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Sunday, May 2, 2010

360 Meltdown


Planned Obsolescence
I am choosing one of the biggest and most notable electronic devices known by the consumer today that fails frequently, the Xbox 360.  The Xbox 360 is a console used to play game, listen to music, watch videos, and stream the net.  This is a well known device amongst kids, teens and even adults. Even with their ups and down this system is still being purchased today and enjoyed by many.
The Xbox 360 was released in the United States on November 16th 2005 and on that date many did not expect the situations they would be encountering. Personally I have had three different Xbox consoles experience problems in the past and have had to get them fixed. In an Interview from a source that worked at Microsoft they said that the failure rate for an Xbox 360 console is at our around 30%. That to me is outrageous being as the 360 console has been in production for five years now and they haven’t changed the problem. This without a doubt is planned obsolescence because they probably knew while producing this console that this could happen and kept it that way to make more money. IT is also said that not only does the console fail on its own that even certain games can accelerate your consoles failure. That to me is a partnership that the console company and gaming company made together to what again, make more money.
Evan Kinto

1 comment:

  1. Evan
    This is a very interesting information, I am a big fan of the Xbox 360 and never knew that they had this high rate of failure.
    I would believe that this might be as you suggested an intentionally step made by Microsoft. However, they probably were not expecting such a rate of failure, since this step would lead them to loss costumer loyalty, and most importantly market share.

    Yousef Alomran

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