I'm positive that Microsoft is trying to EEE home repairs, I'm just not sure how.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Yeah, I have a very hard time trusting Microsoft.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Each controller has top cases and button replacement sets in black and white, plus the two inner circuit boards that provide charging, input, vibration, and, of course, sockets with new potentiometers installed to fix stick drift.
The Elite Series 2 requires a plastic pry tool (aka spudger), a T6 and T8 screwdriver, and tweezers.
"Always push away from yourself when using pry tools, so if you slip you won't harm yourself" is advice I have refused to accept a number of times.
Repair store iFixit sells most of the same parts, including some individual components, like joystick modules, for those with a solder iron and the will to use it.
The company's pivot to offer more at-home service options also comes a few years after it closed its retail stores.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Oh really? Every SSD has an end date, you can't overwrite them. Yet Microsoft has a special (encrypted) partition in the internal XBOX that has to match the main board. Because of this, you can't simply open it and swap the drive. In many cases, cloning the partition has failed necessitating sending the entire thing to Microsoft to fix (for a fee).
How's that for Right To Repair...
I see where you are going with this... But let's be clear this is not an attempt by them to make you fail at fixing it, but an attempt to avoid manipulations for jailbreaking/bypassing it's security and block piracy attempts. That said yes, that has consequences for the repairability. And that maybe, I am not expert, there might be better ways to handle this.
Thank you for your response. I get what you're saying but no matter what your stance on piracy is, it's gonna happen. Absolutely inevitable. If (but mostly when) that encrypted partition is broken, they will load up a new 4TB SSD loaded with games they didn't pay for, add the encrypted partition, pop it in their Xbox Series X, and they're off to the races!
But in the meantime, absolutely everyone suffers. Anyone who has an SSD fail (remember: they have limited write cycles!) will pay the price in lost saves and time/money spent sending it to Microsoft. And after the encryption is defeated? Then only legitimate Xbox gamers who pay for their games will be hurt by this. And keep in mind it also adversely affects the less technologically-skilled people more.
So in summary, yes; I absolutely will blame Microsoft for implementing a measure that will only slightly slow down piracy attempts while permanently punishing and inconveniencing everyone else...
I get what you're saying but no matter what your stance on piracy is, it's gonna happen.
Except..... It didn't. Obviously they know what they're doing because Xbox one has never been broken and is about to be retired. First console that could ever make that claim.
Most ssd write cycles are massively high and a console isn't writing that heavily anyways.
I hope to see a bigger push across all tech for this. We can't possibly do better in the fight to improve the climate if we keep using gadgets that have to be replaced every two years.
Will they also move towards cheaper quality products now that they are more self repairable?
With how quickly my elite series 2 fell apart, I’m not sure they can get any cheaper.
Okay so I'm not alone lol. On number 3!
Damn the parts are super expensive too. Almost not even worth it. If you're gonna do repair parts Microsoft at least do it right..
Fuck that dude how else are they gonna buy their tickets to go live on the new planet when this one shits out 😜
3rd party markets are always around though
My Xbox one just started throwing weird errors and logging me out of Netflix. I'm about to give up on the thing.
Xbox controllers go on sale frequently but I doubt these parts will. It makes repair a hard proposition when a new controller is 10-20 dollars more than the replacements. Perhaps this is by design.
With windows "365" on the way, celebration now would be pretty damn ironic.