"Why don't they toss the early chips that don't clock properly and tend to overheat? Money?"
Game consoles are different from desktops. They don't have speed grades, the ones that ship at introduction run at the same speed at the final units that roll off the line. If the teardowns are correct, Microsoft is losing anywhere between $30 and $150 per unit shipped, assuming minimal profits for the retailer.
Ahhhh.....they make no money on the consoles themselves, just the game software.
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QM3MM5SEGU0KSQSNDBCSKH0CJUMEKJVN?artic...
Microsoft is going to be desperate to cut their losses. With the CPU, followed by the graphics controller, being the highest cost items, overclocking of both is an obvious solution. Yeah, that means a certain percentage of the power supplies will need to be replaced, but that is a small cost in the face of beating Sony to market by many months. Consoles tend to have a rough launch because of the economics. Fortunately, their audience seems to be even more tolerant of failures than the typical computer user. Yes, it baffles me, but I don't expend a lot of energy arguing with reality. I tend to shun Microsoft and tend to use Linux because of this issue, but I don't mount any great campaigns on this...
It makes sense..........probably 60% of their audiences is teens who are more tolerant of life's screwups because they've experienced very few to date. Besides, ultimately they buy Xbox for the quality of MSFT's games; not for the console itself. |
