A tale of two consoles

Pasquale

Pasquale

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So my PS3 and my 360 share an open shelf. They are on opposite ends and both get plenty of sweet, delicious ventilation. Both are launch consoles.

My 360 has been giving me problems for as long as I can remember. It started with occasional "Disc Read" errors, and has blossomed into freezing and crapping out after a few hours of usage. Annoying, for sure, but tolerable. I practically never used the thing before Left 4 Dead came out anyway, so it never really bothered me.

My PS3 was perfect until a few months ago. No freezes, no restarts, nothing. Then with the arrival of LittleBigPlanet came shutdowns that would force me to flip the switch behind the PlayStation every once in a while. It seemed to only happen during LBP, and even then rarely, so I ignored it. I downloaded the Skate 2 demo, and the same thing happened. This was the first time it happened with something other than LBP. I bought KZ2, and it started happening more and more, every ten minutes or so.

I paid the $150+tax for Sony to send me a repair box. I always do my taxes super early, so I had already gotten my refund. Sony sent the box and I shipped my PS3 out, and now I sit in limbo, like a father pacing back and forth in a hospital waiting room.

Since my PS3 has been out of commission, I decided to plug my Wii back in and play with it. It had been sitting, unconnected, on a book shelf for months, occasionally feeling the cool embrace of a power cable for rounds of Smash Bros.

I haven't bought a Wii game since Smash Bros, so I decided to download Tetris Party from WiiWare. My girlfriend loves Tetris, so I figured it would give us something to play together until she can get her hands back on LBP.

Half an hour later, we were laying on my couch, watching Netflix'd episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I had come to the conclusion that Wii games are only fun for about twenty minutes, which reminded me why I had it sitting on a shelf in the first place. (Not trying to start anything, just my opinion.)

I'm mad that my loud, freezing, failing 360 is still working, when my fancy, slightly less loud PS3 is a broken piece of crap. I'm also mad I spent $58 on KZ2, only to get an hour of play time out of it before having to spend $163 to get my PS3 fixed. I'm mad I have to re-download all of the games, add-ons, etc when I get it back.

I've had consoles break in the past. I accidentally stepped on my first NES. My dog peed on my Sega Master System. Once, I threw a PS2 controller out the window, causing the console it was connected to fall off the shelf. Those, except for the peeing I guess, were my fault. I'm mad I have to pay to get something fixed when it wasn't my fault. I'm mad that the $163 repair fee costs me more than I paid for the damn console.

Anyway, I don't really know where I'm going with this. Sorry if you read all that, I just wanted to rant.
 
Hmm, well that really sucks. Thankfully I've had no issues with my ps3 since I bought it. While I don't ever plan on owning a 360, my ps3 shares a shelf with my Wii. Sadly, I also have not bought another Wii game since SSB:Brawl and my Wii hasn't gotten any usage in quite a long time. I'm still hopeful for the Wii though, The 5 titles I do have for it have been a lot of fun to play when I used to play them. I'm just waiting for something that really makes me want to play my Wii again, like Monster Hunter 3. Other than that I'll just be playing my computer and ps3. Gleefully waiting for Friday's arrival of Resident Evil 5.
 
I am with you man, I share your frustration for what seems to be a complete lack of QC on the current generation of consoles.To this day I have a 360 that operates fine as long as you can actually get the stupid disk in. What always ends up happening, is the screen says that the tray is opening and the console light starts blinking as such, but it will not open unless you physically press inward on the tray itself. Once this has been successful you then get to enjoy the mini-game of closing the tray and having it pop open again and again untill it finally decides to try to read the disk.

Add this to the fact that when some games, I am looking at you fallout3, finally do read, the XBox then recognizes them as a DVD. Repeat step #1....
So frustrating.
 
JerkFace said:
I am with you man, I share your frustration for what seems to be a complete lack of QC on the current generation of consoles.
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Just want to point out, the Wii has yet to have any problems other than user error. :biggrin:
 
JerkFace said:
To this day I have a 360 that operates fine as long as you can actually get the stupid disk in. What always ends up happening, is the screen says that the tray is opening and the console light starts blinking as such, but it will not open unless you physically press inward on the tray itself.
Click to expand...

Ugh, my 360 does that too. It makes the clicking sound, like it wants to open up, but then doesn't. Usually takes me a few tries to finally get it open.
 
Bajaratt said:
Just want to point out, the Wii has yet to have any problems other than user error. :biggrin:
Click to expand...

Yeah My Wii is fine too. Just that retarded microsoft beast.
 
My PS3 took a shit on me again. Wouldn't read disks at all and was gonna send it in, but started working fine after I did a full system reformat. Then a few days ago my friend was over and we were playing killzone online, no issues at all. He left, and a few hours later i go to watch a blu ray and my shit freeze at the 'Sony Computer Entertainment' screen. Thought weird, ill restart it without a disk in... happens again. Reset video... still happens. Shit just bricked. Can't get in to reformat it either, so probably gonna have to ship the shit out for 160 to sony.

Yeah i've had a few issues with my 360, but I also spent 100 bucks less on the system and havent had to spend a dime on the thing since. I also have half the amount of games for ps3 and play it half as much, but just got KZ2 and have a decent amount of blu rays so.... fuck.
 
Eleibfrid said:
Fatal Error 110213

May not have been as widespread as the other two, but Wii has had problems as well.
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That was my point exactly. Of course there is the occasional Wii that has problems, but it's rare enough that it's not well known.
 
Bajaratt said:
Just want to point out, the Wii has yet to have any problems other than user error. :biggrin:
Click to expand...

I'd say being burdened with mountains of gimmicky shovelware is as much of a QC problem as a busted 360 or PS3. Nintendo needs to bring back it's seal of approval concept. Outside of First and Second party software, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find many great games on the Wii, compared to the giant piles of shit you have to wade through to find them. The same thing applies to the DS.
 
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Bajaratt said:
That was my point exactly. Of course there is the occasional Wii that has problems, but it's rare enough that it's not well known.
Click to expand...

Bajaratt said:
Just want to point out, the Wii has yet to have any problems other than user error. :biggrin:
Click to expand...

Might want to say that the first time!
 
Eleibfrid said:
Might want to say that the first time!
Click to expand...
Ok, I'll be super specific for the people without any common sense next time. "The Wii has yet to have an Wii-exclusive problems that don't appear in every other electronic device ever built, and on such a minuscule scale that you might as well consider it not happening at all, other than user error."

No manufacturing process is perfect, there is ALWAYS a very small number of defective units that get shipped out. It's not a problem, it's just a fact of making something in massive quantities. That's all I was alluding to, some bad units get shipped(all launch units too, from the date of that article), but it never gets any press because it's not an issue since it happens with everything that's ever been manufactured.

I'd say being burdened with mountains of gimmicky shovelware is as much of a QC problem as a busted 360 or PS3.
Click to expand...
While true, the thread is about hardware failures/problems, so shovelware isn't an issue.
 
Bajaratt said:
Ok, I'll be super specific for the people without any common sense next time.
Click to expand...

I have common sense. I was just correcting facts from your statement. Thank you in advance though. :)
 
Bajaratt said:
While true, the thread is about hardware failures/problems, so shovelware isn't an issue.
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It's as much of a problem to Nintendo as faulty hardware would be. If I bought a game that I felt was downright bad, I'd be pissed at not only at the games developer, but Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony for letting such a poor game make it beyond their initial pitch. It's double edged in Nintendos case, because if the game is just buggy, that can be fixed on the 360 and the PS3. The Wii's babysteps hardware upgrade and company policy towards the internet has held them even more responsible for what developers put out than the two other consoles that have the means to deliver software patches.

Microsoft and Sony still approve concepts, but Nintendo seems to have all but abandoned the cause. One they started to prevent this situation from coming back, may I remind you.

Sure, they originally started it to avoid the market from collapsing again and that's no longer a problem with the amount of competition available and the massive market size compared to the early 80s. But it's still a pretty real issue for Nintendo's business. They make great games, and it'd be a shame to see them sink in future generations because of people remembering all the terrible titles they allowed on the Wii and DS. If that's not as much of an issue as having high failure rate, then you're off your rocker.
 
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Firestreak said:
Could be a bigger issue than hardware failure, but it'd still be off topic.
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Not when the sentence Bajaratt quoted from Jerkface is about lack of QC this generation.

I mean, I see you posting here, I assumed you read the thread.

Is it off topic from the original post? Sure. Is it off topic from the resulting discussion? No.
 
Maybe I'm missing the point - but are you lamenting technical issues caused by poorly programmed games, or simply bad content within the games? Cause these are very different complaints.
 
Pretty sure my PS3 is about to bite the dust. Can't even play it for an hour and the car engine fans kick on and never go off. Started happenin' a month ago, not lookin' forward to sendin' it back, for the amount I play on it, I'll probably just scrap it.
 
Firestreak said:
Maybe I'm missing the point - but are you lamenting technical issues caused by poorly programmed games, or simply bad content within the games? Cause these are very different complaints.
Click to expand...

Ah, so you didn't read. Why did I expect otherwise? Baja responded to sentence about quality control with how Nintendo has done good with the Wii. So I replied with the fact that Nintendo's fault in quality control has been with games this generation instead.

A => B => C. Can you follow the path?
 
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