a look at the 360, beyond it being a game console

[mav3r1ck]

now before i get on a big thing here i want whoever reads this to understand that yes, i own an xbox, i like it, its an awesome system so long as it runs, i love a good co-op on gears of war as much as anyone else, but i have to admit, the system is flawed.

im not here to compare systems, im here to bring up a point that no one else seems to be seeing, what is microsoft doing?

stay with me and read all the way through before you flame me, please 

from what it looks like to me is microsoft is taking the jeff gordon approach to things, there bumping out the competition so they can have a shot at first place, and make a lotta money for it. its natural for a company to try to keep competition down and make them look like the lesser system, more so its extra natural for a company to be there to make money, cuz you sure as hell didnt start a company because you wanted to breath the air inside of a building you had built, right? right, you started the company to what? thats right, make money.

again, for what i can tell, they have two main goals, 1. to take sony out of the market, and 2. to make it to where people pay a subscription to access there games. and im just not sure which makes me more upset, because i like sony too, and to pay to play? i thought i did that when i ohhh, i dunno, bought the game?

look at it at this angle, you pay a monthly or yearly or whatever subscription with the 360, to play online, keep leaderboards, and so on, its relatively cheap, 50 bucks for a year, right? thats around 4 bucks a month, thats cool, i dont have a problem with that, but again, thats not what im looking at.

sony on the other hand, offers there online access for free, and even add in the same types of accommodations as microsoft, actually i find their internet goodies to be a bit more interesting personally. and its free? how come one of the richest men on the face of the earth cant afford to let the access be free? that doesnt make sense to me.

now what was the problems with the ps3? price and not many release titles, right? not much to play on it so whats the point, i can get in the same boat as everyone with that. but why didnt they have much to play? simple, there wasnt any contracts to make because everyone else scooped those up before sony could, thus, it became hard to make a deal when there was no deal left to make, makes sense right?

now lets look at something else, sony offered there original version of the ps3 for 600 bucks, kind of steep, people complained, and they listened, they made a cheaper model, 400 bucks, and i can live with that personally, sure, no reverse compatability, and a smaller hard drive, but how can you complain when the thing is as advanced as it is?

xbox is 280 base model, 350, pro package, originally it was 400 bucks pro, and 350 base, correct me if im wrong i dont know that thats right, i didnt pay attention to the original price when it came out, because honestly i was waaay to broke to even think of getting one  also, the xbox came out about 2 or 3 years before the ps3 or wii, thus eating up the gaming market because they made a premature release, and thus why the 360 had a 33% failure rating, and that was probably toned down a good bit, sounds a bit too round of a number to me, but im probably wrong about that part of it, so lets stick with the 33%.

and on top of the failure rating, the warranty of the system produced isnt valid from the time of purchase, its from the time of manufacturing, so it could sit on the shelf for a year, and the warranty run out, that doesnt seem fair to me, how about you? especially sense the repair fees are well over 100 dollars, for them to fix something that they originally made flimsy anyways.

i guess i should wind down a bit, what im getting at is that if we want our gaming experience to be truely enjoyable, were gonna have to make microsoft listen, or go else where, lets change there game plan a bit, lets make them fix the horrid customer support we get for paying whats for some people a whole months paycheck to buy a system to play games on, that has a large chance of breaking on them, and they cant get it fixed because they cant even talk with the customer support person. then lets see about the online stuff, personally, i dont play online, because i refuse to pay a monthly fee to play a game i have already bought, its the same reason i dont play a MMORPG, then again i dont play those mainly because they suck, but the not paying for a sucky game makes sense right? but thats another rant.

and if we cant have microsoft listen to us, lets write the developers, and tell them this game should go to other consoles, we would LOVE to see something like fable on the ps3, or even the wii! could you imagine casting a fireball by swinging your arm to actually toss it? sounds pretty good to me. we're the people that want to play these games, lets make playing enjoyable again, instead of having to deal with so much bull-plop that it makes you sick to even look at the thing, let alone play it.



thanks for reading, i hope i got my point across. 

[Reaper]

RUUUNNNN!!!

THE WALL OF TEXT!!!

AHHHHH!!

[PspKicks316]

That's exactly what I said when i saw this. I didn't even read it >_>

[tmandt]

dude you make my eyes hurt

[cwn723]

I read it all the way through, and found that you made a few very good points, but there is some other stuff you left out. The xbox 360 vibrates, and if you have your xbox 360 vertical it vibrates even more. This causes your $60 games to scratch, and i found that after my first month of Xbox live, i couldnt play 6 of the 20 maps, as i would get an "unreadable disk" message every time it loaded. As for me, ive never had the RROD, but it is just bull. Microsoft is a company, like you said and there main priority is to make profits, and unfortunately customer service comes after that. I dont think Bill Gates has much to do with it, but it doesnt matter who, it just matters what. Also, in the long run, the PS3 comes out to be a much better, not to mension cheaper console. That is IN THE LONG RUN. 50 a year and it all adds up. Also, the PS3 can be turned into a dual-bootable Linux computer WITHOUT voiding the warranty. It seems like customer service is one of the highest priorities to sony, and i wish i would have gotten that instead of the Xbox 360. The only reason i did in the first place is because all my friends already had it, so if i got the PS3, i wouldnt have been able to play with them. Oh, and on the COD4 scratched game, i got a warranty from best buy, and i may be able to return it so there is a plus!

[mav3r1ck]

thats true, but at this point i think most owners of a 360 realize there is a much greater fail rating when you sit it up, they couldve just invested a 2 cent bushion into the cd drive to fix that you know? and your right, add it up, if i go RROD, pay for xbox live, the pro system, and one game, how much is that?

140 repairs plus time without console
60 bucks for a game
50 bucks 1 yr xbox live
400 or 350 depending on when i bought the system

thats around 500 to 550 bucks before taxed added in, i think i shouldve saved another 100 bucks, got the system and a game, and maybe another controller.

and the wall of text stuff, blow off, you read a forum all day, whats the difference between reading 20 small posts asking "how do i do this?" or "omgz mah exbux brokeded!" where instead you couldve took the time to add to something thoughtful? thanks for your consideration and all. but i gotta admit, i couldve toned it down a bit lol but i feel i wouldve lost a point or two along the way of compression.

[Reaper]

and the wall of text stuff, blow off, you read a forum all day, whats the difference between reading 20 small posts asking "how do i do this?" or "omgz mah exbux brokeded!" where instead you couldve took the time to add to something thoughtful? thanks for your consideration and all. but i gotta admit, i couldve toned it down a bit lol but i feel i wouldve lost a point or two along the way of compression.

Because its was a ramble
be direct and people will listen/read

Also, I don't read a forum all day, the time it would have taken me to read your one post is about the same amount of time I read the whole site in any given visit

[mav3r1ck]

eh true, i just felt there was ground to be covered and that the extra text was necessary, thats all, no offense you know.