October 25, 2005

Xbox 360 in Select Wal-Mart Stores (UPDATED)

UPDATE 10-25: Wal-Mart has pulled the plug on Xbox 360s because of interference with its world-famous inventory system.

It is still unclear which specific part of the 360 console was causing the interference in the first place...and whether it could interfere with other consumer wireless devices as well. When questioned about this issue, a Microsoft spokesman was confident that it would not.

"The issue is specific to the equipment used in a few retail environments," the spokesperson said.

"Xbox 360, like portable phones, wireless network routers, and Bluetooth devices, emits radio frequency in the 2.4GHz band. It is possible that devices that do not comply with FCC/ETSI rules of operation in this band may not properly handle interference from other 2.4GHz sources. Such devices would be extremely rare in a home environment."

joystiq has been all over the recent release of the Xbox 360 display demos in Wal-Mart stores. An evaluation:


Positives:

* Overall, the demos were enjoyable and one of our readers even stuck around long enough to beat the Call of Duty 2 demo (you still have a job after that, dude?)
* 3 readers in Addison, IL read our post and bumped into each other at their local display (Joystiq party!)
* The AC power brick is apparently not as big as we were led to believe

Negatives:

* Caution: the ergonomics of the oddly-angled display may result in neck sprains!
* Bugs: collision detection issues were apparent in some of the games
* Mini boss battles with 6-year-olds who wouldn’t let go of the controllers (anyone work out a hack for this?)

UPDATE: Houston, we have a problem -- the 360 seems to interfere with handheld inventory scanners!:
2.4 RF will screw with the Symbol handhelds which are pretty much the backbone of Wal-Mart day to day business. That’s probably why they shut the consoles off. Even wireless speaker system demos that run on 2.4 will screw things up. — bb

the walmart i live by and sadly work at, has a problem with the hand scanner not working properly because of the 360. strange indeed. — darksar

the scanners they use operate around 900Hz, they cant use cordless phones cuz they mess with the outdated system — darksar

I work at walmart…. the truth is that the 2.4ghz interferes with our “Smart”system. nation-wide all walmarts had to stop using the pa system, because costumers complain, so 360’s 2.4 is a scapegoat. at my store we use wireless home theater systems as our excuse — BugX

Posted by Kevin on October, 25 2005 at 12:11 PM