Disappointed In Quality Of Xbox 360 Options

[mrp04]

The original Xbox had great quality. It worked great and never broke down on me!
The 360 is something else. I have owned mine since launch and the actual system has been fine (amazingly!) but I have heard of many dieing.
My main problems with the 360 are the power supply and the controllers. My power supply died last week, the fan in it started making a weired noise and I didn't want to use it. Unfortunately, it is out of warranty so I had to get a new one.
The controllers are just HORRIBLE, or maybe I just have bad luck?
The wireless controller that came with my 360 had a horrible dpad, the down barely worked and had to be pressed hard. I later dropped it and ruined its right bumper (my fault) so I got a new one. This new one also has a horrible dpad, with the up being hard to press.
I bought a second wireless controller with my 360, and that one is not good either! The X button on it seems like someone has been using it for years (It came like that, I don't even use it much, its just a second controller for a guest). My main controllers never got this bad. It gets worse, this controller no longer can charge any battery (I have 2 official rechargeable batteries). It works with the play and charge and with AA batteries, but those run out too quickly and I don't want to make it a wired controler!
Also, the battery I had in it will no longer charge in any controller. So the battery in my main controller will charge in my main controller only. The other controller doesn't charge either batteries, and the second controllers battery will not charge in either controller. Something must have happened and ruined the recharge circuits in the controller and battery I guess.

The only parts of the 360 that have worked right with me are the wired controllers (I have 2 wired ones I got for free from the microsoft windows mobile training site) and the actual console itself.

Am I just really unlucky, or do many people have these problems? Are the new black controllers any better with the dpad?

[THDVL]

I went through like 7 wireless controllers before I got one that had a good dpad. I feel ya on that. I just kept taking em back and exchanging em till I got one that I was satisfied with. I like my 360, I have no probs with it at all. Just wish they would put out some better games. I'm totally not satisfied with the quality (graphics and gameplay) of most 360 games. With 60-70$ price tags they should be much better. I'm keepin my hopes up though.. Looks to be some nice ones commin out later this year.

This post has been edited by THDVL: Jun 11 2007, 09:06 AM

[grim_d]

out of the 4 pads i OWN, all 4 dpads work perfectly. True some of the older ones make a clicking sound where the pad hits off the plastic and it can be a little clumsy, but they work 100%

try some finger exercises.

I have a bad habit of throwing my controller on the floor when i get pissed at a game, never broke one, you must have just got unlucky.



This post has been edited by grim_d: Jun 11 2007, 10:55 AM

[nightmare84j28]

The d-pad on my controller is OK, i rarely use it though.

Sometimes i hit my controller (not hard) when i get beat on halo or something ( ) and it turns off

[360-Sagacious]

I don't think it's necessarily a quality problem. Most electronics have defective units some defects that don't show up until later. We hear out here through forums and press of all these 360's breaking but if you put in retrospect of the people an individual knows how many of those peoples 360 died. Some people know more than one but some none. My original Xbox died on me slightly over year later and a iPod I bought my girlfriend broke in year and a half later. But of the 22 people I know personally that owns a 360 not one had a defective one since launch. But someone else may know some one with a couple of defective 360 but a dozen of people they know who have,for example, defective iPods. With 10 million units out there o eve the units at launch you will find a good chunk of defective ones. Comes with the territory of buying electronics.

Cheers

[THDVL]

out of the 4 pads i OWN, all 4 dpads work perfectly. True some of the older ones make a clicking sound where the pad hits off the plastic and it can be a little clumsy, but they work 100%

try some finger exercises.

I have a bad habit of throwing my controller on the floor when i get pissed at a game, never broke one, you must have just got unlucky.

Finger exercises?? lol at that.

Thats not the issue. The dpads were totally jacked. Its like there was a small piece of plastic under the dpad that was outta place. I could give a rats ass about a clicking sound.. Would've been nice if that was the problem. The problem would occur when pushing right or down on the dpad. It would either do nothing at all and I would have to push it over and over again just to get it to do anything, or it would do the total opposite of what it was supposed to do when pushing right or down. Left and up were fine. Every controller I had a problem with was bought at walmart. Maybe they just had a bad shipment or something, but there was a problem. It was very frustrating while playing oblivion.. u know, hot keying the spells and navigating through the hundreds I had etc. The dpad gets used a hell of a lot in that game.

[spinr34]

i have 3 wireless controls. all of them are fine. the dpads aren't great but they work. dpad is same as the S control imo. maybe a little worse. but overall they are the best wireless controls i've used.

[twistedsymphony]

the d-pads blow...

I was convinced that they couldn't possibly make a d-pad worse than the S-Type but they proved me wrong.

I have 4 wireless controllers and all 4 have d-pad problems even the wired controller I used to have had d-pad problems

The problem with the early model d-pads is that the opening for the pad is too small and the pad is capable of moving around too much. What ends up happening is the pad will move off to one side and then when you push that direction it will hit the plastic shell of the controller before it registers the push. This results in you having to push really hard. you can temporarily fix it by pushing down on the whole d-pad evenly and re-centering it... but it will be broken again after about an hours worth of use.

A more permanent fix would be to take a Dremel (or even just some sandpaper) and widen the D-Pad opening to prevent the pad from hitting the shell not matter how much it moves around.


This doesn't fix the accuracy problem which is really what makes the MS pads suck (including last gen controllers and all their PC controllers). It's really a design issue and it's clear the controller wasn't really desgned with any mechanical engineers on the staff.

Basically the thicker and narrower the d-pad is, the less accurate it becomes. When I say "thick" I'm talking about the distance between your thumb and the circuit board inside the controller. when I say narrow, I'm talking about the diameter.

If you look at Nintendo and Sony's controller they're slightly smaller in diameter but their thickness is only 1/4 of the thickness of MS's pads. Sega used to have slighly thicker pads then Nintendo but they made up for them by using a much larger diameter. As a result Sega during the Genesis-Saturn days had some of the best d-pads. The Dreamcast went with a tall an narrow design and it ended up being just as bad as an MS controller.

The dpad on the 360 controller is about a whole inch thick... that's really massive and it's that thickness that makes it so when you push right you sometimes get right+up or right+down.

What they need to do is create a daughterboard for the d-pad sensors and mount it inside the case closer to your thumb... if they can reduce the thickness of the d-pad to as little as .25 inches it could be one of the best d-pads on the market.

[Sweeet]

M$ products have 'bad manufacturing' written all over them. It’s normally a ploy to force you to go out and spend more money on the faulty item in question. I.e. Only being designed to last a year.

As you may know, most products go through extensive stress testing before they're made live. M$ seems to leave it down to their customers to provide the results... It's no wonder they generate so much revenue with practises such as that. But the irony is that we still go out and buy their products... I feel so ashamed right now...

[mrp04]

This has been a while, but I fight back at MS by NOT buying new products. I just go to the store,but a new one of whatever I want, and return the broken one. I have done that once for my controller and once for my power supply (bought a core) now I am going to do it again for my new wireless controller problem. It is really annoying and stressing and I do not feel like wasting my money on their problems.

[q8_devil]

the controllers quality are very good
bu the system quality sucks because of the big noise and the Overheating problem
one of m friend get this 3 red light problem and he couldnt fix it
so he hate M$ and ended up with ps3

[debiruman]

i guess with every great system come great problem
with ps2 i ended up changing the laser every 3 months
i dont have 360 but i hears alot about the lack in manufacturing

[hamwbone]

This has been a while, but I fight back at MS by NOT buying new products. I just go to the store,but a new one of whatever I want, and return the broken one. I have done that once for my controller and once for my power supply (bought a core) now I am going to do it again for my new wireless controller problem. It is really annoying and stressing and I do not feel like wasting my money on their problems.

That sounds alot like fraud.

[esc1]

out of the 4 pads i OWN, all 4 dpads work perfectly. True some of the older ones make a clicking sound where the pad hits off the plastic and it can be a little clumsy, but they work 100%

try some finger exercises.

I have a bad habit of throwing my controller on the floor when i get pissed at a game, never broke one, you must have just got unlucky.

Thats good to know they fixed the issue. I need to buy a new controller soon. Thanks for the info.

[basso4735]

well i just bought my premium 360 last week and the wireless controller dpad blows just like twisted described. i have to push down really hard for it to work. good thing i dont have to use it much.