4 Things Microsoft Got Wrong With the Xbox 360 This Generation

Badassgamerblog: "This console generation has seen various new things from both Sony and Microsoft, with the latter bringing social integration to a whole new level with Xbox Live. However both console manufacturers are guilty of making bad decisions this article sheds light on a few howlers done by the Microsoft camp."

[GWAVE]

Interesting article. The author definitely points out some good things. It's even more interesting to realize that simply dumping tons of $$$ into the problems has actually worked out pretty well for Microsoft. Then again, some might scream conspiracy (bribing the media, etc), but I won't go there.

[The_Darkest_Red]

Flamebait. I only have a PS3 and I still hate articles like this.

[AntMad]

true.

But we most also realise that had MS just fixed these problems, they may have made more money in the long run.

[GWAVE]

@ Darkest_Red

"Flamebait" might be if the article was titled "4 things Microsoft got wrong and Sony did right", but even that is a stretch. And what does it matter if you own one console or another? Does owning a 360 make me love it? Does owning a Wii make me support everything Nintendo does?

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

I mean after all, they spend at least 10-15 writing something....

Let's see how this article fails:

"#1: Choosing DVD over Blu-Ray"

Fair enough, but there are ways around it with multiple discs. The alternative is to price the 360 the same way PS3 did since a large portion of the Blu-Ray drive is what made it cost so much. Estimated cost in 2006 was around $100 for the optical system per unit. This is not to mention the fact that Blu-Ray standard wasn't even finalized in 2005 when the 360 was released. Why sell an over priced device that might not even be fully compliant when you can work around the issue?

"#2: Not fixing the Red Ring Of Death ASAP"

So let me get this straight, a company that barely profits of the product sold at the time as a future return on investment won't fix a problem as soon as possible when it is costing them millions up millions of dollar for fixing and issuing additional warranty. Believe me, MS would fix it sooner if they could! Any moron can see that!!!

"#3: Focusing too much on the Multiplatform games"

Although I agree that exclusive titles are nice and more the merrier, what is wrong with multi platform games? Clearly they sell well and I enjoy plenty of them. To say that other exclusives aren't worth mentioning is ludicrous, as Halo Wars was a great game and sold better than KZ2 out of the gate. Not to say that KZ2 wasn't a great game since I own it and I actually don't own Halo Wars. Make out of that what you want.

"#4: Not Including a standard HDD on the Arcade Model"

What is given in the Arcade package is enough to do everything the PS2 and the Wii (except for motion control) is capable of. It's two competitors in that segment. Furthermore, you can upgrade it at a later date.

I have to point out this:

"Making anyone who purchased one of these basically unable to play most games, download game demos or any content what so ever, how is that a way to promote your system?"

Notice, how he says unable to play MOST games. What games can you not play without a hard drive? Yeah, I thought so. There is like one or two game that require it.

Furthermore, ask the developer if they prefer more people have the console or if they prefer trading that share in for a hard drive....

I do agree that there are mistakes MS made, but the way these are presented are NOT IT!

[The_Darkest_Red]

I'm mentioning I have a PS3 so everyone will know I'm not just sticking up for the 360 in flamebait articles. Is this so hard to understand?

And yes, while I will admit I have seen far worse articles, this is still flamebait. Anything about what someone has done "wrong" or how they will "win" or "lose" the console war is just asking for fanboys to start partying.

[N4PS3G]

May i ask..why does this site tries to be about all consoles..they obviously don't post anything that isn't God of War and PS3.

[jack who]

#1: Choosing DVD over Blu-Ray

boo ray slow read rate+ mandatory install too hdd too speed load time up.

#2: Not fixing the Red Ring Of Death ASAP

3 year warranty

#3: Focusing too much on the Multiplatform games

thats why multiplatform look and run better on 360

#4: Not Including a standard HDD on the Arcade Model

xbox 1? anyone?

[talltony]

Man bro I swear you are just full of excuses. lol your excuses made my day!

[jack who]

would like you too prove me wrong

edit: i dont remmeber saying the 360 had no problme

[ALL_STAR_28]

Yep the 360 is just the perfect machine with no problems and Microsoft got nothing wrong with it.... =D

/S

How ignorant are you to think that 360 has no problems? In reality everything has problems and it looks like you got a few of your own that you should work out before posting on N4G again... ;)

[Mo0eY]

#1: Choosing DVD over Blu-Ray
Blu-ray is surpassing DVD in sales - DVD9 also limits your games (case in point: Final Fantasy 13)

#2: Not fixing the Red Ring Of Death ASAP
Microsoft had plenty of time to fix this problem. In fact, they even knew about it before launch. They should've taken the time to perfect their hardware.

#3: Focusing too much on the Multiplatform games
Multiplatforms do not sell consoles, exclusives do.

#4: Not Including a standard HDD on the Arcade Model
Sony's Playstation 3 always had a HDD. It should be mandatory as they strongly support digital distribution.

Conclusion: Microsoft was looking for a cheap way into this generation offering a year's head start on the competition. Consumers looked at the Xbox 360 as the first hi-def system and jumped on it. Little did they know that the console they purchased would give them scratched discs or three red rings. Microsoft was in it for the money from the get-go. Had they waited to perfect their system (included HD-DVD, a HDD, fixed the hardware issues), I'm sure several other people here would not be so quick to judge Microsoft's console.

[jack who]

Blu-ray is surpassing DVD in sales - what does sale of dvd movie have too do with gaming?

Microsoft had plenty of time to fix this problem. In fact, they even knew about it before launch. They should've taken the time to perfect their hardware.- which i agree with but it isnt like they did do ANYTHING about it.

Multiplatforms do not sell consoles, exclusives do.- doesnt look like that true this gen cuzz the ps3 is in last place

Sony's Playstation 3 always had a HDD. It should be mandatory as they strongly support digital distribution.- the xbox 1 had any hdd standard which was one of the reasons for its down fall(same looks like it going for the ps3)

[Persistantthug]

Microsoft addressed the RROD kicking and screaming. It wasn't like they gave their 3 year warranty out of the kindness of their hearts. They did it because they were getting pummeled with media attention and class action lawsuits.

[DevastationEve]

I don't agree with the bluray thing, bluray sells movies. Its use for games has only been to keep a large game on a single disc and for media in the game (like lossless audio and higher bitrate video). It doesn't make games look or play any better.

Sure I guess having bluray in the end really only would've added to Xbox 360's value, no question there.

[NaiNaiNai]

actually thats very true, most games actually suffer from the 2X read speed. thats why they have the installs.

[PirateThom]

How many PS3 games have major installs anymore apart from Crapcom games which install practically the whole game?

[NaiNaiNai]

Not many anymore. It was more a issue of the devs learning. Look Im not saying its all Required I know its not. But it is kind of annoying on the old games to have to install. But I still have a feeling that larger graphic house games will still need the installs.

[LordMarius]

Not having any good games

[Unicron]

I hate articles like this... but I do agree with point 3. Tossing about titles that I can get elsewhere has not convinced me to get their system. That doesn't mean its a bad system, but I have almost no need for it.

[Myst]

I agree all the same with you as well, I have a 360 now; but when I didn't I was going through the same process trying to find some form of justification to get one. I mean even now most of the games I have are on PC. So far out of my five titles, two are on PC and the others are pretty much exclusive.

[N4G king]

the only wrong thing that microsoft got wrong with is Releasing the xbox from the frist place

[INC NATE2131]

1. its a good thing ms didnt choose blu ray because many developers say its very complicating and takes long to make.

2. Although they didnt fix rrod right away, they have been trying there best, and for 2009 the failure rate is at 8%.

3. Not only does multiplatform games do way better on 360, 360 has an amazing lineup with, Halo odst, Halo Reach, Dead island, Forza 3, l4d2, Mass Effect2, Alan wake, Crack down2, Shadow complex and alot more coming.

4. Not only has the arcade model of the 360 been so successful making up about 37% of the console sales, but now comes stander with 512mb built in hdd, it also now gives customers a wide variety to choose from, you have the arcade, 60gb 360 and the elite so tones of options.

5. What they also forgot to mention is the fact that in America, 360 has outsold the ps3 in all 7 months now, and is only trailing by 2 million in japan, and japan revenues have increased by 24% this year from last year. Also 360 install base has now has been at its biggest lead in europe, with install base of 12.87million while the ps3 with 10.23million.

[Unicron]

Um, you just pulled #1 out of your ass. BluRay is a disc format. It has very little if NOTHING to do with actual development, which is based on the system hardware.

[The Lazy One]

He's kind of right though. Slow search times on the PS3's blu-ray player make it hard for developers to get games running as well as they could.

The read speed isn't horrible, but slow search speeds are a big part of the reason developers have to put the same data in multiple locations on the disk to get the best performance.

[Kushan]

#4: Not Including a standard HDD on the Arcade Model

I actually disagree with this statement. Well, sort of. I think, personally, that the arcade is a waste of time. I'd never buy one, except maybe if my 360 died and couldn't be repaired or whatever. So to me, it's utterly utterly useless, yet still I disagree with this statement and this is why -

For many people, more than most people on here care to admit, the Arcade is actually the perfect match for them. Really, when it boils down to it, not having a hard drive does little more than limit your online experience. 99% of games work just fine (The article claims that "Making anyone who purchased one of these basically unable to play most games", which is completely untrue). Sure, the developers do have to work around that, but really the worst that means is longer loading times between levels. Open-world games like GTA4 could certainly benefit but even then, it just means things take longer to stream in, the actual game itself isn't limited in any kind of way because anything super important NEEDS to be in memory (RAM) anyway. Cache just speeds things up, it doesn't really enable many extra features. To my knowledge, the only games that actually require the HDD are MMO's and Football Manager (there may be more). For a lot of these people, online isn't an issue. I mean there's what, about 30million 360's out there? but only 18million Actually subscribe to live. Lets call that 20million for a laugh, a solid 1/3 of 360 owners have not gone online. So what do they need a Hard drive for?

And the result of all this? Microsoft has a rather cheap SKU with very little holding it back, price wise. Hard drives are, by and large, expensive. That's why the HDD space in both the 360 and the PS3 has went up over time, it doesn't actually cost anything extra since the vast majority of the price of a HDD is in the mechanical structure of it, not the platters (that decide how big it's going to be). In other words, HDDs are only capable of getting "so cheap", even when you pay absolutely nothing for the platter, the bill of cost is still quite pricey overall.

So, although as I said before, the arcade is useless TO ME, I completely get why MS did it (and continues to do it), it makes a lot of business sense and means that no matter how cheap the PS3 gets, they'll always be able to undercut it.

[PirateThom]

Problem is, the lack of disc space combined with the lack of standard hard drive makes the arcade SKU the lowest common denominator. It affects development rather than the end user, because developers have to work around it. As it stands, developers making 360 games cannot take any real advantage of the streaming a HDD offers apart from creating a cache for faster load times, like Halo 3.

[Kushan]

Sure they can - and many do. Halo 3, obviously, takes advantage of it and I know Far Cry 2 does as well. Yet they both work on the Arcade just fine. Pretty much any game that doesn't perform any better - or performs worse, when you do an NXE game install, has to be using cache on the HDD.

It's actually not that difficult, from a programming point of view, to separate it out.

if (Hard_Drive == true){
HDDCache.enabled = true;
}

// during a loading screen
if (HDDCache.enabled == true)
{
HDDCache.textures.whatever = textureToLoad;
}

// Somewhere later

if (HDDCache.enabled == true){
texture = HDDCache.textures.whatever;
}
else
{
texture = Disk.textures.whatever;
}

That's obviously a very basic example, but you can see what I mean, a couple of if statements can sort out your HDDCaching rather easily, especially since most console engines will have specialised memory management functions.

[The Lazy One]

I think all 360's should have had an HDD standard inside dedicated for caching (not huge just a couple gigs). That is the one thing that hurts 360's performance most.

[Kushan]

Is it actually "hurting" performance, though? I mean, the PS3 has a HDD in every model, but do any games perform any better? Or at least, significantly better.

[The Lazy One]

you can't really tell how much of an advantage developers could get without the feature being there.

The only known is that there would be a performance benefit, and in many cases it could be pretty large. It was one of the most praised features in the original xbox by developers aside from it's similarity to PCs.

[Obama]

"But if you look at the exclusive lineup for the Xbox 360, the only game worth mentioning is Halo ODST"

So true. How do the bots spin this? The only potential good game they have is a glorified expansion pack. ;(

[Mo0eY]

Halo Three-peat

[ThatCanadianGuy]

I know right.360, like last year, has no f*cking games!

Bu-bu-but..splinter cell...wai-wai-wait till next year!!1!
Yeah.When it launches the same time as the PS3 version. :)

Like mass effect 2. >;)

[LordMarius]

Also, not having LIVE for free

[The Lazy One]

I'm sure they'll wipe their tears with the 500 million dollars they'll make off it this year.

[Myst]

The main thing I see wrong at this point is the fact it was presented as news and not an article...

[MetalGearBear]

good thing I chose PS3.
i not understand why Xbox360 is fail and cheap?

[Mo0eY]

Because M$ made it.

[The Lazy One]

These are the points he picks? really?

Having RROD in the first place, not something M$ did wrong, not fixing it quickly (WHICH IM SURE THEY DID ON PURPOSE... hell I'd love for my company to have a huge moneysink that doesn't produce any profits and a feature that hurts one of your major brands) is something they did wrong.

Here's the major things they did wrong...

1. No standard HDD for caching.
2. Having RROD in the first place.
3. Not starting more first classdevelopment studios for their first party

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Crazy how those 4 things they "supposedly" got wrong has put them in the number 1 spot when you include console sales, game sales, Xbox Live, number of exclusives, attach rate, console marketplace, game rankings, arcade, accessories and community. Besides it's http://www.badassgamerblog.... Sony fan central, can't expect anything less.

[NateDPG]

What console sales? What game sales, Xbox Live and all the other stuff you mentioned? You obviously are only talkin about the US market, how it looks worldwide we lately saw. Also the only thing that has put 360 in the 1 spot is that it launched over a year earlier. 360 never surpassed PS3 and is actually selling at a lower rate.

Here I have exclusively for you the market share in Germany and considering 360 is doing such great numbers in the US and it being the biggest market, it must be in a lot, lot places like that if Sony almoust evens out worldwide.

Nintendo DS: 32 %

Wii: 19,9 %

PS3: 16 %

PS2: 16 %

Xbox 360: 10,1 %

http://www.consolewars.de/n...

Dead last, looks like only you american boys are going crazy about this american console. Hmmm would could be the reason, hard to figure it out lol

[NateDPG]

Just 4? Are they kidding?

[Mo0eY]

Four things wrong:
1.R
2.R
3.O
4.D

Bonus: No games

[-Mezzo-]

Ain't i glad to choose PS3 as my Platform this generation.

[-Mezzo-]

Completely agree with the Article.

[34543534798]

surely there are more thing M$ done wrong with the xbox...

[ThatCanadianGuy]

I'm ashamed to even own one.Even tho i only use it as a heater during the harsh winter.(lord knows it has no good games)

Can't believe you 360 kids are actually proud of it.
It's the biggest technical failure of our generation.

[Obama]

It's funny how some of the bots still think the 360 has the best games in 09 when in reality they don't have 1 game that has reached AAA status. I remember one bot bring up Ninja Blade as one of the 360 best title.