Guys, seriously. 2003 was obviously a typo. He obviously meant to type 2005.

Their are an awful lot of NES systems that are broken. The connector pins get bent and you have to replace them takes about $15 and 20-30 mins worth of simple work.

Also it is perfectly safe to blow into a cartrige, clean it with rubbing alcohol or air duster. I do it all the time when I buy carts from yard sales.

One time I was cleaning the carpet and moved all my stuff onto the back porch. Low and behold my copy of Metal Gear didn't make it back in the house. About three months later I found it underneath the porch in two inches of mud after it had rained, snowed, and sustained sub 0 C temperatures for a couple weeks. To my amazement I cleaned it up (I took the cart apart with my game tool) with air duster and alcohol tested it in my top-loader and by god it started right up. No joke. The Cartriages themselves are practically indestructible.

d21lewis said: Re-reading the original post, ferret1603 had a broken XBOX 360 back in 2003! Amazing!

 Er, I've never owned a 360 and never said I had...

 So the guy made a typo, big deal.

twesterm said: ferret1603 said: http://deeko.com/readfeature.asp?id=111   Since it was released in late 2005, I've managed to work my way through four Xbox 360 consoles. I'm hardly negligent with them; they simply met with fates that were out of my control. The first unit, for example, had to be sent back to Microsoft in December of 2003 due to a problem with the GPU and artifact issues. This Xbox lasted me quite some time and I ended up selling it to a friend so that I could purchase and Elite. I transferred all of my data from my old hard drive to the new 120gig drive and went on my merry way (though this time I purchased the product replacement plan through Gamestop, you know, just in case a problem were to occur). Less than a month after I made my glorious purchase, the unit decided it didn't want to function anymore. Every attempt I made to turn the unit on was met with an eerie silence that indicated, to me, that the unit was, in fact, a corpse. Fortunately for me, I had that product replacement plan and within a day I had my third Xbox 360 unit sitting bright and shiny on my entertainment center for me to play with. Again, I bought the PRP from Gamestop, but I was sure that this time nothing would happen, that somehow this unit had been blessed by the quality assurance fairies and it would never break. That's where I stopped reading.

Because a simple typo is more than enough to discredit anyone who would dare bash the precious Xbox 360.

twesterm said: smbu2000 said: Sky Render said: The fail rate on Nintendo products tends to be a lot lower than their competition, so I wouldn't worry too much. Heck, my NES, original Game Boy, and GBC all still work perfectly, years after purchase. And as mentioned, their repair policies are top-notch. They will transfer your system ID to a new system if your own breaks down and cannot be repaired. Just don't go buying a new system if it breaks down; send in your existing one instead. I'm certain they don't have a policy of charging excessive amounts to repair or replace the system (unlike MS; my younger brother told me he had to pay $100 to get his 360 fixed, since his console had a different issue than the common "red ring of death"). Your NES still works fine? Damn, I've had 2 of them and they're both messed up. If I blow in the system/cartridge for like 10min, then it MAY start up. The NES was terrible in its quality. The SNES was soooo much better. I've never had a problem with that. Original GB still works too :) Actually, the fact the NES still works (and even mine still works pretty well-- though I do occasionally have to blow in the cartridge) is a testament to how well it was built. One of the many reasons cartridge systems suck is because they easily break or wear down and the fact so many NES's still work just shows that they were actually pretty well built.

Yours is only the second NES i've ever heard of breaking, and the other one broke like last year because something in the NES naturally corroded for being used for too long. I had a "friend" who had thrown his NES twice when he lost in tecmo superbowl and it still worked. No surprise that mine still works though as my Atari and Balley Astrocade still work, all my systems still work aside from the 3 PS2s i had to cycle through.

twesterm said: One of the many reasons cartridge systems suck is because they easily break or wear down and the fact so many NES's still work just shows that they were actually pretty well built.

 

That simply isn't true. Cartridge systems are much more reliable than those that use optical media. My megadrive still works (although the pads don't) and I know someone with a 2600 that works perfectly, and that got a LOT of use back in the day. Most of the problems with the PS1&2 were down to the lasers.

More powerful systems also tend to have higher failure rates (and no amount of anecdotal evidence about PS2 failure rates will change that!) 

d21lewis said: You think that's bad? I read in EGM that if something happens to your Wii, that's that. No re-downloading or anything. That's why I prefer hard copies to downloads........but I can't stop downloading. It's addictive!

Oh yeah EGM and they're trustworthy of course. Not true, if your console will die on you, you'll have the right to re-download everything just once on your new console.

Edit: bit of a late reaction: 4 Xbox 360's dead in less than 3 years???!! That's insane!!!

Played_Out said: twesterm said: One of the many reasons cartridge systems suck is because they easily break or wear down and the fact so many NES's still work just shows that they were actually pretty well built. That simply isn't true. Cartridge systems are much more reliable than those that use optical media. My megadrive still works (although the pads don't) and I know someone with a 2600 that works perfectly, and that got a LOT of use back in the day. Most of the problems with the PS1&2 were down to the lasers. More powerful systems also tend to have higher failure rates (and no amount of anecdotal evidence about PS2 failure rates will change that!)

 Wow, so since you and your friend both have a catridge system that works that means they're reliable!?  You sure fooled me.  My PS1 and my friends PS1 still works so that disproves your theory right there.

Sorry, but cartridge systems are expensive and are just bad.  

Idem TVwesterm, my PS1 is over 10 years old and still works fine, my first PS2 is over 6 years old and still works perfect. It really depends on how you handle your consoles.

Unless... its hardware is simply bad manufactured to begin with, like with the 360 apparently. 

Cartridge based systems have no moving parts. It's all solid state, that's an inherent reliability boost right there. Also, it's harder for the data on a cartridge to get lost, as opposed to optical media which can scratch.

Cartridges have shitty data storage, though. Optical media all the way.