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Guitar Hero 2 whammy bar patch breaks Xbox 360s

destructoid.com — Apparently the just release patch to fix the wonky whammy bar in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero 2 has introduced a large number of repetitive crashes to the people who have installed it. The only solution so far seems to be to RMA the system to Microsoft.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 15, 2007

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  • metacoola, on 10/12/2007, -10/+36Why does ***** like this always happen on xbox? Not bashing the system, but the companies should have the game near perfect when its out, and when/if they patch it, it should at least work. The same happened with oblivion, a good game, but the glitchiest one ive ever played.
  • Zoids, on 10/12/2007, -10/+34@knodi

    I've not heard of any PS3s bricking whilst updating. Link please?
  • longhair, on 10/12/2007, -7/+27Did they charge $6.25 for the patch like the song packs?
  • autocrawler, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28While I know this will likely get me dugg down, I should say that is why I dislike console gaming so much. Maybe PC games typically need more patching, and are generally more buggy than their console counterparts, but I honestly can't remember even a single case of PC game patches that could render your hardware inoperable.
    Just saying.
  • TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Wait a minute. Why is everyone slamming Microsoft for a Red Octane created patch?

    You people make me sick.
  • mdaize, on 10/12/2007, -20/+36The ps3 updates have not bricked alot of ps3's....

    as far as xbox 360, they released the 360 without really doing alot of testing in the first place...
    when ever you port a game theres always going to be quirks

    microsoft + xbox-related-products seem to like to go out without any testing as they say, they can patch it...
  • thejesus2000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18The whammy-bar on my guitar is still wonky, post-patch. The patch neither bricked my xbox, nor fixed my guitar.
  • GregoryHarbin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Both my guitars worked fine before the patch, and everything's still working fine after the patch. I've never had any sort of problem with my 360.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15My controller worked fine before the update, but it's the one that's supposed to work fine (all accessory jacks are on the side of the guitar, none are on the bottom). I had the update install and... nothing changed. Everything works fine. I'm not saying people aren't having problems, but I'm sure I'm in the majority here. Frankly, at this point I'm still more concerned about the ridiculously high price of downloadable songs than these crashes. Either way, Red Octane ***** up badly with this game, and they deserve all this backlash from the fans one way or another.

    For the record, my console is one of the earlier ones with the louder DVD drive (manufactured in October 2006). So far I have had zero problems with it, or anything else really. However, at this point I am starting to wonder just what might end up breaking things, since it seems more like an unfortunate inevitability than anything else. Or at least that's what all the news reports like this one lead me to believe.

    Just as a precausion, every couple of hours after playing games I touch my console to feel how hot it is. When it seems to be getting too hot, I just shut it off and let it rest for half an hour while I do something else (or just go out to the dashboard and look around the Live Marketplace while it cools down).

    It should be noted that, for some strange reason, Guitar Hero II tends to cause the Xbox 360 to run hotter than most graphically-intensive games. In fact, it often approaches heat levels of Gears of War. I don't think Red Octane optimized their code too well when they ported it to this system. I also think that overheated consoles are probably the biggest reason Xbox 360s start having problems.
  • Zoids, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I play "real guitar," in fact, I play "real guitar" in a band. However, I still play Guitar Hero because it's fun to play.
  • CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9What's the point of a console that glitches worse than a PC.
  • taintedzodiac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"Thank God Nintendo is still around. Otherwise I would give up on consoles."

    The Wii firmware is patched almost monthly, and the ability to patch games is there, as well. We just haven't seen a major patch for a major game yet.

    My Wii temporarily bricked itself after one of the updates. A couple of power cycles fixed the problem and it's been fine ever since.
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Software can brick your system.

    The first machine I heard of that could be bricked with SW was the Tandy Model 100 (portable) about 25 years ago.

    Hardware has become more and more dependent on software controlling it correctly as the years have gone by.

    One way is a software error could make the unit just refuse to boot. In this case, your hardware isn't technically wrecked, but your machine is bricked anyway.
    Another way is the software that controls the power supply can turn it up too high or make other settings that actually destroy the hardware. It is very common for software to control the power supply now, just ask anyone who turned up the voltage to their RAM in their BIOS so that they can run it faster.

    So once software can brick a unit, it is always possible that a software bug in a game (or whatever) could be the thing the triggers it, even if very unlikely, with 9M 360s out there, the chances of it happening to someone gets to be non-trivial.
  • xymor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@Zoids
    Yeah, so far, even with thousands of users pushing the heat dissipation limits with f@h, so good.

    On a related matter, ps2 last gen as very faulty, has anyone seen any reliability study 360?
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Microsoft has a patch qualification process, just ask Marc Rein and Tim Sweeney. So it isn't like MS never saw or tested this patch.

    But if you read the article, some say the patch made the game run so poorly that they have to replace their machine to fix it They tried deleting the patch, deleting save games, one guy even removed his hard drive altogether. When you have to send your machine back to MS to get fixed, you have a tendency to blame MS. As the OS developer for 360, it is their responsibility to try to make sure that it isn't possible for software to wreck your machine permanently, no matter how poorly the patch is written.
  • gwolf, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12You will forever live in fear.
  • RockinRoel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Dugg for the accompanying picture.
  • rzurad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7yeah. Its not like Gears of War, Halo, or Ninja Gaiden were bestsellers...
  • ninjakoala, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I updated my GH2 yesterday and have had about 10 hours of play since then. No problems whatsoever and the whammy bar now works great.

    Now if only they'd fix the DLC pricing...
  • rick2k, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I see red octane are obviously taking the EA Games strategy to games design now.

    *sigh*
  • blahtastic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5For ***** sake get a toy guitar! ;-)
  • YouRookies, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Link to xbox forum about the bricking patch

    You must copy and paste

    http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=3&PostID=11717177
  • saferwaters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@yourookies

    Google search - "Cabbage Patch" Breaks

    150,000 results returned.

    What exactly is your point? I'm sure because it came up with 105,000 results for "Microsoft Patch" Breaks, that's how many instances it's happened.
  • z0l0pht, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4One of my controllers had the issue, I patched last night and it works fine now.
  • Klarth, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15I don't know what's worse - Your tinfoil-hat bias against Microsoft, or the fact that people were actually digging you up when I typed this out.
  • ApolloImBurning, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I installed the patch yesterday afternoon, and have played for a couple hours since with no issues. It is (for me anyway) hard to believe that a patch to a game would cause subsequent hardware failure. I did have one of the "problem" guitar models, but I never experienced any whammy bar issues. I am curious to see how this will play out.
  • YouRookies, on 10/12/2007, -20/+23MSFT and their "patches"...How many times are they going to have to break our 360s and PCs?
  • therightclique, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5one thing i've learned from working in the tech services industry is that you ONLY hear the bad news. you never hear from the millions that DO have the thing working. the 360 works just fine most of the time. i know dozens of people that have had no problems. this is why you get the extended warranty. ANY electronic device can be fault at purchase or years later. it happens constantly
  • gohepcat, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13Games/patches ...are NOT bricking your system.

    Your system is dying on its own. You just happen to be playing a popular game at the time. Because the 360 bricks so often people make the incorrect leap of game/patch = problem.

    When you pull Guitar Hero 2 out of your 360 and turn it on, your system is loading the exact same software it did before you bought the game. If your 360 is showing 3 red lights you have a hardware failure.


    Again....games and game patches CAN'T brick your system. (although system updates can, I'm pretty sure that was just a one time problem with the last upate..Hell the Wii had a similar issue)
  • Kazimieras, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Correct, but they are saying BRICKING not crashing. And when a game crashes a PC, it crashes only when you load that game, not when you boot the PC.
  • autocrawler, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"On a related matter, ps2 last gen as very faulty, has anyone seen any reliability study 360?"
    If I remember correctly, the failure rates are estimated to be anywhere from 3% to 5%.
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No, it totally depends. You're talking about a software bug essentially. It can manifest in different ways in different cases.

    Your argument about all the configs being the same is getting to the point that computers are deterministic. If the conditions are exactly the same on everyone's machine, then they will all act exactly the same.

    But conditions are never all exactly the same. One 12 megahertz oscillator in one machine runs at 12.000006MHz, another in another machine runs at 11.999998MHz. After just 1 second being on, one has run several thousand more instructions than another. Maybe one gets an ethernet packet 0.003 seconds in and the other one doesn't. Plus the hardware components aren't really the same in all machines, some are just spec equivalent but differ in small ways. Some aren't even spec equivalent, the software has to use two different techniques to run the two components. Companies change components in units all the time in order to save money or improve supply problems.
  • virtualmadden, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Only games that have ever killed my Xbox360 were EA Sports games. Anyway, I fault Red Octane heavily, but Microsoft needs to be more on top of these things. The only patch that should kill your system should be the major console updates. If a game gets a bad patch, you should be able to wipe it and start over.
  • magicRob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I also suspect this is a minority of cases. Was playing co-op with a mate when we were kicked off XBL. Decided to reconnect and was told there was an update for the game. Installed without an issue. Went home and updated my copy, no drama there either. I don't know if the whammy bar is fixed though. I can't tell, it's almost like a placebo effect. They tell you it's fixed, and it may well be, but I can't tell :)
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5The reports of crashing (many can't even finish a song) seem like the game is buggy.

    I'm not as sure about the red rings. 360's just don't seem to be built well. They seem to brick a lot. I'd be more surprised if there WEREN'T reports of 360s bricking while playing this game.

    (360 owner, and mine died last November)
  • wageslaven, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Dont worry. There have been plenty of forum posts describing Dead on Arrival PS3s. Nintendo bricked thousands of Wii's with a firmware update a few months back.

    XBox 360 is not any more or less reliable or buggy than the other devices. People are parroting material that fits with the tired Microsoft-is-buggy meme. Its not reality. It is unfounded FUD.
  • ts8lemonade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I installed the patch and played Guitar Hero for about 30min. During that time I did notice it seemed to have dropped the frame-rate. I swear on one song (the one by Stone Temple Pilots) I was getting 10-15fps max. Haven't played it anymore after that but hopefully it won't break :( Btw I got my 360 last August and my guitars are both 95055.

    One person on the link to the 360 forums did make an interesting comment though. It was something to the effect of power handling. He suggested that maybe because the 360's guitar is connected via USB it wasn't able to draw enough power for the whammy bar to function properly, thus, when they released the patch alleviating this issue it has been causing an overdraw of power which is frying some 360's internal parts. This sounds reasonable to me, but who knows for sure.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4The first update that Nintendo released (On Launch Day) Bricked thousands of Wii's. (Acknowledged by Nintendo)

    I had to send mine in for a replacement. Nintendo isn't on the safe list by any means.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@gwolf:

    The bad press indicates that a 360 might break, not that it might stab you in a dark alley. Nobody's going live in fear, meebio might just live without a 360. Don't be so melodramatic.
  • DarkJC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Dont worry. There have been plenty of forum posts describing Dead on Arrival PS3s. Nintendo bricked thousands of Wii's with a firmware update a few months back.

    XBox 360 is not any more or less reliable or buggy than the other devices. People are parroting material that fits with the tired Microsoft-is-buggy meme. Its not reality. It is unfounded FUD."

    I'm sorry, but you're either on Microsoft's payroll or are a raving fanboy if you believe this to be true. Yes, each console manufacturer has had dark spots on their record but this generation the number of reports of faulty 360 hardware has outnumbered both of the other consoles. Nintendo bricked thousands of Wii's when it was launched...and I have yet to year of any other problems with the Wii. A few thousand out of 6 million is not that big a problem. I've also heard almost nothing on the PS3 (the system you'd think all the haters would be most vocal about if there WERE hardware problems). Of course it's not perfect and there's the occasional dead system, but for the most part its hardware is rock solid.

    In terms of hardware failure, the 360 seems to be the PS2 of this console generation.
  • Ezekiel25:17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No issues here after the patch. I don't have a guitar though.
  • vividboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article is so NOT FUD. My bricked 360 will attest to that.

    I've been both a huge 360 and Guitar Hero proponent for a long time. I'm still a 360 fanboy, but it is unacceptable that I should be on the hook for the $168 (Canadian) repair fee that I have to fork out for a wonky patch.
  • GrimDog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3what does MS have to do with a patch made by the guitar hero devs ? lol
  • metallikop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Unfortunately I'm one of these folks. I got my 360 shortly after launch, and only had one crash which was during a relatively heavy Oblivion session. A few months back I decided to do the firmware mod just for the hell of it, I bought over 20 games and was sick of them all being piss poor and definitely not worth the money. I got guitar hero on release day and didn't have any problems for a few days... then I started to get the occasional freeze. After this happened a number of times I was getting pissed and blaming my firmware mod. Over this past weekend I got my first ring of death, powered it back up, got it a few times again and now my xbox is 100% bricked. Unfortunately since I modded it, I can't send it in for an RMA, so naturally I went out and bought a new xbox. $299 later, I'm up and running again. I'm still pissed however.
  • ForceBlast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can second the fact that this article is definitely NOT FUD. I've had no problems with my 360 up to this point. In fact, I loved the system even more than my Wii, but now it did the same thing that many others are describing - frequent freeze-ups followed by a red ring of death after updating the patch. It's now bricked and won't do anything. I think either MS/Activision/RedOctane need to step-up and address this immediately or it's time for the gamers to start organizing a class action lawsuit. I'm sure as hell not going to pay $120 to have it fixed when it's obviously been caused by GH2. There are far too many people having the same issues for this to be a coincidence.
  • DarkJC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree.

    I've been interested in the 360 for a while but the thought of spending $500 CDN on a console and have such a large risk of it bricking (especially if it's just out of warranty) isn't great. And before anyone mentions it, I avoided all of the PS2 DRE drama as well, I didn't get the system until a revision or two into the slim model.
  • eMximeR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ autocraler

    You know this is digg, right?

    As for me, I have had no problems before or after the patch.
  • MrFlesh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Damn so much for the closed system increase reliability theory.
  • OwdenBowden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes they are... It isn't their fault that they were stupid enough to believe and buy a PS3
  • reqage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It fixed my guitar and it hasn't shown any sign of having any other problems. Of course, I replaced my old bricked 360 about 2 weeks ago so newer ones might not have an issue.
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