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[tedtropy]

Seriously, it seems everytime I manage to run into a 360 kiosk at a store, it's usually in a state of disrepair. Now I know some of this can be chalked up to the destructive power of caffienated children, poor setup, and the fact that the 360s have been out for a few months now, but I still see plenty of Gamecube, PS2, and XBox kiosks that are considerably older and still chugging along.

The 360 at my local Gamestop? Freezes at the initial demo menu.
The 360 at my local Wal-mart? Displays a nice rainbow effect on the LCD and little else.
The 360 at my local Target? Feezes at the initial demo menu.

Is this a system that just doesn't respond well to being left on in 24/7 situations? How are the 360 kiosks in your area holding up? I wonder if there's a broken 360 kiosk Google map up. Could be an interesting study.

 

[Vennt]

Someone needs to tell Allard that the kiosks require more... Vents

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I was playing a kiosk at Target when it broke down. I tried to boot up the King Kong demo and it was taking a while to load. After about a full minute I begin to think something was wrong. Sure enough, after taking a look at the console itself I found that the red lights of doom were showing. I was back two days later and it was still broken.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

I've only seen one operational kiosk in 3 months. Like the d-pad, how do you fuck up something that essential? Boggles.

 

[Frog]

The 360 at my local best buy wasn't working because the controller had been ripped out.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

A friend of mine who wrks at Best Buy says their demo is the most durable demo system he has ever seen. It has yet to break. He has been working there since 1997.

 

[human5892]

The one at my local Wal-Mart was also presumably broken (or if it was working, they didn't bother to turn it on).

 

[erikevrhrd]

The truth is ...they don't turn the kiosks on because they don't want a million people in the stores playing them. Especially since the systems are in high demand but short on supplies still for the next few weeks. Hopefully this will all change soon.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

The truth is ...they don't turn the kiosks on because they don't want a million people in the stores playing them. Especially since the systems are in high demand but short on supplies still for the next few weeks. Hopefully this will all change soon.

I was in Best Buy last night and saw a launch day-esque frenzy when consoles were brought out. One guy laughed because he was there buying Bambi II for his daughter and now was leaving with a 360. He had been watching someone play the COD2 demo when someone started bringing out the consoles. He told me he had to have one after "being tempted by that demo for the thousandth time".

 

[snacknuts]

I have yet to see one that isn't working properly.

 

[elostyle]

One I tried the analog stick didn't work and the second one gave me read errors.

 

[Bebpo]

I crashed an X360 with the CoD2 demo during the initial level load in a kiosk before launch. I just quietly walked away at that point ^^;

 

[Jewbacca]

My Kiosk has been on 24/7 since November 14th. =D

 

[LakeEarth]

The kiosk at my WalMart hasn't been taken passed the "choose your language" screen. :lol

 

[tedtropy]

The kiosk at my WalMart hasn't been taken passed the "choose your language" screen. :lol

As in it locks up there or nobody's bothered to play the thing?

 

[nicholasbrutal]

No kiosk issues here. I did however have a problem with the Xbox Experience disc, but that was quickly replaced. The system itself is holding up pretty well.

Wear and tear on the controllers and such is going to vary by area. Monsters and children get their hands on these things; I'm surprised they last a week in some cases. The PS2 kiosk I have has had it's rubber analog nubs peeled off, stopped reading blue back discs, and the screen has went to crap (note: Sony couldn't replace it with the same screen, as there's apparently a new kiosk being made to fit both the slim line PS2 and the PS3 in the near future). The PSP demo unit has had it's analog stolen at least once. My Gamecube demo unit has been acting kind of funky lately, deciding to inform me that there's no disc inside the system after it's been on and working fine all day.

The most durable demo units I've seen so far have been the Nintendo DS and the GBA SP. Those things were made to go through hell and back. Also, the Ngage units held up pretty well, but mostly because no one ever played them.

 

[Zombie James]

Someone needs to tell Allard that the kiosks require more... Vents

:lol

 

[Manick Joe]

Amen to the vents. At my Circuit City the console lasted all of 2 months (if even) before it produced the three red circles of death. Although CoD2 became unfufilling after I plowed through it for the 20th time and nothing else on there is worth playing. So it is not that big a loss for killing time on the sales floor.

 

[Tiger]

This is just further evidence of the frequency of the problems with this hardware. It's just so gosh darn fragile. Microsoft ought to be ashamed of their 90 day warranty. You can't help but think that they knew it was gonna be this problematic and thats the reason they went with 90 days instead of 1 year.

 

[Atari2600]

This is just further evidence of the frequency of the problems with this hardware. It's just so gosh darn fragile. Microsoft ought to be ashamed of their 90 day warranty. You can't help but think that they knew it was gonna be this problematic and thats the reason they went with 90 days instead of 1 year.

It's anectdotal evidence from a few people on a message board. It means very little. Most other electronics have the same warrany.

 

[JJConrad]

The kiosk at Best Buy doesn't read disc any longer. You can eject the tray through the menu and see that the disc is properly in the tray, but it won't read anything.

The controllers at both the 2 nearest Walmarts don't work.

The controller at the local Target use to not work, but it is now working.

 

[M3wThr33]

Didn't check it last time I was in the store, but before launch, my GameStop's kiosk had some funky render errors. Could have been programming bugs, though, not hardware failure.

 

[Kiriku]

Someone needs to tell Allard that the kiosks require more... Vents

Consider me a simple man if you like, but I find this comment even more amusing because of your username (even though, yes I know, it's not spelled exactly the same).

 

[TigerKnee]

:lol :lol

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

My demo in my gamestop store i manage freezes

 

[gamergirly]

That shouldnt surprise you. If the kiosk demos are cracking down, then so will the consoles. Play a little, take your choice :lol

 

[Tarazet]

I have yet to see one that isn't working properly.

Me either. Maybe some irate Nintendo fanboy read up on the 360's weaknesses and is going around sabotaging all of the systems in your area?