Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#61

Post by ChristianGeek » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #39

webkike wrote: post #27

I purchased a 360 a few days ago so that I could play Street Fighter 3: Third Strike with my friends from back home. It's a fine console, but I was worried about the prospects of Microsoft shutting down Xbox Live at some point.

> It's a fine console, but I was worried about the prospects of Microsoft shutting down Xbox Live at some point. Well, as long as they still need to run Xbox Live for the Xbox One, it's probably in their interest to provide the (relatively) small amount of work to keep it functioning with the Xbox 360. Plus, they charge for the service, so as long as Live makes them money (it does![1]), they are likely to keep it goi…

As long as the income is greater than the expenses for MS, they'll keep it running.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#62

Post by asimuvPR » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #56

asimuvPR wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

The living room is typically the biggest screen in people's homes, the screen they spend the most time with, and the screen they are the "fondest" for as it is the home for much of their entertainment. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to be at the center of that? Microsoft wants to "own" all of your screens, by being the friendly operating system and development tool provider for them, so of course the battle of the livin…

Yes, that's a good point, and I get that. But these days there are more smaller screens that they don't control because their mobile phone strategy was a huge failure. I would focus on controlling the smaller screens because that's where most entertainment and things happen.

Typing this from my android phone.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#63

Post by pdabbadabba » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #60

asimuvPR wrote: post #24

IMO, the amazing thing about the 360 was how they were able to successfully continue selling it in spite of having the ring of death issues[0]. I know people who would go and buy a new machine when theirs died without thinking about it twice. One even gave me their 360 when the ONE came out. Microsoft sure knows how to build brand loyalty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

Is that why they can bombard the entire UI with ads? Every single page has tons of ads, and MS misleadingly only notes one of them as "Advertisement" (autoplay video). I disconnected my Xbox360 from the Internet because it's faster that way, and cleaner. I see the Xbox One is pretty bad, too, and this "ads everywhere" has leaked into Windows 10 (though you can turn them off a bit).

> this "ads everywhere" has leaked into Windows 10 (though you can turn them off a bit).

Where? I've been using Windows 10 everyday for months and haven't seen an ad. There was that one time that something resembling a Tomb Raider ad was served to users' lock screens, but I never saw it myself and I've never seen anything else.

Maybe it depends on which version of Windows 10?

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#64

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

asimuvPR wrote: post #62

WorldMaker wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The living room is typically the biggest screen in people's homes, the screen they spend the most time with, and the screen they are the "fondest" for as it is the home for much of their entertainment. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to be at the center of that? Microsoft wants to "own" all of your screens, by being the friendly operating system and development tool provider for them, so of course the battle of the livin…

Yes, that's a good point, and I get that . But these days there are more smaller screens that they don't control because their mobile phone strategy was a huge failure. I would focus on controlling the smaller screens because that's where most entertainment and things happen. Typing this from my android phone .

I have so many opinions on this and could quickly devolve this into a long winded tangent, but the short answer is: Yes, there are many screens and Microsoft clearly has strategies for all the fronts, mobile included. Also, just because Microsoft is down, don't count them out just yet in the mobile screen front. Microsoft has the best leverage right now, of any company/platform, to turn wins on any screen into possible gains in all of them...

Microsoft Lumia owner and fan

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#65

Post by pdabbadabba » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

asimuvPR wrote: post #24

IMO, the amazing thing about the 360 was how they were able to successfully continue selling it in spite of having the ring of death issues[0]. I know people who would go and buy a new machine when theirs died without thinking about it twice. One even gave me their 360 when the ONE came out. Microsoft sure knows how to build brand loyalty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

For many, I think there was a pretty simple explanation: Halo. The hardware was a little iffy, but XBox has always had the mother of all console exclusives upon which to build their ecosystem. (Though the significance of the Halo franchise seems to have faded a bit in recent years.)

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#66

Post by developer2 » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

asimuvPR wrote: post #50

FussyZeus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a 360 owner, I think it had more to do with a really good selection of launch exclusive titles that kept people coming back. The original gen 1's were not of great quality at all, even beyond the RROD issues the console felt cheap and poorly made, the power supplies were insanely large and generated a ton of heat, etc. Microsoft sold the 360 with good exclusives, which is what Sony then did with the PS4 w…

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

I think the "aha!" moment for this is, today, still another 30-50 or even many more years away. I could ramble on for hours as to what I want the future to look like, but suffice it to say it really would be what we generally refer to now as the "automated home of the future". The largest obstacle right now is branding and current technology. Every individual company is vying to meet all your needs. Microsoft wants you to have a "Microsoft Home", Apple want you to live in your "Apple Home", Google the "Google Home", etc. This is not the future. The future, done right, requires seamless integration of all the devices we will own. To the point where we stop thinking of everything as even being a separate device. A single system that blissfully handles your entire home life.

The current situation is laughable. Existing devices in this space are designed as standalone items, which may or may not even be meant to integrate with other devices. The "standards" that have been brought to life thus far are... ugh. Just no!

I will be satisfied the day I can turn every wall into a touch display, with wireless speakers everywhere. Every lightbulb, every speaker, every appliance, every goddamn little thing seamlessly integrated into one beautiful system. No push-and-pull of different standards trying to fight for a place in my home. No separate apps on a stupid smartphone depending on what I want to control.

Microsoft's example with wanting to be the "home media center" is such an insignificantly tiny part of the whole puzzle. A TV and a set-top box gets me nothing of what I want for the future. They only have their eyes set on media consumption, what you will pay for to download and watch/play on their stupid service. It has nothing to do with actually being the center of your home, only the center of your living room spending habits.

I'm so disappointed with how slowly things are moving along. Computing is still in its infancy, and we haven't really advanced very far at all. We need a few true visionaries and inventors to come along and make things start to happen. So far, we've got nothing worthy of being called amazing.

tldr; I don't want a home media center. I want Jarvis dammit. Actually, I want more than Jarvis. And fuck 4K TV; I want to skip ahead to 1024K wall surfaces that you can look at with a fkn microscope and not tell the difference between a display and reality. ;)

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#67

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

justinlardinois wrote: post #19

Grazester wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which iteration? My roommate went through two of them due to the red ring of death.

The S and E models don't have that problem. I've heard some of the later chipsets for the original model also fixed the problem. From what I've heard, the 360 was original designed with an environmentally-friendly (read: not lead) solder that had never really been used in a major product. The original design already had heat problems and the solder turned out to be easily melted.

From my memory, it wasn't that they melted too easily, rather they developed stress fractures from thermal cycling. Perhaps due to brittleness relative to lead, or perhaps due to thermal incompatibility (expanding or contracting at the wrong rate)

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#68

Post by barbs » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 10:10 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #34

buckbova wrote: post #7

PS2 went on for 13 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2 > Sony finally announced that the PlayStation 2 had been discontinued after 13 years of production – one of the longest runs for a video game console.

Nintendo's Family Computer (aka the Nintendo Entertainment System in the rest of the world) was released in 1983 and only discontinued in Japan in 2003. Even after that they still repaired consoles until 2007.

Sega's 8-bit Master System console is still being sold in Brazil.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/brazil-is-a-video-game-...

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#69

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 10:15 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #56

asimuvPR wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

The living room is typically the biggest screen in people's homes, the screen they spend the most time with, and the screen they are the "fondest" for as it is the home for much of their entertainment. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to be at the center of that? Microsoft wants to "own" all of your screens, by being the friendly operating system and development tool provider for them, so of course the battle of the livin…

Is that really true? I would think that most people spend more time on their phones than watching TV.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#70

Post by asimuvPR » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #64

asimuvPR wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's a good point, and I get that . But these days there are more smaller screens that they don't control because their mobile phone strategy was a huge failure. I would focus on controlling the smaller screens because that's where most entertainment and things happen. Typing this from my android phone .

I have so many opinions on this and could quickly devolve this into a long winded tangent, but the short answer is: Yes, there are many screens and Microsoft clearly has strategies for all the fronts, mobile included. Also, just because Microsoft is down , don't count them out just yet in the mobile screen front. Microsoft has the best leverage right now, of any company/platform, to turn wins on any screen into possi…

I wanted a Windows phone. The GUI was so nice. But they sort of give up. Knowing MS, they are probably cooking something now that they are in the embrace stage of their business plan.