RIP xbox 360 . . .

domflane

So I was counting down to start a match on Call of Duty the other night and my xbox froze right before the game started. I shut it off, hoping for the best, turned it back on and was greeted by a delightful red christmas light dancing its way around my power button. Perfect timing, right before the holiday when all my money is spent in the spirit of giving. I have been an xbox faithful ever since the launch of the 360. Now the question is, do I spring for an elite, or finally switch sides and get a ps3? I don't have a blu-ray player yet, but i was hoping to get a nice dedicated one sometime in the future. How does the ps3 stand up as a blu-ray player? I was thinking about a mid range Denon or Elite unit in the $300-400 range.

wutadumsn23

IMHO, the 360 did you a favor, lol. I have a PS3 and as far as I'm concerned it is one of, if not the best Blu-Ray player in it's price range. Oh and they made Call of Duty for PS3 too, lol. In all seriousness Playstation Network may not be as good as Xbox Live, but all in all it is a very capable unit.

-Jeff

domflane

thanks for the reply, I'm really leaning towards the ps3, i just hate to give up all my standing on xbox live and the progress I've made on my games . . . I have well over 100 hours on Oblivion . . . damn red ring of death. I would have loved to buy a ps3 to supplement my 360, then I could have had the best of both worlds. Oh well, I guess it wasn't meant to be . . .

ballen823

Are you not within the 3 year warranty? If not, you can usually find people on Craigslist that will fix it for $30-50.

I own both, and I've slowly moved over to gaming more on my PS3 now (used to be primarily my blu-ray player). I love it so much that I just bought a second one for the bedroom.

beardog03

I hear that PS3 is a really good unit, and won`t breakdown as much as the X-Box

Is the X-Box fixable ?

I was told that if you put good fans on it to help cool it down, that it will work better and last loner, but my Daughters boyfriend is on his forth unit !!

He just got the Black one (elite), but I think that if I had to get another one, it would be a PS3

Of course I `m not a total gamer, but I like doing my COD on my PC alot also !!

Demiurge

If you're serious about gaming, you'd be insane to switch unless you're going to a PC. I suggest you get both the PS3 and the 360, but since that's not possible for you it sounds like, I'd stick with the 360.

There aren't any widespread problems with the Jasper units, and they're cool and quiet. No, you don't need to buy an Elite. The regular $199 360s sold now are Jasper units. Even if by chance it does have problems, you're backed by a 3 year warranty, something you won't be getting from Sony.

My launch unit **** the bed a few months ago and I bought a Jasper unit. It's the same awesome gameplay and overal experience with quiet hardware that stays cool.

I own a PS3 and it does nothing for me other than play Blu-Rays (which is does VERY well).

mmadden28

There are many causes to Red Ring errors. Research exactly which error you are getting. It may not be the typical RRoD and may be an easy fix. For all you know it might even just be a problem with the power supply which can be had for about $20.
Just saying, don't give up so easy, also keep in mind that you will have to buy all your games again for the PS3.

domflane

It's definately the RRoD, I've done plenty of research on it and have also considered fixing it myself. I'm trying really hard to be faithful to my 360, but the ps3 is really inticing with the blu-ray player and the free online. Both consoles have problems with the hardware, a friend of mine is on his third ps3, this is my second 360 and another friend of mine is on his forth. I'll probably just end up getting the ps3 now so I can at least have something, because my xbox was the main source in my HT. Right now I have a couple thousand dollars worth of gear and all I can do is watch my network cable. Ill hold onto my hard drive, a nice feature of the 360 btw, and buy a used xbox down the road if I find myself regretting my decision. I pretty much only play one game at a time anyway, so that's not that big of a deal. Thanks for the input everyone . . .

mmadden28

Blue Ray Players can be had for about $100 now, so the fact that the PS3 has a BD player in it is really not a selling factor anymore (at least not IMO), esp since its not even a universal player anymore (at least no SACD). The PS3's of today are not the same PS3 of yesterday. I don't know about you but I'm also not to keen on having my gaming system on simply for playing movies. I'd rather not 'waste the miles' so to speak.

Buy yourself a standalone BD player and give the RRoD XClamp fix a try. What can it hurt? Less than $10 in parts and some of your time?
Otherwise good luck in whatever you decide to do.

mmadden28

Oh yeah, try changing the position of your Xbox.

About two years ago I had gotten the RRoD a couple times. But it happened only after I moved it to a new place in my entertainment center. It wasn't a ventilation issue, but I changed its orientation from Horizontal to Vertical. By chance I moved it back to a horizontal position and I didn't get the RRoD again for another year.

Worth a try IMO.

LessisNevermore

Demiurge wrote: »

If you're serious about gaming, you'd be insane to switch unless you're going to a PC. I suggest you get both the PS3 and the 360, but since that's not possible for you it sounds like, I'd stick with the 360.

There aren't any widespread problems with the Jasper units, and they're cool and quiet. No, you don't need to buy an Elite. The regular $199 360s sold now are Jasper units. Even if by chance it does have problems, you're backed by a 3 year warranty, something you won't be getting from Sony.

My launch unit **** the bed a few months ago and I bought a Jasper unit. It's the same awesome gameplay and overal experience with quiet hardware that stays cool.

I own a PS3 and it does nothing for me other than play Blu-Rays (which is does VERY well).

What do you mean by 'serious about gaming'? Professional?
No widespread problems? Not exactly a glowing endorsement.;)
A 3 year warranty is something you likely won't need for a PS3.

I'm not a 360 hater, nor a blind PS3 fanboy, but you can't polish away a >54% failure rate....

There really isn't a glaring difference in the performance between the two, and for me it comes down to:

A) Buying a game, then NOT getting charged for the privilege of playing online.

Not being locked in to proprietary expansion hard drives.

C) Using Netflix without the XBL tax.

D) Blu ray. (How long 'til the games' size exceed the storage of DVD?)

E) The hardware is undeniably more reliable, and it's not even close.

Sony, IMO rarely gets something right, but they have with the PS3.

domflane

My xbox was really put to the test in my HT. About 50% of its usage was playing games, 40% watching movies and maybe 10% playing CD's. I was also strteaming movies from netflix. I'm pretty new to this whole home theater thing so I never had a dedicated DVD or CD player. I plan on trying to fix my xbox anyway, I and I also planned on spending more like 300 or $400 on a blu-ray player. I was just wondering how the ps3 performed as a blu-ray player compared to those in that price range.

mmadden28

If you're going to spend that much on a BD player, spend a hair more and get the new Oppo.

domflane

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mmadden28

LessisNevermore wrote: »

...

I'm not a 360 hater, nor a blind PS3 fanboy, but you can't polish away a >54% failure rate....
...

The failures were on the early units and they pretty much fixed those issues. I don't think the failure rate is even close with the current production models, so shouldn't even be used as a factor in buying a new unit or not.
...

LessisNevermore wrote: »

...

D) Blu ray. (How long 'til the games' size exceed the storage of DVD?)

...

Xbox came out with an external HD-DVD drive. They can do the same for BluRay. But IMO, by the time games get that big I would hope that the next gen consoles would be coming out.

Are there any BluRay PS3 games out now?

mmadden28

domflane wrote: »

untitled.bmp

What's the secondary error code? What is the source of the error?

domflane

I know there's ways to fix it, but its a 3 year old 20Gb, I still have'nt made up my mind . . . I'm not that familiar with the Oppo, how does it compare to the ps3 as a BRP? It sure seems nice though.

domflane

where do you find the error code?

mmadden28

domflane wrote: »

I know there's ways to fix it, but its a 3 year old 20Gb, I still have'nt made up my mind . . . I'm not that familiar with the Oppo, how does it compare to the ps3 as a BRP? It sure seems nice though.

From what I have been reading, the Oppo pretty much blows all other BD players out of the water. And its a universal player too.

domflane wrote: »

where do you find the error code?

Sorry, I assumed when you said you researched it, you would have come across that info.
I forget exactly, it involved holding down a button then pressing another several times - each time a light blinks and you end up with a #. I'll see if I can find a link to that procedure. I haven't done it in about a year.
It's a pretty specific error as to what cause the RRoD in the first place.

domflane

I didn't find that info, i just know that configuration of red lights is a hardware failure. I figured they were all pretty much the same . . .

BIZILL

pourin' out a little thermal paste for my dead homies...

mmadden28

Here's a link to one site - I can't follow all the links though as they are blocked at work so I can't be sure if this has what you need or not:
http://forums.xbox-experts.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1675

You can also search Google for "rrod secondary error codes"

IIRC the main RROD error of note (that might be fixable with the xclamp fix) is Error 74 (general hardware failure), with a secondary of 0002.
The details are fuzzy now.

I had an original release Xbox360 and it lasted, with the exception of the position related rrod error I mentioned, until about a week after the warranty expired (3+ years??). Unfortunately I was not able to get it working again even after the xclamp fix.

I bought a new Elite last year to replace it and haven't had any issues. Also it has HDMI and 1080p so I was able to take advantage of the full resolution, where before I was limited to 1080i via Component.

The Elite has a 120GB drive and I haven't filled it up yet, so the proprietary drive thing is no big deal to me, (don't get mne wrong-I am not at all a fan of the proprietary nature and high price of replacements.)
The newer units run cooler, and use less power. Also you can copy an entire game DVD to the hard drive and run it directly from there (the DVD still needs to be in the drive for validation but...) which results in less noise (no constant DVD drive noise), and faster load times.

I don't play online (rarley if at all), so I only need the free Silver membership. I recall in the early days you needed a Gold just to download demos. Now you only need Gold to play online, and for certain early demos, and such.

kuntasensei

domflane wrote: »

I didn't find that info, i just know that configuration of red lights is a hardware failure. I figured they were all pretty much the same . . .

Check here: http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/repair/Xbox-360-error-codes.htm

I'm on my 12th 360 since launch (not kidding), but I would never jump ship. I hate the PS3 controller, and compared to Xbox Live, PSN is definitely a "you get what you pay for" experience. PSN isn't even banning people using the Javelin exploit in MW2, whereas Live is dropping 1 week bans on the cheaters. I prefer a regulated system for less than $4 a month to a free system that goes unmonitored.

Since I got my Jasper unit, I've had no problems whatsoever. And I got the aforementioned Oppo BDP-83 for Blu-ray so that I could still spin my DVD-A discs.

All that said, call Microsoft or go to xbox.com and you can probably get your system fixed. They've been pretty liberal with that 3 year warranty.

Demiurge

LessisNevermore wrote: »

What do you mean by 'serious about gaming'? Professional?
No widespread problems? Not exactly a glowing endorsement.;)
A 3 year warranty is something you likely won't need for a PS3.

I'm not a 360 hater, nor a blind PS3 fanboy, but you can't polish away a >54% failure rate....

There really isn't a glaring difference in the performance between the two, and for me it comes down to:

A) Buying a game, then NOT getting charged for the privilege of playing online.

Not being locked in to proprietary expansion hard drives.

C) Using Netflix without the XBL tax.

D) Blu ray. (How long 'til the games' size exceed the storage of DVD?)

E) The hardware is undeniably more reliable, and it's not even close.

Sony, IMO rarely gets something right, but they have with the PS3.

Between the two consoles, the better gaming experience is on the XBox 360. It's my opinion, and I'm not alone here.

Ask any of us who have both consoles which one we game on the most. I'll bet there isn't one person who would say the PS3. By and large it's for Blu-Ray. If it wasn't for Microsofts early hardware issues and Sony behind Blu-Ray rather than HD-DVD, the PS3 would have been a complete flop. The sales numbers show that....and sure, you could make the smartass comment that they're inflated because of having to buy multiple units. I'd point out that shows that the gaming experience on the XBox 360 is so much better that people are willing to keep shelling out money to replace their busted ones out of warranty.

Anyways, the guy asked what he should do and I told him what I would do. If he goes a different route it's no skin off of my sack.

I enjoy the best of both worlds and you're stuck carrying water for Sony.

mmadden28

Demiurge wrote: »

...it's no skin off of my sack.

...

That hurts just saying it :eek:

mmadden28

kuntasensei wrote: »

Check here: http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/repair/Xbox-360-error-codes.htm

...

That's the site I recall using the most.

domflane

I have done plenty of gaming on both and I totally agree that the gaming experience is much better on the xbox. Its just that now I need a new system and now I have a 1080p tv and now I have the need for a blu-ray player where I didn't when I bought my first 360. But I can only really afford to buy one item right now, whether it be a gaming console or a blu-ray player. Plus, my laptop just took a **** and the ps3 has an internet browser, so the more I think about it, the more sense the ps3 makes. I played for about 10 years Sony systems, so I guess it wouldn't be that hard for me to get used to that caveman controller.

domflane

I'm still going to try to fix my xbox though, having both would be ideal.

LessisNevermore

Demiurge wrote: »

Between the two consoles, the better gaming experience is on the XBox 360. It's my opinion, and I'm not alone here.

Ask any of us who have both consoles which one we game on the most. I'll bet there isn't one person who would say the PS3. By and large it's for Blu-Ray. If it wasn't for Microsofts early hardware issues and Sony behind Blu-Ray rather than HD-DVD, the PS3 would have been a complete flop. The sales numbers show that....and sure, you could make the smartass comment that they're inflated because of having to buy multiple units. I'd point out that shows that the gaming experience on the XBox 360 is so much better that people are willing to keep shelling out money to replace their busted ones out of warranty.

Anyways, the guy asked what he should do and I told him what I would do. If he goes a different route it's no skin off of my sack.

I enjoy the best of both worlds and you're stuck carrying water for Sony.

Or, another possibly more realistic explanation, they didn't want to have to re-buy all the games and accessories.

I don't carry anyone's water, and I'm certainly not 'stuck'. I think the PS3 is a better platform, and stated why.

Demiurge

LessisNevermore wrote: »

Or, another possibly more realistic explanation, they didn't want to have to re-buy all the games and accessories.

That's certainly a good possibility for many of them.

Since I'm one of the "they" who chose to buy a new unit after my launch unit got the RROD like the OP, I can state that the reason was I like to play games and the 360 has better choices and a better experience. Not to mention I already owned the PS3 at that time.

I have a few friends here on this forum who had the same motivation for re-buying. Then again, most of us have means and aren't kids so re-buying games for another platform wouldn't have had a hard time with that.

LessisNevermore wrote: »

I don't carry anyone's water, and I'm certainly not 'stuck'. I think the PS3 is a better platform, and stated why.

I can tell, what with getting so bent out of shape by someone expressing a perfectly objective opinion you don't seem to share.

Trust me, if you hadn't quoted me I wouldn't have bothered responding to you. I'm just trying to make a point and you're being the perfect student with your responses. I'm done, though...last word is yours.

inspiredsports

My 16yr old son has had a 360 since they came out and we also have a PS3 used mostly as a Blu-Ray player. While the PS3 is probably more durable, know that the same title games play slightly differently, and the player communities are different.

We've found it necessary to keep 2 360's on hand. When 1 breaks and is sent back to Microsoft's Texas repair center, the other is put into play. The repaired unit sits on the shelf until the one currently in play dies. Cooling (actually lack of proper cooling) is the main issue.

We've now blow out the unit compressed air monthly and have rigged a small, quiet aftermarket fan which seems to be doing the trick.

The main problem switching to PS3 is that all of his friends are on xBox and unable to move. It's the teenage pack mentality and xBox has reached a critical mass that PS3 has not yet achieved.