At EETimes.com they have a story about Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, and what he found out. It seems that the problem is the graphic chip that Microsoft designed on its own. Now why would a software company design there own graphic chip? To save millions. Of course in the end it cost them a lot more then they were tring to save but what the hell, good try.

But in the end, by going cheap–hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)

The best quote from Bryan Lewis is this.

When it was pointed out that Microsoft still has its own semiconductor technology group that is still designing various chips, Lewis responded, “How many ASICs per year does Microsoft design? Not many” compared to experienced ASIC/ASSIP vendors.

I still have not read about millions of PS3′s crashing.

I don’t buy that many games because of two reasons. One is that I hate to pay $60 just to play it once since I am not a big multiplayer person. The other is replay value. In order for me to buy a game new it has to have a good amount of replay value and that is one of the biggest reasons I love racing games. But this game, from the footage below, gave me some more reasons that I might buy this new.

First is the damage. Forza 2 had damage but not like this. Wheel flying off, parts going everywhere. Now thats cool. Another, and one I have been waiting for, is you can really roll your car. This something that you can’t do in PGR, Forza or Gran Turismo. Add to that open wheel cars and you got me hooked.

Just watch the video below. You looking forward to this?

So what you do is go to here and bookmark it. You should see a register page to win a trip to Xbox headquarters. When you fill in the info all you need is two characters for the screen name and password and put in some fake email address. Make sure the year in the DOB is before 1994. Now click submit.

On the next page it will ask for a access code. Just click on “I don’t have an access code” and it will give you one. Be sure to copy that somewhere because you will be using it a lot. Go back now and put in the access code it gave you. Below that is the crappy word verification. If you can’t read it just click below the image and get a new one. Once that is done click Lets Play.

On the next page its going to say that your not a winner but you really are. So you don’t go away mad after all that crap you have to type in they give you a 48-hour trial code. Copy it down and go back to the page that you bookmarked. Log out and go back to the bookmarked page again. Now just do it over to get another 48-hour trial code. Just change the user name and email address and keep using the access code from the first time. You can keep doing this over and over.

Ya, we get it Bungie. Halo 3 is about to be released. And like Gears of War it is going to be the best game ever. Problem is that I don’t care anymore. You have Master Chief everywhere. Its just a game. We buy it, we play it and then me more on. Look at BioShock. Pretty good game but I am done with it. Not going to play it again. Now for you multi player people this might just be the game your looking for.

And if your a Halo collecter, man you got your work cut out for you so let me help. You can get the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Headset. Its green. Maybe the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Brute or the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Spartan. By the way they are $20 then the normal wireless controller. Better yet you can your the Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller on your Special Edition Xbox 360™ Halo 3 Console. Its green too. And when your not using all your special Xbox 360 stuff you can use your Special Edition Halo Zune. Rock out to the sounds of Halo when reading all the Halo news with the Halo 3 RSS Reader and drinking your special Halo Mountain Dew.

Its not that I don’t want to play Halo 3 because I do. My point is that you don’t need to do all this needless ads. This is the Medal Gear Solid for Xbox. You could of cut the ads by 3/4 and still have it be the huge hit its going to be. The thing that I am looking forward to seeing is if its going to be as good as say BioShock. Its been hyped more that anything be is it going to pay off. Let me say this now, just because you sold more copy’s that any other game in no way means that it way a good game.

The part that sucks the most is that I was ready to pay the $60 for the game, something that I never do for a single player game, and nobody has it. I even went into a place I hate (Blockbuster) to see if it was there and of course it wasn’t. But the good part is that since I can’t find it I just saved $60 because now I will just wait till I can rent it for a few days and it will only cost me $5. On the other hand I am still going to spend the $60 when The Orange Box comes out.

I check out Major Nelson’s podcast last night were he had an interview with Ken Levine, Creative Director of Irrational Games, creators of BioShock. He describes the demo as something of a directors cut were you start at the beginning of the game. You just lived through a plane crash and there just one tall building for you to swim to. From there everything pretty much is trying to kill you but the guy your talking to on a radio. Hes trying to get you to help him save his wife and kid.

The thing that really got me was the level of detail all over. From the 50′s posters and rugs to the music that plays almost everywhere. The architecture fells right. The lighting fells right. To me it just felt like everything comes together just right. The only thing that I didn’t like was the guy on the radio. My 360 is setup with optical out so I have 5.1 but for some reason he was really hard to understand at times. I don’t know if thats the way it is for everyone or just my setup. Other than that I can’t wait to check out more of Rapture.

The cooler fan’s maximum wind speed was 1.1 m/s, only 1/2 to 1/3 compared with general desktop PCs. It may be partly because the fan rotation was reduced to lower noise. According to an expert’s analysis, “The amount of switched air is slightly in short considering the chassis’ size (309 x 258 x 83 mm3).”

“The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board,” our expert said.

Microsoft apparently had no choice but to downsize the graphics LSI heat sink in order to locate a DVD drive above it. The DVD drive’s bottom surface covers the top of the heat sink and forms an air channel.

In only five minutes since we started playing the game, the temperature of the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 70°C (158°F). The thermal gradient was about 10°C/min (50°F).

In 15 minutes, the microprocessor heat sink temperature stabilized at 58°C (136.4°F), but the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 80°C (176°F), 57°C (134.6°F) above the room temperature.

You should go to there site and read it but in short the design sucks. But I am still playing with it.

Another thing is that they didn’t fix my system. They just gave me a new one. How does that work? I would understand if the manufacturer’s date on the one I got back was a month old or something around there but it wasn’t. It was four months older then the one I sent in. So there not fixing the problem, there just replacing systems with new system that could still give you the red rings. And if your just going to replace them why should the old one be sent in and wait a month to get a new one? Why not work a deal with a store so people could just bring there broke one in and get a new one.

Overall they are not fixing the problem. There trying to control bad P.R. and if I get another set of red rings I might just break down a go with a PS3. Which is sad because up to this point I really liked my 360. Now it fells like I am just waiting for it to break.