affected roughly 30% of the systems that had been
sold (note that if a single consumer kept experiencing RROD even after
repairs, that would change the percentage). Over the life of the
platform, it's likely closer to 16% of all consoles sold according to
data from companies like SquareTrade equipped to actually evaluate
this kind of statistic.
Therefore, RROD is not actually all that relevant to the consumers'
preference of the platform.
> > > The PS3 is a good blu-ray player, with two major annoyances on that
> > > front: the GOD-AWFUL remote (which can't be replaced by a universal
> > > remote because it's blutooth) and the periodic blu-ray movie that
> > > actually requires a system update to work (doing a system update on
> > > the PS3 is like having your teeth pulled very slowly, and always means
> > > having to go dig up my game controller since Sony, for some reason,
> > > decided not to let you use the GOD-AWFUL remote for system updates).
>
> I don't even have a remote, and I use the PS3 as a bluray player
> pretty much every day (Netflix subscription). The controller works
> just fine for me. I haven't had any movie that required an upgrade
> though. I've had a few Blurays that had asked if I wanted to download
> some extra content like actors bios, etc.
I have not yet been notified of extra content. Most of my discs didn't
use any of the online functionality as they were earlier releases. I
have not yet purchased Iron Man, which is one of the few discs that
actually do reach out to the Internet.
ThealMIGHTYN
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:9a9fd1a6-0c27-4ce6...@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
>
> I beg to disagree. Since my 360 RROD'd a couple of months ago, I have had a
> fellow teacher and 3 former students who knew I was a gamer come up to me or
> send me a text asking, "What does it mean when the rings are red on your
> Xbox?" As a matter of fact, one of them was just yesterday. So if when you
> say "most", you mean more than 50%, you are correct but if you say "most"
> and mean a very large percentage of owners, then that isn't right. As God
> is my witness, my class is doing a project so they are mixing in a lot of
> socialization with their work. Right now, I asked, "how many of you have a
> 360?" 7 out of the 18 kids raised their hands. I then said, "How many of
> you have had the red rings on your Xbox?" 4 of them kept their hand
> raised. One girls asked, "What's that?" and I told them. Then one of the
> kids who raised his hand said (angrily), "I had that shit happen to me 6
> times!" After chastizing him for his choice of words, I needed
> clarification. I asked, "On the same Xbox?" He responded, "No, it kept
> happening to the replacements". Now they are talking about "old school"
> systems. LOL. They think that the Nintendo Master System is "Old School'.
> I know this is anectdotal evidence but after experiencing this same
> conversation enough times, I have my own source body of evidence from which
> to draw my own conclusions.
The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is not representative
of anyone other than the people involved in the anecdote.
I read posts by you and other people here that so-and-so number of
people they knew experienced RROD. I don't think you or other people
here are liars, but any given person reading those posts has no reason
to believe that none of the stories have been exaggerated to make a
point just as you have no real reason to believe that only 1 of the
30+ people I personally know who own an Xbox 360 has ever experienced
RROD (and only after 2 1/2 years of heavy use).
There's a reason why the organizations that specialize in scientific
polls ask a VERY large number of people spread across many
demographics and many locations their questions - it's the only way
you can possibly get a set of data that would be considered acceptably
representative of the whole.
Anecdotal evidence is the seed from which stereotypes sprung forth.
"Every black person I know is on welfare." "Every Jewish person I know
is cheap." "Every Asian person I know is a nerd." "Every homosexual I
know is flamboyant."
Maybe once in a while someone hits the bullseye but most of the time
people aren't anywhere near the target when they rely on anecdotal
evidence to form their conclusions.
On the other hand, forming a conclusion from data presented by
organizations that actually have access to a good sampling of the
population (for instance, a company that deals with warranties for
gaming consoles) exponentially increases the chance that said
conclusion is accurately representative.
Further, Kids are much more technologically inclined than people
(especially when that technology has to do with games) and are much
more likely to spend their online time looking up or chatting about
stuff they like. My oldest nephew, who is in junior high school, has
never owned a console and knows almost everything about every one that
came out since he arrived in this country. He knew exactly what RROD
meant when I was posting about it on his computer one day.
Gamers skew older these days and most gamers aren't hardcore diehard
gamers who spend 10 hours a day playing games and reading up on every
little tidbit of information about games. Most are just your average
Joes who have a job that doesn't involve computers in any way and
spend a little time at night kicking back on the sofa with a game.
> stated on the screen that I could use the remote to navigate.- Hide quoted text -
Big Daddy
"ThealMIGHTYN" <natl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1b8df72f-e11a-4c78...@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
>The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is not representative
> of anyone other than the people involved in the anecdote.
The company wrote off $1 BILLION to address this huge failure rate. How is
that for anecdotal evidence?
We don't have any other "data" on the subject, because MS certainly isn't
going to provide it. All your left with is "anecdotal" evidence. If you
choose to think everyone is making up all that "anecdotal" evidence, well I
guess that's your right.
In fact, I'm going to do the same about the economy. I mean all those
horror stories that I just read in the "Best Buy issues sales warning"
thread are just anecdotal. I still have a job so the economy can't be too
bad, right? Heck, I even have data to back me up as GDP hasn't decreased in
consecutive quarters. Recession...what recession?
Mattinglyfan
"ThealMIGHTYN" <natl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1b8df72f-e11a-4c78...@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> messagenews:9a9fd1a6-0c27-4ce6...@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
> On Nov 13, 10:15 am, elro...@pop.uky.edu wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
I agree with everything you have said. My point is this, if it is
information that is not readily available (intentionally), we can only go by
what we he know personally or have experienced.
The alMIGHTY N
> "ThealMIGHTYN" <natle...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1b8df72f-e11a-4c78...@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
>
> >The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is not representative
> > of anyone other than the people involved in the anecdote.
>
> The company wrote off $1 BILLION to address this huge failure rate. How is
> that for anecdotal evidence?
Wrong.
The company wrote off $1 billion to be at least somewhat prepared for
a scenario where most of the shipped Xbox 360s at the time failed due
to RROD.
They extended the warranty to 3 years for EVERY Xbox 360 so they had
to be prepared for a worst case scenario.
> We don't have any other "data" on the subject, because MS certainly isn't
> going to provide it. All your left with is "anecdotal" evidence.
We obviously won't know the exact data from Microsoft but we have
statistical data from warranty companies like SquareTrade that is
scientifically acceptable as a representative sample of the whole just
like a Gallup Poll is scientifically acceptable as representative of
the opinion of the country.
That is far better than the anecdotal evidence I see from the - what -
sevral thousand people who post here or in other online forums.
> If you
> choose to think everyone is making up all that "anecdotal" evidence, well I
> guess that's your right.
Where did you get this from? Are you really so desperate to validate
your opinion about RROD that you need to lie about my posts in a
feeble attempt to reduce credibility?
> In fact, I'm going to do the same about the economy. I mean all those
> horror stories that I just read in the "Best Buy issues sales warning"
> thread are just anecdotal. I still have a job so the economy can't be too
> bad, right? Heck, I even have data to back me up as GDP hasn't decreased in
> consecutive quarters. Recession...what recession?
LOL
Thanks for proving my point! I couldn't have put together a better
example myself.
Best Buy issued that sales warning because of the very real evidence,
gleaned from verifiable data, that consumer spending is down. That
data is statistical just like the data from SquareTrade that puts the
failure rate of Xbox 360 consoles at roughly 16% about a year ago.
The example you present is exactly the equivalent of what the people
claiming the Xbox 360 failure rate must be through the roof because
all their friends experienced RROD are doing. If you ignore
statistical data and favor your own personal experience and that of
your friends, you're making a conclusion, right or wrong, based on the
wrong information.
The alMIGHTY N
> "ThealMIGHTYN" <natle...@gmail.com> wrote in message
You don't need to have the whole set of data from Microsoft although
that would obviously be the most accurate. The whole point of
scientific sampling is to be able to extrapolate the state of the
whole from the state of a valid representative group.
A bunch of people saying that 80% of 360 owners they personally know
had RROD is worthless as a representative sample because there are
just as many people who can say that 80% of 360 owners they personally
know didn't have RROD.
People who have something negative to say are always louder than
people who have something positive to say - if you didn't experience
RROD, chances are you're not going to post in a forum about RROD.
If you've lived in the same town your whole life and every Jewish
person you knew was cheap or every black person you knew was lazy or
every Chinese person you knew was a socially awkward geek or every gay
person you knew was flamboyant, it might be easy to assume that every
person from those groups exhibited the same characteristics.
An intelligent person would ignore these "personal experiences" if
they saw statistical data that disputed them, though.
Let's say you saw a statistical report that most people who ate
cholesterol heavy food suffered heart attacks but of the 10 people you
knew who ate cholesterol heavy foods, only 1 or 2 suffered heart
attacks. Would you be more careful about what you ate or would you
just stuff yourself with Big Macs and KFC? How about if all 10 of the
people you knew were the same age and race or were all from the same
town (which happened to have a very low rate of heart attacks)?
I understand how easy it is to use the wrong information to make these
conclusions. I've succumb to such habits in the past on a whim but
then I just take a moment to really think things through in order to
see reality.
Big Daddy
>Wrong. The company wrote off $1 billion to be at least somewhat prepared
>for a scenario where most of the shipped Xbox 360s at the time failed due
> to RROD.
Yea, a company is going to tell it's shareholders "I'm writing off $1B
against earnings just so I can be 'somewhat' prepared, in case we get a lot
of failures. I mean, I don't really EXPECT to need to use all the $1B, and
I realize our stock prices will suffer as a report of our earnings statement
this quarter, but I do want to be prepared just in case". I had no idea it
worked like that in the corporate world. LOL.
They wrote off $1B for, and I quote from the MS press conference, an
"unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles". They forecasted
that was how much it was going to cost them to deal with the RROD issue
specifically, and that's the charge they wrote off. That's what companies
do. No boyscout motto in any corporate vision statement or quarterly
forecast I've ever seen.
> We obviously won't know the exact data from Microsoft but we have
> statistical data from warranty companies like SquareTrade that is
>scientifically acceptable as a representative sample of the whole
So why is Squaretrader "scientifically" acceptable, while other resellers
(who also deal with warranty support) are not? But ignoring that pointed
question (as I know the answer is "because the other resellers don't match
my hypothesis"), let's talk Squaretrade:
The point your obviously referring to is the report where they pulled a
sample of 1000 Squaretrade users and reported a 16% failure rate for the
data it tracked a for a period of only 6-10 months. This same Squaretrade
said in their report "Once this same test group is tracked for 24 or 36
months, the fail rate is certain to go up." That the "statistical" evidence
you're refering to?
For arguments sake, lets ignore the fact that the aforementioned company
actually PROFITS from business arrangements with MS, and assume the data is
legit or the sample group was appropriate (as squaretrader doesn't exactly
have the "polling" reputation of Gallup, as you seem to imply). If 16%
were failing in the first year and the warranty company themselves says that
rate will certainly go up, I have no hard problem making the leap that
within 3 years there is a 30% failure rate, which ironically seems to be the
general "anecdotal" opinion. Neither number is near the 3-4% MS claimed
early on.
> Where did you get this from? Are you really so desperate to validate
>your opinion about RROD that you need to lie about my posts in a
>feeble attempt to reduce credibility?
a) I don't need to "validate" my opinion on RROD. I know what it is.
b) Lying about what? Aren't you, in this very thread, insinuating the RROD
numbers are overinflated? If you're not, then I can't quite understand what
point you're arguing.
> Thanks for proving my point! I couldn't have put together a better example
> myself.
You obviously didn't understand my point, so not sure how it was proving
yours?
Bilge Merk
> Yeah, that's it you idiot.
Look what's talking.
Bilge Merk
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> dumb ass strikes again
Look what's talking.
Jordan
> Yeah, that's it you idiot. There is NOTHING in video game electronics
> history that compares to the RROD. It doesn't matter how many pro-360
> fanboy bost anectdotes about how their PS3 stopped doing this or that, it
> doesn't take way from just how catostrophic the RROD problem has been.
I'd wager that the drive failure rate on the original Playstation was
just as bad as the RROD issue. I remember the same complaints, the
work-around was to flip the machine upside down. The difference is
back then (1995) you didn't have as many people on the Internet and
there wasn't an easy LED driven way to ID bad machines.
- Jordan