The Xbox 360 Was Probably the Best Engineered Video Game Console Ever

[danasider]

Zackasaurus-rex said:

Do you mean the WORST engineered console ever? I shudder at the thought of that absolutely insane hardware failure rate. That thing suffered from dozens of design flaws. The CPUs literally melted. The steel housing retained heat. The fans were chaotic. The disc drives were highly volatile due to cheap construction. I could go on and on with how dramatically cheap the thing is. That doesn't include other quality cuts. Examples: The controllers didn't connect via Bluetooth. Wi-fi wasn't included for ages (requiring a $100 add-on). The system stuck to old DVDs, despite predictable massive increases in game file sizes. The HDD is proprietary and expensive. The power supply is an ENORMOUS external brick.

The PS4 takes the simplicity of the  core 360 architecture, massively improves it, makes it even simpler while providing better dev tools, provides more flexibility for OS growth, and does so with an almost perfect record on build quality. Meanwhile, it is also better engineered into a small and sleek box, keeps the power supply internal, and allows for superior air flow. All while packing in essential features like Blu-ray; non-proprietary, swappable HDD support; Wi-fi; and Bluetooth. The PS3 had all of those things as well, though it has a confusing internal architecture (albeit with an ingenious CPU design) with far too few dev tools at launch.

I wouldn't say it's the worst engineered console ever, but I agree with all the other points you made. At the most, it is a very flawed system. I can't see someone thinking the console was the best engineered when just the RROD fiasco cost Microsoft billions.

Aside from the first sentence, I couldn't have said it better, myself.