Reality check on Xbox 360

In the days following last week's debut of Microsoft's Xbox 360, video game fan sites and the mainstream press seemed to be in a race to outdo each other with reports of problems with the new consoles.

Quite a few postings, such as those appearing on game sites like Xbox-Scene, relate the experiences of some angry Xbox 360 owners whose new machines have already overheated or crashed.

But the good news for consumers--at least so far--is that the glitches appear to be isolated. Though it's still too early to quantify the problems or say for certain how widespread they are, most of the die-hard gamers who were able to get an Xbox 360 aren't complaining about their much-coveted new consoles, according to gaming experts and research analysts.

"I have 12 friends in (my) area who...purchased Xbox 360 units on launch day," said Michael Pica, a staff member at Xbox-Scene. "I had a number of them over to my house Sunday for some Xbox 360 LAN (Local Area Network) gaming. We talked about the reports of faulty Xbox 360s and all of them claimed to have experienced no problems at all."

No matter how many problems have actually cropped up with the new console, any glitches are big news after months of buildup to the Nov. 22 launch. Microsoft has billed the new Xbox as the best video game experience ever and hung a hefty $399 price tag on the "premium" Xbox 360 model that most gamers have bought--all building expectations of a flawless experience.

Microsoft admits that some of the consoles have had performance failures of one kind or another, but the company said complaints so far have not been overwhelming.

"The vast majority of folks" are not having problems with their Xbox 360s, said Molly O'Donnell, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's Xbox group. "We have received some isolated reports of consoles not working, and we're doing everything we can to take care of them."

O'Donnell told CNET News.com that consumers who experience problems with their consoles should first visit the Xbox troubleshooting page. If the suggestions on the Web site don't solve the problem, she said, gamers can call 1-800-4MY-XBOX and receive an overnight box in which to return their console. If customers move quickly, she said, they should have their Xboxes repaired or replaced and returned within a week.

Still, some analysts say the glitches can't be that much of a shock in a product on its first run out of the factory.

"Clearly, Microsoft has been constrained in the number of products it has been able to get into the channel," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group, "and so perhaps they've been pretty aggressive in terms of getting supply out, and it's quite common during an initial run of products to run into some quality-control issues."

"It's quite common during an initial run of products to run into some quality-control issues."

--Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis, The NPD Group

Similarly, reports of malfunctions with the newly released consoles have not surprised David Cole, an analyst at DFC Intelligence.

"It doesn't sound like it's that big a problem," Cole said. "One thing you always say about these new machines is that the first units (have issues). The manufacturing process, when you're just getting started--there's all these little bugs."

When Sony's PlayStation 2 first hit stores, he said, it had bugs, largely with DVD playback.

Rubin said that despite the widespread nature of stories about issues with the Xbox, there's no way to know how frequent the problems actually are.

"It's difficult because not only are there so few units out in the marketplace right now," he said, "but most of the reporting has been anecdotal."

But to an Xbox 360 user like Derrick Bodden, the bugs are hardly an anecdote. His particular glitch came in the form of "artifacts" that appeared on his screen days after he first got his new Xbox.

Roundup
Xbox 360 grab-a-thon

As the console debuts, devotees line up in the rain and in the desert.

"I think the unit was only running for about an hour and a half when I started getting blue trianglelike artifacts. Then the unit froze," Bodden said. "After letting (it) cool down for a couple hours, I turned it back on. On the boot-up animation, it was (flickering) these gray boxlike things...When I would go to play a game again, it would do the same blue triangle thing, (then) freeze."

One Xbox 360 user, posting as ZNB on the blog Knowledgeultra, went so far as to title a posting, "Gotta Love my Lemon 360."

In the post, ZNB wrote: "After playing my Xbox 360 a bunch over the Thanksgiving holiday, I have realized one thing. It likes to freeze. When I pop in my ('Perfect Dark Zero') game, it wants to freeze up at random times. What started out as freezing once or twice turned into freezing every two minutes."

And other Xbox users have reported problems with the advanced remote control included in the premium edition of the console.

Pica, the Xbox-Scene staffer, said most of the Xbox problems reported on his site boil down to three categories.

[Roman12]

the 360

I know a guy who broke his xbox 360 because he got angry when it kept kept shutting off in the middle of the game every few minutes. Just kicked it really hard, and it would no longer turn on.

Even though it was a gift, still kind of a shame to waste a unit. I would never buy the first shipments because thas when they are the most expancive, and most of the time the first wave has the most problems.
__________________________________
R.K.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/" target="_newWindow">http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/</a>

[bllink182]

unbelievable.

I bought what I thought would be the second or third 360 batch shipment today, Jan 3, 2006.
Spent about $650 for premium and extra wireless controller w/fifa 06 and nfs MW.
As soon as I plugged it in and hit the gas on nfs...it froze, about 1 min into the race...I almost cried because I knew what I now am...one of the many victims.
Also tried fifa, but same thing...actually the fifa disc got branded with a circular scratch and I can barely start a match.
Funny how it works just fine on the dash menu where you create profile and all that useless stuff.
Got right on the phone with microsoft where I was prompted to send my literally brand new 360 along with both games.
What got me was the microsoft rep that proceeded to take down my info and also asked me how to spell my city for her.
I then realized that if dopes like these put this system together, no wonder it's a lemon.
unbelievable.

[Vic_]

My 360 works fine...,

but I heard that a guy that was two spots behind me in line at Best Buy had problems and had to send his unit in. I guess it's the luck of the draw when it comes to launch consoles.

Most of the problems are due to an overheating power supply(which if you've seen the 360 power supply you know it's huge). So keep that power supply cool!

Gamertag:Vicious1ne

[therobot]

I wouldnt trust buying one right now

seems like a crap shoot although a small risk one but a crap shoot nonetheless. The overheating problems can be solved by proper ventilation though. I wonder how many issues the PS3 will encounter come launch time.

[catchall]

It is not just

"how many issues the PS3 will encounter", as you put it, but how many people will flock to web sites (such as this one) and make up figures to put down the product and slander the company that makes it. Take a look at the talkback in
'Crash reports hit Xbox 360' ( <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.com.com/Crash+reports+hit+Xbox+360/2100-1043_3-5969776.html" target="_newWindow">http://news.com.com/Crash+reports+hit+Xbox+360/2100-1043_3-5969776.html</a> )
if you don't understand. One person actually asked Apple to step in; It took a law suit to get Apple to replace cracked Nano screens. MS stepped up to the plate right away, even when they didnt know the depth of the problem.
It makes little difference what the problem is, or how wide spread. The vocal minority that simply hates MS (for many real and many imagined reasons) pretty much guaranteed this. The PS3's 'opening day' will rely on the size of the fan club.

[brothe]

hype...

This is all just hype. Buy one if you can get one because 99.9% of the time the machine will work fine. In the Xbox forums, people are complaining that theirs failed after a few days of playing games but their Gamer Card doesn't show them to have played any games...

There is a lot of mis-information and the news is only covering it because a few people are complaining... Those few don't represent the majority...

"News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated"
- Xbox 360

[Thorax232]

Not Surprised....

It's not surprising at all that Microsoft is off to a bad start. They try to compare their problems to problems that have previously happened, but nothing has ever been this bad. Microsoft knew if they had any chance at all against Nintendo and Sony they needed to rush this. They got lucky with the XBOX and it didn't even do very well. Microsoft is still new to the console making business and they haven't exactly perfected it yet. I don't know why they can't just say that instead of saying "this always happens" "it's not our fault" Well guess what Microsoft, it is your fault, you rushed your consoled it turned out horrible and now you have to face the consequences. Just look at Nintendo, it never has any problems with consoles when they first came out. No I'm not a Nintendo fan, in fact I hate Nintendo, I'm a Sony fan who has had their fair share of problems but none as bad as the XBOX 360's. Let's just hope Nintendo and Sony will never be like Microsoft and rush everything so we don't relive the 80's when E.T. came out for Atari.

[Jeff Putz]

Welcome to consumer electronics

People want to see Microsoft fail because of the anti-fanboydom surrounding this company. The press is latching on to that.

The truth is that the machine is like any other piece of consumer electronics, and there will always be a certain number of failures, especially in early production runs. It's a non-story. Most people can't even find the thing to buy, though I saw this site that's trying to help... <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.searchforxbox.com/" target="_newWindow">http://www.searchforxbox.com/</a>

[Gamigin]

Hypocritical

I agree that the rumor sites don't have any reliable data to indicate whether these glitches are a major widespread problem worthy of concern or a rare but unfortunate rollout issue.

Neither does the author of this article. But the author of this article actually quotes a Microsoft rep as if that was a reliable and objective authority on the matter.

It's really hypocrtical to criticize the rumor sites when this article is doing the same thing.

The gaming sites have been endlessly debating every miniscule morsel of 360/PS3 rumor there is. This news item wasn't blown up any more than any other of the sketchy rumors that have surfaced.

Also, the gaming sites have been endlessly debating every questionable morsel of 360/PS3 rumor there is. This news item wasn't blown up any more than any of the other sketchy rumors that have surfaced.

[redstarSQD]

lol

no the hypocritical thing was to come out an hour after launch and claim the xbox had massive defects while deriding anyone who said their xbox 360 was working fine had not spent enough time burning it in.

And yes, the people at microsoft know how many xbox 360's are actually being returned. They are the credible source.

You will also note this article tapped research sources whose job it is to monitor stuff like this. People who's job it is NOT to be biased. :)

The internet is awash in false stories and conjecture and here you are trying to defend it.

Most tech sites and main news sites linked their observations back to 2 main sites. So what happens?

You get people claiming massive defects because they see so many sites claiming this is so..WITHOUT bothering to follow up where the links actually go.

What we have here is a hateathon for MS. A situation not unexpected.

What's the problem

You buy a product. If it's defective you get it replaced / repaired. End of story. Has nobody bought a product before and had to bring it back to the shop because it had issues. It's annoying but we've all had to do it.

[thedreaming]

buyer's remorse

I agree, it's not big deal, but then again, if you paid big bucks for the latest toy and it didn't work, I'm sure you would have a little buyer's remorse.

As for me, I'm actually considering buying the old xbox. I'm sure the price will be going down.

Couldnt have said it better

Exactly

[gold-leade-r]

Why buy your xbox 360 titles when you can rent them at Circuit City monthly

Just go to www.circuitcity.com/gameznflix for more info

[EvlD99]

B/C GamesNflix sucks

I tried them out. They have no stock what-so-ever. The only movie/game that was shipped to me in two weeks (out of a que of 15) was a movie filmed in the 80's. Gamefly and Gamerang are much better but still with many faults.

[bobby_brady]

We all know Sony is out with negative PR for the Xbox

Rootkit Sony is out in force trying to give the Xbox 360 a black eye.

Message has been deleted.

[gjerry]

20% failureis not out of line

My neighbor works in XBox hardware validation (he actually manages one of the groups). He warned me about the 360 around the 1st of November telling me that their would be huge shortages (they are only shipping about 30% of what they hoped to) and that they were (at that time) seeing failures of up to 30% in "random box" testing (he explained this as taking a certain number of boxes that were ready to ship into the channel, opening them and testing them).

Essentially what he was telling me was that 1 out of every 3 boxes they pulled was bad, and that he expected there to be HUGE issues with quality once the box shipped.

Jerry

ha, right

He must be catching about all of them then, since the failure rate is only around 3% of units sold which is pretty average for any console.

[gameprix1]

BOLD FACED LIE

Please be honest Mr. Goldman... Did you really, and I mean REALLY, expect us to believe that MS KNEW there was a 1 in 3 defect rate for the X-Box 360? Either you are <u>purposely</u> lying or were purposely <u>lied to</u>!

I'm going to give you two separate reasons why your last statement is false (I actually concur with you on the shortages portion).

1) I am a stockholder of Microsoft. Microsoft has an obligation to me AND the rest of the people who are "part owners" of the company. Do you think that any of us stockholders would have ALLOWED Microsoft to ship out 33.3% (your mathmatics are off, by the way... 1 out of 3 is 33.3%, NOT up to 30%) defective units? And before you answer, if all of us minority shareholders made a big enough stink, we could have caused a "change of heart", if you will. If that's too "out there" for you to comprehend, then how about explaining why not only we have not dumped their stock in record numbers but that their stock has actually RISEN, albeit only slightly, since 11/22/2005 (On the 22nd, their stock closed at $27.91. As of 12/2, it closed at $28.01)?

2) Microsoft, unless you can otherwise prove it, most likely does NOT personally send a representitive to China during production to personally test each unit for defects. I am neither going to waste my time teaching you (or boring you!) about statistics and probabilities NOR about the manufacturing process. What you should do is take what I'm saying and RESEARCH it for yourself! What you've described is something called, in simple terms, "Random Sampling" which is used to get an estimate, in this case, of defective units per <i>N</i> total units. In a Mass Production senario, they will probably do something like Per 1 million units. The acceptable error rate is 5%!! Microsoft had a defect rate of "up to" 3%, BELOW the maximum acceptable defect rate. To show you how ridiculous your outrageous claim of 33.3% is, imagine this senario:

If you bought 10 bottles of milk, every 3 or 4 of them will be spoiled.

Approximately 9 days out of a 30-day month your car breaks down.

122 days out of a 365 day year you lose electricity in your house due to a power failure.

Imagine everything you do and buy in life, only 67% of the time it works as expected. 34% OF THE TIME IT FAILS!

Now that you can see through simple math how outrageous your statement is, you'll both VALIDATE YOUR SOURCES and VERIFY YOUR INFORMATION!

BEFORE... YOU... POST!!!!! I wonder how many people took your words at face value thinking it was true! I HOPE it wasn't up to 30%!!

[redstarSQD]

Well you are a sad liar

It took awhile but i finally got a response from the busy people over at MS.

And do you want to know what they say about your claims? No, i didn't think so ;)
I will tell the others though:

"...Allow us to inform you that the derogatory claims of this person who is supposedly an Xbox employee is absolutely spurious and lacking in fact...."

[lrd123]

20 % Failures

Sorry such low failure rates are in line with all MS products. Get real!

[King Ava]

RUSH

they wanted tio rush this for the holiday. which is a grat time to get a good number sold but the glitches and all i suppose that if they want to stay in the game they will have to construct their consles a little better. I guess this is why i'm a playstation fan. XBOX SUCKS!!!

Nothing new

At the end of the day, 360 is a new product and all new products
have issues at the start and lets face it who owns a PC or
otherwise and hasnt had some software problems somewhere
along the line - the original Xbox had its fair share of glitches.
The proof in the pudding of course, is how Microsoft deal with
such issues and I strongly suspect that given the importance of
the 360 to the MS lineup and the publicity around it, most
complainst will be dealt with swiftly and without fuss.
Happily, living in Australia, I hope all the gripes will be ironed
out by March or whenever they decide to ship some 360's here.

Blown out of all proportion

The 360 complaints are exactly the same as the iPod Nano
drama IMO - a few complaints blown massively out of all
proportion due to the size of the Corporate target and jealousy
at the media coverage these products and companies are getting
right now. And as for Sony - I'd never touch their stuff as I
believe them for one to be over-priced and everything (honestly
) I ever owned from Sony had problems in one way or another -
right back to my first walkman.

[ddesy]

Big difference

With the iPod Nano, the issues were largely due to people not
taking good care of their product. With XBox 360, all you have to
do is turn on the machine and wait.

[sunergeos]

"Money-money-money. Money-money-money."

Everytime I read a story like this I hear Liza Minnelli singing
"Money Money" from Cabaret in the background. Everyone is
jumping in with the intent on making the buzz over the XBox
360 problems go away. That's because they have more interests
in their MSFT stock prices than anything else. I'm not against
making money in the stock market - I certainly have benefitted
from it, but reporting like this seems to nick away at people's
credibility.

Telling us that twelve teen-agers got together and found out
that they are not having problems means that the actual
problems are not as bad as previously reported. As though this
is suppose to be some statistical sampling method that proves
the point? That's news?!?

Another example, using the word "isolalted" when there are clear
classes of failures occurring. What is interesting is that the c|net
reporter makes the statement of "isolated" instances and then
goes on to say that it is too early to tell. All I hear is "Intel has a
stake in c|net and we both have a good number of shares in
MSFT so we want our investment to have good dividends. So, the
XBox problems are really not that bad....we hope."

Microsoft employees using that phrase "vast majority" means
anything over 51%. No need to beat that dead horse.

Ross Rubin of The NPD Group says that it is "quite common
during an initial run of products to run into some quality-control
issues". So now we have business analyst saying that quality
control issues is acceptable for first impressions of products. Let
alone the fact the Mr. Rubin is talking about a 2.0 version of a
console. The 360 is an evolution of the original console - not a
revolution despite the marketing claims. What ever happend to
project evaluation techniques that would use lessons learned as
inputs to the next project? Why is Microsoft allowed to reset the
bug counter evertime a new version of product is released? And
why bother to listen to a business analyst who dismisses the
premise that good quality builds good business?

I expect more from a company that wants me to believe that
they are industry leaders. I don't buy it - on all accounts.

[ddesy]

Wrong...

"The 360 is an evolution of the original console - not a
revolution despite the marketing claims."

That is false. I am not a Microsoft lover; I really don't like their
products. But when you look at the completely different
architechture, it is completely different. It's not even an x86!

[Llib Setag]

FOLLOW THE MONOPOLY MONEY

WHY does Microsith get away with all the bugs &#38; weaknesses in their software &#38; hardware on a global scale?

Monopolies don't need to waste time on quality control. They're a big bloated Titantic size corporation that is greedy &#38; power hungry that makes decisions very slowly, exept when it comes to killing the competition.

Follow the money: C/NET makes ALOT of money from all the MS banner ads &#38; "soft interviews" that are really staged PR efforts from their Sugar Daddy Bill. They do not bite the hand that feeds them. IF any negative MS tech news article "slips by the MS Editor" then the next day POOF it is gone...

Microsith does not make any money from their XBOX-HOTBOX-BUGBOX 360. They are just attempting to flood the market to put Sony PS2 &#38; PSP + Nintendo GameCube out of business. THEN they will have a monopoly on the game software &#38; hardware = BIG BUCK$$$$$.

[Lithium86]

*nods head in agreement

Wow you put everything i was thinking into perspective- i agree completely. These errors are coming from a machine that was rushed out into the world as a depserate effort to front Sony's PS3 machine, which would/could crush microsoft's hold in the gmaing idustry. Of course there are going to be problems. In my opinion, they don't deserve to be allowed the convienence of writing off these "expected glitches of a new console" at all. This is what they deserve for doing something so underhanded as to get out their obviously lesser machine than sony's. Look at the tech specs between the two, the PS3 is obviously the stronger of the two. By getting out their machine first in this new generation consoles war, microsoft hopes to steal customers from sony. Why? I'm not so sure- i mean they certainly have the means to continue the 360 thanks to mr. bill, like they did with the first x-box's early days-dealing with problems like having a limited number of games coming out for it. But why is microsoft pushing this "next-gen" console, that doesnt even support blu-ray or even hd-dvds? whats the deal? is there a master plan here? or is it a joke? Im holding out for the PS3, because Sony is taking their new product far more seriously for their customers. Whats the secret to creating a device that can always stay up to date in a rapidly changing technological world? Expandability and adaptabilty! PlayStation 3 has 6 USB 2.0 ports, a memory stick slot, an SD slot, and, in stark contrast to many of Sonys other consumer electronics products, the system actually supports compact flash. Sony even saved a space for a removable 2.5 hard drive. When you can add on to your console like this, it will never be out of date. Like i mentioned earlier, the Xbox doesnt have the backing of anywhere near as many game studios as sony does.
All in all, screw the 360, im for the PS3.
Anyways, a 360 degree turn brings you back to where you were right? Ha ha, thats kinda funny that they named their new console that. Irony! Eat it with some milk, cause its delicious. :-P

[diceone]

really?

I have found that most of these "my neighbor is so and so" quick posts, by you reporters are usually bad info and typically made up.

While I wouldn't be surprised at MS for releasing a total piece of crap on us, I find it hard to believe your neighbor would be so cavalier with such controversial information, to a known news reporter.

This would be particularly hazardous to public safety at these levels of elcetronics defect and should be reported so a government based inspection and recall could be performed/inforced.
If 1 of 3 units is malufunctioning (which is 33% BTW) that sounds like some type of fraudulent behaviour/fire hazard/pending lawsuit to KNOWINGLY release this to the public.

Most of ALL: I blame people like you for companies acting this way, for knowing this and not doing anything about is completely irresponsible on you and CNETs part.
You have the power to report... so where is the action? the integrity?
MS is running video games into the ground after making a total piece of crap OS for PCs and plagueing the world with it.
You think if you knew these products were indeed defective you'd have let someone know.

Put up or shut up.

[GrandpaN1947]

Is it relevant?

Is the XBOX 360 worth the hype if it doesn't do HDTV?

Until it does, I'll stick with my PC and Battlefield 2.

[toddkitta]

XBOX Inventory - www.thexboxfiles.com

I just launched a community based XBOX inventory tracker today. I'm hoping that once the shippments start to pick even just a little, this site will help a lot of people in their search.

[mavadotar]

EB Worker

A good friend of mine works at my local EB store. So far, a few people have brought back tehir X-Box 360's, one because it just didnt load any games at all and another because it burned a hole straight through a CD.

[supergear]

Nintendo doesn't ..

Nintendo doesn't seem to suffer these launch problems that Sony and MS suffer.
Maybe Sony and MS could learn Nintendo's secret

[gameprix1]

Nintendo doesn't ..

They've never had this problem for two reasons... First, back in the day, it was Nintendo or Sega, and Nintendo used the "crush thy opponent" tactic to monopolize the market. After the Sony PS came along and then the X-Box, they've run into the problem of "Nobody gives a crap about Nintendo".

[idrake]

Good way to score an Xbox

I started this service only a week ago and I now have some very happy customers. Check it out.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.notify360.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.notify360.com</a>

Good luck to all.

[lrd123]

Not a Single XBOX Ad This Weekend!!!!

What's happened to the XBOX??? I didn't see a single XBOX ad this weekend? I saw iPOD ads from dogs that wag their tails to the beat to alarm clocks specifically designed for them; but not a single XBOX ad!

I smell a cover-up here!

[gameprix1]

RE: Not a Single XBOX Ad This Weekend!!!!

When was the last time you've EVER seen a TV/Radio ad marketing blitz by Microsoft? When was, BEFORE Apple's "coup" with the iPod that THEY had a huge TV/Radio marketing blitz?

Dude... Be intelligent and stop being the blind sheep that you reveal yourself to be in your posts! I'm sure you've heard the old saying "History Repeats Itself", so why don't you believe that is EXACTLY what is happening now? You are blind to the fact that you are told what YOU want to hear and believe! Microsoft ranked number two in the Top Ten Most Profitable Software Companies of 1985. Microsoft was ranked number ONE in the Top Ten Most Profitable Companies of 2005. What you DON'T realize; What is NOT stated in plain English; what is BLIND to your single-mindedness is that the other NINE companies on that list in 1985 ARE NO LONGER LISTED IN THE TOP TEN MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES OF 2005!! WHY?!? WHY are they NOT on that list? Did Microsoft "crush" them as you want to BLINDLY believe, or did those NINE other companies implode?

Also, out of curiosity, why does this please you? Why are you so excited about the fact the MS has no ads for their products? Does it make you feel better? There is a reason I waited 2 months to reply to your silly post, and that is because I KNEW what Microsoft's future plan and goals were, and I knew that Apple has no future plans. So, it's been two months since you've replied. Have you learned anything? Any idea why AAPL's stock has gone from a high of $85 on 1/12/06 to it's current price of $65 on 2/13/2006? Any idea why Apple keeps releasing 5000 different models of the iPod and no news of any other types of products in the last couple of months? Any idea why Apple has used "Microsoft" tactics in their pricing model when it announced recently that they are slashing the prices of their iPod Shuffle to suffocated their competition? Any idea why both Cingular and Verizon chose Microsoft's Windows CE OS for their new lines of phones, ESPECIALLY when their pushing the mp3 playing technology of cell phones instead of talking to Apple or an iPod compatible OS? And lastly, any idea why Apple made (remember... history repeats itself!) the BONEHEADED mistake of REFUSING Microsoft's better than usual offer to intergrate the iTunes.com site into the XBox 360 Live?

DO NOT embarass yourself by answering these questions OUTSIDE of how they were asked. Apple is so great in your mind, then let's see if you can defend APPLE and not another company!

Good Luck!

Remember this.... A Fool wants to blame others when they don't understand, while a Wise Man will learn the truth and learn what he doesn't understand.

Do some research, explore the facts, make your decision, and THEN provide us with your intelligent comments. Otherwise you'll always be a Fool.