Bonum Certa Men Certa

The 'New' Xbox 360 is Dead on Arrival as Microsoft Copies Mistakes, Fixes Nothing, Bribes Journalists

Xbox console



Summary: News from E3 suggests that Microsoft has done nothing substantial to rescue its gaming business, which continues to disappoint

AS E3 starts, Microsoft must show the audience (including journalists) something new. Xbox 360 has been having a crisis and Microsoft's latest peripheral/gadget for it, Kinect/Natal, is receiving some bad reviews including predictions of doom from Dvorak.



Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox 360 is Doomed to Fail



[...]

This all seems like Microsoft's answer to the clever Wii controller, with its built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers. But when all is said and done, game consoles were invented with game controllers in mind. The Wiimote is a modernized game controller. The Kinnect is a gimmick, and as gimmicks go, its popularity will be brief, unless the most compelling game in the world arrives built around it. And I do not see that happening.


When it comes to hardware issues, Microsoft is just covering up the problem:

Microsoft fixes Xbox RROD... by removing the red light



[...]

One interesting factoid is the decision to remove the red lights from the console. Effectively making it incapable of showing the dreaded 'red ring of death' should your new slim Xbox 360 decide to overheat and crap out on you.


Microsoft removes the symptom, a bit like kicking it under the table or sweeping it under the rug. "Xbox 360 slim can't red-ring by design," says another headline:

The absolute impossibility of the red ring isn't by virtue of the console being failure-proof--that has yet to be determined. It's because the new console has no red LEDs at all. According to a spec sheet obtained by gaming blog Joystiq, the new console has only green LEDs in the ring on its front.


Another common complaint (leading to a lawsuit even) is the scratching of discs by Xbox 360. Microsoft 'resolved' this by warning users, not by actually addressing the issue. As The Register puts it in the headline, "New Xbox 360 said to 'still scratch discs'"

The crucial point here is that the Xbox currently - and will presumably continue to - come with a sticker warning punters not to move the machine while a disc is spinning. Microsoft acknowledged the problem in 2008, but so few folk feel the need to knock their consoles around while playing games that the issue has affected a relatively small number of people.


"Of course they are not going to fix disc destruction," Oiaohm explains, "Microsoft gets paid per disc sold."

A few days ago we showed that Microsoft bribed journalists to increase the likelihood of positive Xbox 360 reviews. Here is spin from IDG:

Is Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim Press Giveaway a Bribe?



[...]

It just seemed so very strange, watching everyone clapping, cheering, leaping out of their seats, as if we were all on Oprah, and she'd just announced that everyone in the viewing audience was getting a brand new car. Except this wasn't Oprah, and we weren't the "viewing audience." We were there to absorb and critique Microsoft's announcements and claims. Is this where we're headed? Game shows with prize giveaways?


"With all the bribery going on," explains Chips B Malroy, "expect the reviews of the newer slim Xbox360 to be generally favorable."

According to AP, shows Malroy, "Microsoft fancied to unveil Kinect, the name of its new Xbox 360 motion-control system, with a lavishly bizarre invite-only Cirque du Soilel performance Sunday night that required attendees to don white satin ponchos."

“With all the bribery going on expect the reviews of the newer slim Xbox360 to be generally favorable.”
      --Chips B Malroy,
As Malroy puts it, "So is that Wine and Dine, bribery, plus a show as well?"

In summary, Xbox 360 shows that Microsoft is continuing its usual bribery of journalists, who are carefully being selected based on their dispositions. That won't save Xbox 360, which resolved none of the major issues in a revised model; the issues are being concealed rather than eliminated.

In the words of this new blog post's headline, "Good bye Microsoft!"

It seems that Microsoft is slowly fading from its dominant position and loosing its monopoly. Only through innovation will Microsoft be able to defend its place but it seems that this is very unlikely. Microsoft has become too big and sluggish. It is time to bid Microsoft good bye and embrace the up and coming alternatives.


It is premature to say "good bye" to Microsoft, but either way, there are other dangers to people's rights and freedoms in computing. In Techrights we perceive the ACTA, for example, as a danger that impacts more than just technology. We'll write about it tomorrow. This site depends neither on Novell nor Microsoft as fights for freedom are perpetual, history teaches.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing."

--Edmund Burke



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October