Xboxian360

@FrenchVaniIIuxe The console gets nowhere near hot enough to melt solder.

High lead solder melts at 350C
Lead Free at about 250C.

The reason why something like the towel trick sometimes worked because the underfill would soften on the GPU and temporarily restore the cracked solder bumps.

@FrenchVaniIIuxe
Solder was not the issue. The issue was that early consoles shipped with defective GPUs that contained low tg underfill. The GPU's normal operating temps (low to high 70C) were above what the underfill could handle (which was a max of 70C) before it would soften and not support the solder bumps (which were high lead) and over time, with enough usage (thermal cycles), those solder bumps would crack and the GPU would prematurely fail. This also affected early PS3s and PC graphics cards.

Microsoft solved the issue by releasing fixed GPUs that used the correct underfill at around the 12th week of 2008. Any original model that was manufactured or was serviced in Q2 of 2008 and later will be very robust.

I will be plugging in all my 360s in and power em' up!

Best console ever made in my opinion.

I miss that era of Xbox.

Satiya destroyed the brand before the 25th anniversary.

You do not put your biggest differentiator (Halo) on the competing platform.

I feel slapped in the face for being a long time Xbox fan.

They need to start all over and make it more like the games actually are instead of disrespecting the original material and making a garbage show.

Hopefully the physical version contains the whole campaign on disc!!

I might grab a copy when it releases!

Reasons to stay and care about Xbox. Idk, the worst move they could do is Halo on PS which would be the death of Xbox consoles -at least to me

Xbox on PC is much better than just Xbox PC in my opinion.

Well that is great to hear. Wish more of their games shipped complete on a disc or two. Gears of War E Day better be in its entirety on a disc or 2. Same goes for the next Forza and Fable. I don't care how many discs it takes as long as I can install and play a game while being completely offline.

It was also proven wrong by Xenia

would be disappointing to see 2026 be the last year of the Series consoles. Feel like I did not get a lot out of my Series X.

If they want next gen to be a success, they need to pull an Xbox 360 and go guns blazing with exclusive games.

They will not be getting my money then.

Reasons to make me stay on Xbox.

@Kaloudz Xbox now is nowhere near as strong as it was during the 360 generation. Far from it.

Eh, at this point I have lost interest in playing the game

@BacklogBrad You're framing this like Xbox always being weak on exclusives justifies throwing in the towel. That’s not evolution—that’s capitulation. The last two years finally gave Xbox real momentum with 1st party content, and instead of using that to strengthen their platform, they’re giving it away. That’s not growth. That’s losing your identity.

Yeah, more Xbox branded devices might exist, but what good are they if there's no compelling reason to own one? If your top games are playable day one on PlayStation, PC, and cloud, then the "Xbox console" becomes irrelevant. It’s just a glorified Game Pass dongle. Brand presence means nothing without platform value.

Nintendo and Steam aren’t competing with Sony in the same space. Nintendo does its own thing, and Steam’s not even in the living room yet. That hypothetical "Steam home console" you're banking on doesn’t exist—and until it does, Sony does dominate the traditional console market. If Xbox backs out of that fight, Sony basically owns the living room.

This isn’t about redefining the industry—it’s about one of the few remaining competitors pulling their punches in the name of short-term revenue. That’s dangerous. We’ve already seen what happens when a market loses meaningful competition—prices go up, quality stagnates, and the consumer loses.

Exclusives are a pain sometimes, sure—but they drive innovation, platform identity, and actual competition. Without them, it’s just a homogenized content dump with no stakes. If you think that’s better for the industry, you’re not thinking long-term.

@BacklogBrad This whole multiplatform strategy might make sense on paper for short-term profits, but it’s killing the Xbox brand and its hardware. If all the major Xbox titles are going to show up on PlayStation anyway, why would anyone bother buying an Xbox?

They're erasing the one real reason to stay in their ecosystem: exclusives. Without that, Xbox becomes just a less popular PC alternative with a subscription service. And once people stop buying the consoles, the platform loses relevance fast and the consoles get discontinued.

In the long run, this doesn’t just hurt Xbox—it hurts the entire industry. Without a strong Xbox competing head-to-head with PlayStation, we’re heading straight into a Sony monopoly. And that means less innovation, fewer consumer choices, and a stagnating console market.

@BacklogBrad How is less competition "better" for the industry?

This might be the event where they basically announce the death of Xbox consoles and reasons to get one. IYKYK

sad to see Xbox fall to such a low point tbh

Wish it didn't happen tbh. We would have way more compelling reasons to buy an Xbox than we do now.

I have yet to play this game lol. I still have many games in my backlog that I need to play, so I will eventually grab a physical copy.

No. My excitement has died down with the new multiplatform strategy. I will still watch it regardless, but I have no expectations.

When Xbox was at its strongest, and when they cared about the console and wanted to beat Sony which they were very close to doing. They were serious about competing, largely thanks to Peter Moore who lead Xbox much better than Phil Spencer has.

Now Xbox is a shell of its former self.

Shame there will never be another era of Xbox like this one.

Gears of War 2 for sure. I was glued to the screen playing the campaign.

Was very disappointed to hear about this. I am not sure if I will buy a copy.

@Kaloudz I don't really see any "good news" for us Xbox fans.

Sure, lot of games are coming out, but we are being given less and less reasons to invest into a future Xbox console. What would be the point of getting one if most or all future games are also released on PlayStation?

I am not confident in the future of the Xbox consoles.

I grew up with Xbox. It wasn’t just a console—it was my platform, my gaming home. And yeah, I stayed with Xbox not just out of habit, but because of what made it special: the exclusives. Halo, Forza, Gears of War—these games weren’t just titles, they were reasons to buy into the Xbox brand.

Now that Gears is coming to PlayStation, it feels like that identity is slipping away. I’m not mad that more people get to play great games. I’m mad that the people who chose Xbox—who stuck with it through almost every generation—are now being made to feel like an afterthought.

I spent my hard-earned money on a brand new Series X after 2 months of saving with one of the reasons being the exclusives that were promised. If everything is going to be everywhere, then what was the point of buying the console?

I feel disappointed, I feel disrespected—and most of all, I feel like Xbox forgot who built this community in the first place.

Yikes yikes yikes. Xbox shot themselves in the foot again. They're trying to sell consoles yet made them a good advertisement to buy a PS5....

Glad I bought my Series X back in late 2022 at its original MSRP of £450

I mean it made sense for Indiana Jones to be multiplatform due to it being such a big IP but Xbox should at least keep its core franchises exclusive, that of course being Halo, Forza, Gears, Fable.

The exclusives are one of the bigger reasons why I stayed on Xbox instead of switching to PlayStation at the start of this generation. I grew up with Forza, Halo and Gears. I was excited to play Forza Horizon 5 at higher fidelity on my Series X, especially coming from the One X and be able to play at a buttery smooth 60fps. So to see it now on PlayStation—and looking better on the Pro—is frustrating. As a customer, it feels like I invested in the platform for the premium experience, only for that same experience to show up on a competitor’s console and actually outperform it.

@Titntin I agree with you.

I care about the console. Xbox to me is nothing but the console. It is what I grew up with. 360 was my first and favourite console and I have many great memories and I have too many of them lol.

I'll never get people cheering for less competition (which is what many people are literally doing by cheering for Microsoft's 3rd party move), I tried warning them that this is only going to badly hurt the industry and us consumers, but I immediately get dismissed and crapped on for having an "outdated" mindset.

Competition benefits all of us and that means exclusives must stay to keep a competitive and healthy industry and maintain product quality.

With this strategy they're going to kill all value and point in buying a future Xbox console (for me at least to an extent).

Before you tell me "But Gamepass!", I couldn't care less about it. I only get it once in a while to either grab a perk for a game or try out a game that I am interested in and it happens to be on Gamepass. Plus I don't have enough time to use Gamepass to its full extent so it is a waste of money for me.

It is sad to see Xbox in this state that it is, shame that we will never see the same heights of the brand like it was with the 360 where they were serious about competing and being the best place to play games. It was the first and last time they shook Sony to their core and made them get their sh*t together.