"I had seen the SquareTrade logo multiple times on Ebay and felt that it
was another way to get a few dollars from me. I really hadn’t
researched it that much, but that day I needed it to be real. I read
everything I could on SquareTrade (ST)... 'No hassle'. 'Customer Focused'...Why isn’t everyone using it then?"
It almost feels like we’re back in school – sneaking notes. We can’t let the cat entirely out of the bag just yet. But since you’re our fans, we wanted to let you in on the secret.
There’s a lot going on here at SquareTrade HQ. This week, we’re gearing up to launch a series of SquareDeals of the Day!
Raise your hand if you’ve recently purchased an LCD TV, a washer/dryer or perhaps a new wii. Maybe you’ve been planning to buy a new laptop?
Well, this week we’ll be offering even greater savings on coverage for things like digital cameras, LCD TVs, home appliances and game consoles. Yup, we’ll be offering up to 40% additional savings with a new coupon each day!
So stay tuned (and don’t let Miss Othmar catch you passing this note!)
On a related note, if you’d like to be the first kid on the block that has the inside scoop, you can follow us on twitter. We’ll tweet breaking news on specials like the upcoming Deals of the Day as well as nifty things we hear are going on in the world of gizmos and gadgets.
Sorry, did you ask “What's a tweet?!” Well, Mike Massimino has been tweeting from space. Even Oprah is becoming twitter savvy. You can also ask google.
File this one under "...the hell?" Strange electronics maker China Vaison has come up with a solution for people who wish their video game consoles were more portable: 7" snap-on LCD screens for the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3.
Fair where fair's due, they don't look half-bad... though why they're showing the Wii with two nunchucks and no Wiimote is a mystery. We're seeing stereo sound speakers and display controls for the 480p screens, and we have to give points for aesthetics. The Wii version in particular is designed to integrate right into the console as if it naturally belongs there, particularly when the
screen's down, and all the connections pair up exactly. It even comes with an adapter for your car's
cigarette lighter, so there's your power source. But c'mon, it's not like Sony and Nintendo don't already have portable systems - good ones - of their own, right?
They're available now for about $100, or $97 if you decide to buy in bulk. And if you're planning on hauling your $400 console around, might we suggest a SquareTrade warranty to cover the standard wear and tear? Might be a good idea even if you aren't toting it all around town.
We guess this is one solution for getting your screaming kids into the car for the drive to grandma's, but wouldn't you rather just get them a Nintendo DS?
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Who says video games make you fat and lazy? Nintendo's highly (and long) anticipated Wii Fit is about to turn your game console into an exercise machine, and now we know how much a healthy lifestyle's going to run you: $90. And it'll be out May 21st... just in time for bikini season.
Sound like a lot? Well, consider that the game alone would probably retail for $50, and it's coming with a fairly sophisticated peripheral: the Balance Board, a combination weight scale, aerobics step, and brutal truthsayer. It's through this flat white slab of doom that Wii Fit will measure how well you're performing all manner of yoga stretches and exercises, and then determines if your new regimen is actually doing any good.
It's an interesting direction for a game console to take, one that's sure to appeal to all those upwardly mobile thirtysomethings who let their gym membership lapse and haven't touched their Wii since they got bored with Wii Sports. Early hands-on reviews sound promising indeed. This won't be the first exercise-based video game, but it could be one of the more successful if people get off the couch long enough to use it.
And if you're worried about crushing that Board or stomping it to pieces in your aerobic fervor - or want to put some protection on your Wii - they're eligible for a SquareTrade warranty. But then, so is your refrigerator... where the cookie dough ice cream is.
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Party Time! Excellent! Hot on the heals of Guitar Hero on the Nintindo DS comes word of Rock Band for the Wii arriving on June 22nd... with wireless guitars that probably won't look anything like Gibsons.
Are there downsides? You betcha. First, the Wii Store still just doesn't have anything on Xbox Live, so you can forget downloadable songpacks for the foreseeable future. And still no compatibility between Rock Star and Guitar Hero instruments, so flush that pipe dream away, too. Right now, Harmonix is talking about a feature set close to the old PS2 version, with no Mii support or character creation. And you won't be plugging your Wiimote into the gee-tar, but why would you want to? You've got a gee-tar! The drum set will come in Wii White, though.
And while you can't get a SquareTrade warranty for the game, because we don't do software, you can protect your Rock Band instruments for pennies a day, and probably even throw some Accidental Damage coverage into the mix, just in case you wail a little too hard. Check out the sidebar widget for a quick estimate.
Rock Band Wii will go for $170, which is a pretty cheap way to spend your summer. Check out Joystiq for the full scoop.
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Sony barely paused to feast on the remains of former HD rival Toshiba before announcing the Blu-Ray 2.0 spec (a.k.a. BD-Live), an enhanced Blu-Ray disc with even more features that no Blu-Ray player currently on the market will be able to access. Whoops! Solution: Sony's own PlayStation 3.
Sometime in the next two weeks, Firmware v2.20 will bump the PlayStation 3 up to the BD-Live specs, allowing for what's being touted as a whole new level of DVD interactivity. Is it? Well, part of the BD-Live protocol calls for internet connectivity, so you'll get updated content for whatever disc you pop in for as long as the studio supports it. Ringtones, multiplayer games, and trailers have been mentioned as early content, but we suspect at some point that'll expand to new making-ofs, post-release interviews and audio commentary. The disc themselves are bumped to a full Gig of storage to take on all the new schwag, and allow for various picture-in-picture features. The first BD-Live disc are set to release on April 8.
And yep, the PS3 will be the only player set to do those things.
Just as well, really. We've said for a long time that a PS3 might just be your best option for a Blu-Ray player, given that they cost the same and play games as well as movies. The current projections are that regular Blu-Ray players won't come down to the $200 range for another year. But any which way you decide to go, a SquareTrade warranty on your equipment might not be a bad idea, and it'll certainly cost less and do more than any warranty you're used to.
On the other hand, BD-Live's still in its infancy, so you may not feel the urge to rush right out and nab that three-disc 2.0 Special Edition of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. That's okay... neither do we.
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We've gotten our first look at Vicarious Visions' Guitar Hero On Tour for the Nintendo DS, and it looks like they've taken the big game and squashed it down for the mobile set in ways that make a lot of sense.
German magazine N-Zone de broke the new add-on that makes it all possible: the Guitar Grip. It snaps into the GBA port while you're holding your DS in you left hand (open in book format), fingers on four frets while you strum away stylus-style (a pick is included, too) with your right. No word yet how (or even if) they'll accommodate you Lefty Flip fans, but it wouldn't take much to flip the DS upside-down and reverse the screens. The Guitar Grip also has a handy strap in back to keep your axe in the palm of your hand while you perform like a Golden God.
No word yet on the playlist, but GH isn't known for disappointing rock aficionados. This one could be yet another killer app for Nintendo's killer handheld, and if you pick one up so you can wail wherever you go, know that your DS is eligible for a 3-Year SquareTrade warranty with a 5-Day Service Guarantee that will get your life back on track fast, should anything go wrong. It's cheap for the quality, and even gives you an Accidental Damage coverage option if you get carried away and start going all Pete Townsend on your instrument.
Guitar Hero On Tour is, like all the best tours, coming to town sometime this summer.
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Okay, so we've actually been saying this for a while, but it looks like the Apple iPhone is going to be the next really big mobile gaming platform. Because conquering music, film, television, and the world communication networks wasn't enough.
Just last week at the iPhone SKD release, we found out that ports of Will "The Sims" Wright's upcoming "sim everything" game Spore and goofy platformer Super Monkey Ball were coming to the iPhone. Now everybody's jumping on the bandwagon. Gameloft, those wacky guys who brought The Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed to the hiptop set, have announced they'll be developing over fifteen games for the iPhone in 2008, though it's not clear if these will be entirely new games or ports of older games. Not to be outdone, Id Software has also said they'll be adding a few apps to the App Store... so maybe the next Doom for the iPhone will be official, followed by iPhone Quake.
It's tough to say how well these will play on a touch screen, though games like Super Monkey Ball are entirely played by tilting the iPhone around. Sony Ericsson FCCed a game phone concept last week, but with a haptic feedback system on their touchscreens, so gamers won't loose track of the controls in the heat of battle. Time will tell, but the game/iPhone combo is likely to be a fairly potent one.
Oh, and if you thought the small frys were the only ones who were going to take advantage of the $99 iPhone dev kits and free hosting on the App Store, think again. Sun Microsystems is already gearing up to put Java on the iPhone.
And if you want to keep that pricy iPhone safe, maybe you should compare the Apple Care plan to the SquareTrade iPhone warranty. The short version is we cost less, and we offer Accidental Damage coverage, too. And our customers tend to be very happy with us. Just sayin'.
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At the risk of coming off prejudicial based on a few earlier articles, we've got to say that the Sony PlayStation 3 is making a bit of a comeback. It used to be the fifth-place finisher in a three-way race, but now they're pulling decent numbers with the retooled 40GB model, and they're gearing up to relaunch the 80GB model... metal gearing, that is.
That's right, word comes today from our friends at IGN that a new 80GB PlayStation 3 will come bundled with the long, long, long-awaited Metal Gear Solid 4 sometime in Q2 2008. MGS 4 was already expected to be a huge system-seller for Sony, but it looks like they're definitely going to pull out every stop in order to catch up to the Xbox 360's install base.
One of the major - and valid - complaints about the PS3 has been a lack of truly stellar games, but with Metal Gear Solid 4 arriving within the next four months, they could well be on the way to turning that tide. Combined with Sony winning the format war and the PS3 being a Blu-Ray DVD player on the side, this could turn out to be a winning formula. Oh, and we hear they'll finally get dual shock controllers, too.
It'll retail for the standard $500 that Sony typically asks for 80GB consoles these days, and it's eligible for a SquareTrade warranty. Solid Snake, however, isn't. C'mon, the guy's pushing sixty and running around a war zone in spandex. Would you insure that?
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After taking a good sample of SquareTrade warranties, we can report a 16.4% failure rate for the Microsoft Xbox 360.
These numbers represent 171 claims made on a sample group of 1040 Xbox 360 warranties purchased between April 1 and July 31, 2007, shortly after we began offering warranties on gaming consoles. All claims were normal-use mechanical or electrical failures from non-commercial units. No accidental damage issues were included.
PLEASE NOTE: this report only tracks this test group for a period of 6 to 10 months after warranty purchase (ending January 31, 2007). Once this same test group is tracked for 24 or 36 months, the fail rate is certain to go up. Our data shows that failures spike in the third month after warranty purchase but remain fairly steady after that, with only incremental drop-off until the eighth month. This pattern is fairly consistent with all electronics failures.
Also, after Microsoft's well-publicized warranty extension, it is possible some of our warranty owners are not reporting failures to us, but going directly to Microsoft. If so, our 360 fail rate is skewing lower than is entirely accurate.
The sample group includes all three Xbox SKUs available at the time;
• 27 Elites, the 120GB flagship model.
• 57 Core models, the basic package.
• 956 Premiums, the standard 20GB model.
Splitting out the Premium model results in a slightly higher fail rate: 17%. The low volume of Core and Elite warranties/claims (one claim on an Elite, eight on Cores) in the sample group does not make them acceptable statistical candidates on their own.
Out of the 171 claims, 102 were "Red Ring of Death" (RROD) general hardware failures. This represents roughly 60% of all claims, and 9.8% of all warranties in the sample group. It's believed that overheating is the main cause.
Of the other 69 claims;
• 18% were disc read errors.
• 13% were video card failures.
• 13% were hard drive freezes.
• 10% were power issues.
• 7% were disc tray malfunctions.
These would NOT be covered by the extended Microsoft warranty, and are therefore more reliable numbers. Overheating (without a Red Ring error), controller connectivity, and undetermined errors made up the balance of claims issues.
In July 2007, Microsoft announced hardware changes to fix the Xbox's overheating problem. It is unlikely any modified Xbox 360s were a part of our sample group.
Also in July, Microsoft extended their warranty to three years for RROD issues ONLY, with a $1 billion fund set aside to cover repair/replacement costs for "any Xbox 360 console that experiences the “three flashing red lights” error message." We have referred our warranty owners with RROD issues to Microsoft since that time (and offered pro-rated refunds) while continuing to service all other 360 failures within our 5-day turnaround window. Microsoft's turnaround is reportedly anywhere from one to three weeks.
SQUARETRADE
Analytics Team
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