Microsoft’s Xbox One platform has now been on the market for 14 months but is has only recently moved past Sony’s PlayStation 4 in US console sales in November and December 2014 thanks to a holiday price drop that was heavily promoted.
That same price drop, after the console briefly returned to its normal price of $399.99 (without Kinect) following the holidays, is now back in effect and may ultimately become a permanent price point.
These increased sales bode well for the Xbox One and it means the hardware is in more hands than ever before but could there be a few manufacturing issues with the Xbox One Controllers lurking out there?
Last week it was brought to my attention on Twitter by Leon Zandman that his Xbox One controller was grinding and creating sharp edges around the left thumb stick and he shared this image:
Image courtesy of Leon Zandman
As you can see there is what appears to be fine lightly colored particles all around the base of the stick.
During this discussion Jeffrey Paarhuis, the co-creator of a very popular Xbox gaming website in the Netherlands called XboxNederland.nl, jumped in and shared that he was also experiencing very similar issues as Leon was reporting.
Here are images showing the really excessive wear and tear on his Xbox One controller:
Image courtesy of Jeffrey Paarhuis
Image courtesy of Jeffrey Paarhuis
You can see the extent of the wear and tear is to the point that is has spread all over the controller and significantly discolored the thumb sticks.
Earlier today Jeffrey shared with me the results of a poll he has been running on the XboxNederland.nl website this past week about this wear and tear issue to see how widespread it might be.
Here are those results as of today with 229 responses to the survey they ran (the site is in Dutch):
- It’s still as good as new! (39%, 89 Votes)
- It suffers from slight wear (24%, 54 Votes)
- The stick begins to grind in the shell (18%, 42 Votes)
- Wear and tear? I suffer from dirt under the edges! (14%, 33 Votes)
- I am experiencing sharp edges (5%, 11 Votes)
So are you experiencing similar wear and tear on your Xbox One controllers? Please let us know in the comments below so we can understand how widespread this might be.
