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What is the biggest manufacturing blunder in video game history?
- Thread starter Sulik2
- Start date
SpinningBirdKick
Banned
Red Ring of Death.
Nothing else comes close.
Nothing else comes close.
KillerMan91
Member
While PS3 was not biggest manufacturing blunder in history it was biggest engineering blunder in history. $599 price tag and still taking over $200 hit per sold console. At the same time X360 costed $399 was sold with small loss and was pretty much equally powerful.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
It was a wierd generation.
Combat Wombat
Banned
Woops, thanks for the correction. Still a ridiculously stupid decision on Sega's part.
TheSecondSpitter
Member
Which was good enough for 3rd place?
applesaucejaxon
Member
Has to be RROD.
I alone had 2 systems that ringed within 4 months of each other.
I alone had 2 systems that ringed within 4 months of each other.
Captain Tuttle
Member
This and RROD, both were disasters
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Peroroncino
Member
Definitely RROD, up until 2009 ~25% of Xboxes were affected.
Yet xbox one will never reach that number.
85m is nothing to sneeze at for a console even if 3rd place.
hydrophilic attack
Member
launch ps2 DRE
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Shows how stupid gamers are, you mean.
That fiasco would have been a killing blow in any other industry.
The Diddy Kong disc is blowing my mind. Why? Why?
It wasn't just Microsoft. The yellow light error on PS3 was caused by the same problem with lead free solder. All consumer electronics in the 2004-2008 range had horrible failure rates. Laptops were hit even harder then Xbox. Manufacturers hadn't figured out how to work with new solder properly yet. It didn't kill any company that had the issue.
Microsoft survived it because they had the best console that gen and did a bang up job with warranty coverage. Sony would have taken a much larger hit for all the yellow light failures if the red ring had not overshadowed it.
It wasn't just Microsoft. The yellow light error on PS3 was caused by the same problem with lead free solder. All consumer electronics in the 2004-2008 range had horrible failure rates. Laptops were hit even harder then Xbox. Manufacturers hadn't figured out how to work with new solder properly yet. It didn't kill any company that had the issue.
Microsoft survived it because they had the best console that gen and did a bang up job with warranty coverage. Sony would have taken a much larger hit for all the yellow light failures if the red ring had not overshadowed it.
Calamari41
41 > 38
The relatively lackluster production of Wii hardware at launch can't really be called a blunder, since the whole thing was such a gamble and it was too late to ramp up by the time it was apparent that it would be a hit. But man, the hype was so palpable across all demographics that year, it felt like they could have sold one to everybody if they had the stock.
FallingSputnik
Member
This, although we're going to get people trying to convince you otherwise.
I would put forth: the failed to launch SNES CD. The fallout over it, gave rise to the Playstation brand, AND Nintendo's stubborn stance of using carts for the 64. Both of these factors caused a massive shift in the industry... not in Nintendo's favor. Ninty lost their crown over it.
anothertech
Member
Kinect 2 and their billions in R&D
Mr. Poolman
Member
Goddammit! Now I want this monstrosity.
In terms of scale, RRoD was a massive disaster, but it was a disaster Microsoft could and did survive. THQ gambled by putting all of their eggs into uDraw tablet production and its failure killed the company, so I think that gives it the edge over RRoD.
On a personal note, I specifically avoided the 360 after being an OG Xbox owner for years until I got confirmation of the Jasper mobo's improvements, some 3+ years after launch because I would absolutely not touch a 360 because of the RRoD issues.
On a personal note, I specifically avoided the 360 after being an OG Xbox owner for years until I got confirmation of the Jasper mobo's improvements, some 3+ years after launch because I would absolutely not touch a 360 because of the RRoD issues.
Jubenhimer
Member
I don't think anything can top the RRoD fiasco. It's so synonymous with the 360 at this point, you can't talk about the console without bringing it up.
I don't see how the classic limited edition consoles are manufacturing blunders? There's nothing wrong with the systems manufacturing... and as far as the number produced, it's a choice made in their board room to produce a certain amount. It sucks for the consumer but it achieves a very specific goal and does so beautifully.
But if we're expanding the definition of manufacturing blunders to stuff like that... The switch has that beat by far. That's their future and they fucked up by not looking to the possibility of their console being a hit. It's going to affect the life of a whole console, not just one time sales of a special edition classic console meant to drive interest and sales of current software and hardware.
RROD is where my vote goes. Literally the reason I never owned a 360 until a friend gave me their old one last year.
But if we're expanding the definition of manufacturing blunders to stuff like that... The switch has that beat by far. That's their future and they fucked up by not looking to the possibility of their console being a hit. It's going to affect the life of a whole console, not just one time sales of a special edition classic console meant to drive interest and sales of current software and hardware.
RROD is where my vote goes. Literally the reason I never owned a 360 until a friend gave me their old one last year.
CosmicQueso
Member
ET put the industry back years. It was a disaster for the entire industry.
Nothing really compares to the impact of that. Certainly not rrod. And udraw was devastating to THQ but the rest of the industry shrugged it off.
Nothing really compares to the impact of that. Certainly not rrod. And udraw was devastating to THQ but the rest of the industry shrugged it off.
malboroking
Banned
That's a good way to damage a disc drive.
Wow, that's a thing. That's awesome. Gives more value to having this soundtrack. That's the reason why Darkmoon Cavern is not included!
Believe it or not, it will still work in your CD player. How it works is that the recording portion of the CD is cut off and is only large enough to hold all of the audio data. I've seen CDs where the recording portion is only the one song on the CD (a CD single of course) and the rest was transparent plastic. There's also "cd business cards" see:
And there's also this:
You can't damage a disc drive with that. The outer parts are just as big as a normal CD.
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On topic, imo, the only real blunders that come to mind was the RRoD for the 360 and it was really horrible. I know my friend was victim of it.
malboroking
Banned
2008 hinge-gate?
My hinge broke on my DS Lite, but it took longer than 1.5 years, and it was used quite heavily. I think it survived 5 years before it's hinge broke. I was also like the only person on Earth who's GameCube stopped working with DREs less than a year after I bought it lol. Luckily they were dirt cheap so I just bought another one. My OG PS2 dies with DREs after about a year and a half. I had bad luck that gen.
Imp the Dimp
Member
Is there a single 2005 Xbox 360 alive still? One that hasn't been repaired that is.
immortald3ath
Member
RROD & $599 USD
malboroking
Banned
Technically this is software related but it's too funny not to mention. A while back there was a patch for EvE online, but they mistakenly put the incorrect installation pathway for the patch and it ended up writing over an important system folder and borked your machine. If I remember correctly it erased your boot.ini sole or something and you had to reinstall Windows. Not as costly as RROD or anything like that but still pretty egregious.
Shil Pencer
Member
1) PlayStation 1 lasers were absolute crap
2) PlayStation 2 so were also crap. Blue discs never worked
3) RROD
2) PlayStation 2 so were also crap. Blue discs never worked
3) RROD
mine's still kickin. though you have to bang on it from time to time to get the disc tray to work
holy shit i remember this
Lightning_Roller
Banned
Both of these. I'm still befuddled about how a tablet destroyed THQ. Just incredible.....
malboroking
Banned
r/hailcorporate is leaking into GAF.
I remember having to keep my PlayStation on its side just to get it to work. Someone told me they kept their console upside down but I never saw that personally.
rainking187
Member
How many copies of NBA Elite 11 did they end up scrapping?