Xbox problems xplained?

Bungie's community liaison Matt Soell has spoken out on his company's public forum about the Xbox instability stories that are spreading like wildfire in the United States. According to Microsoft testers, Matt says, "some of the software on the Xbox demo discs was accidentally built with an old video library". He doesn't mention which demos in particular, but states that "a conflict between the finished hardware and the old library will, under certain conditions, manifest itself as the weirdness reported over the last few days." Let's consider what has been reported. Intermittent crashes, consoles locking up and even one console freezing up like clockwork every hour or so. The video library theory could easily account for some of the problems, but then again, this is the second time we've heard Microsoft or a Microsoft subsidiary refer to these demo units as "finished hardware". Didn't some of them crash outright or get stuck on the system menu screens? While we're a little more worried than we were before, we remain sceptical of widespread problems and inherent instability because as we've said before, Microsoft wouldn't be so stupid as to release Xbox in that state. "For anyone concerned, the final version of Halo uses a more recent library which does not have this problem. I expect other Xbox titles do as well," Soell went on to say. He then went on to point out that much of the bad publicity surrounding these incidents actually originates with Internet-based MS haters. He's probably right, too. Who wouldn't expect a bit of animosity from them? After all, I myself refer to Bill Gates and Microsoft in terms not wholly endearing when I lose a batch of screenshots to a dodgy driver-induced BSOD. I doubt I'm the only one. Related Feature - Xbox crash problems?