Nintendo Reports First Loss in 50 Years

[njiska]

But I thought the XBox 1 was pretty reliable..?

The original Xbox was a god damn tank. It's built incredibly solidly and because the parts are almost entire off the shelf they're well tested and have very low failure rates. Really the only thing that would crap out was the Thompson CD drive used in the early (1.0, 1.1) versions. Later versions use drives from other manufacturers that were built far better.

As for actually dying, I've known more Xbox modchips to die than Xboxes themselves.

[nZero]

IIRC the USB/controller port subboards on the Xbox have a higher than average failure rate too. At least they used 2 identical parts so you can just swap them around when one blows up and keep playing on only 2 controllers.

Edit: wow, topic stray FWIW I've never had any issues with any of the Nintendo products I've owned.

[xbl0x180]

The 360s have been awful, but their selection of games are better than the other two consoles

[Friendly]

Back on topic: While half a billion USD isn't exactly a small sum, Nintendo have enough financial reserves. Aside from the losses incurred by selling 3DS below cost, most of that sum probably went into developing 3DS and Wii U, so none of this is recurring. I don't expect Wii U to be quite as successful as Wii, but it won't be a flop either. While Nintendo (and the rest of the console industry) is probably losing part of its market share to phones and tablets, it's unlikely for those to completely take over, for a simple reason: If you want to play Nintendo games, you have to buy a Nintendo system. And of course touch-screen devices just don't offer the same experience as dedicated consoles, and 1-dollar apps aren't the same as full-price games.

[Ed Oscuro]

How hard can it be to prevent overheating?

Very hard, when you're hellbent on making a pretty little box perform at the level of a gaming computer, and with only a tiny little fan to move all the heat generated off the system board.

Both Sony and Microsoft will have me skeptical that their next systems will be reliable. There was talk of the Cell CPUs on the PS3 dying after some time, and that came from Sony themselves iirc. It doesn't seem to have happened, thankfully. But the memory of the PS2 won't fade quickly.

N64 controllers just get loose and bad, but they still work after pretty long-term use - I've never played Mario Party games though. The Thompson drive in the Xbox just seems to start getting picky about which games the system it'll run. The original NES connector was bad, but the A/V Famicom at least is good. Personally, I've got a couple NESes that still work quite well. Also stinking: Neo Geo AES hardware (not to mention the CD units), most anything with a '90s made capacitor (especially handhelds).

[neorichieb1971]

mk1 DC's were water cooled. Thats the way forward. Relying on perfect air circulation conditions for any console is suicide for most.

[Friendly]

mk1 DC's were water cooled.

No they weren't. I had a Japanese launch model.

[Ed Oscuro]

mk1 DC's were water cooled.

No they weren't. I had a Japanese launch model.

The only reasonable response to neorichie's post is "what the hell is wrong with you"

[BIL]

It's actually a heat pipe cooling system in some early DCs.

[Strider77]

mk1 DC's were water cooled.


No they weren't. I had a Japanese launch model.

I still own one..... it's just a heat pipe like mentioned above. Let it go.

[Ed Oscuro]

I have to say I'm sorry for jumping at neorichie on this one, since he's not the only person who has made that mistake. I still say "why would you believe that" but at least there's a reasonable reason for believing it / getting the terminology mixed up.