After only thirteen months of use, John's XboX 360 took the old dirt nap. It registered the three flashing lights, locked up and corrupted it's own detachable hard drive, which in turn corrupted John's profile with XboX Live, wiping out over a year's worth of downloads, achievements, etc.
My boy, to say the least, was pissed.
He asked me to pick up a core system for him and fortunately, I was able to find the very last one in the area (via Toys R Us), and also fortunately it only cost about $279, which John is giving me the funds to cover. He has been pulling some overtime of late. UNfortunately, the situation left him so disgusted with the product he decided that fiddling around with the core system and dealing with MicroSoft again just are not worth the aggravation, so he wiped the hard drive and reformatted it, took the 360 (with all games and accessories) to a local dealer and sold the lot for enough to buy a PS3. He said once he got to thinking about it, he realized that it was not at all likely that the core system wouldn't experience some kind of failure within the near future, and dealing with XboX is more grief than it's worth.
This is not the first system to crash on him, it's actually the third. We do have a still operational XboX (not a 360), which John gave me after we presented him with his 360 for graduation, but apparently this one unit seems to be the exception. I'm not sure what took out the first two (standard) XboX units, but the 360 crash was caused by what is now an all-too familar situation, even to MicroSoft customer service; the dreaded three flashing red lights. This is an error code also referred to as the 'red ring of death'. I suspect that MS was aware of this before the 360 even made it onto the market and this is why the original warranties only protected the systems for three months after purchase. An extended warranty is now being offered, but because of the date we purchased John's 360, his unit was not covered under the extension. According to customer service, we fell two weeks or so outside of the deadline.
At first MS was offering to repair faulty units (good luck with THAT workload, fuckers) for $100. Several of John's friends are also XboX users, and each one that owns a console has sent it back at least once for repairs. One guy has shipped his out for repairs a record five times. FIVE. It would have been cheaper to buy another unit. Or maybe not, considering how useless the 360 is. I've seen lots of sites since John's 360 died; gamers talking about how they've replaced their 360s two, three, sometimes as many as six times and were STILL having problems. At least John got thirteen months out of his instead of the standard 2-10 months most gamers are getting.
I do agree with John's decision to get rid of his 360. After three units we just felt like to continue would be throwing money at a problem that isn't really being addressed. Both he and I have made several calls to MS, and the best they could come up with was, "unplug the console, take off the detachable hard drive, plug it back in and see if you still have the red lights. If not, reattach the hard drive and reboot the console. If so, send us your 360 and we'll repair it (or send you a new or refurbished one) in 4-6 weeks". Have a nice day.
Pardon me, but - whutfuck?
As much as these damnable things cost and the best solution you can come up with is 'unplug it, then plug it back in'?! That particular reset option works great for a VCR, a DVD player, a CD player, even our cable box. For the 360, it accomplishes precisely ZIP. I have yet to talk to a single user this so-called 'reset' works for. It would be fantastic if that was all it took, considering how completely and utterly useless MS customer service is. I know what good CS is, because I used to provide it when I worked at the book store. If I had been even a fraction as unhelpful, unsympathetic and unknowledgable as MS CS is, Peter would have given me the boot within the first month, and deservedly so. The only time I got any actual help was when I called to cancel John's XboX Live membership. They did do that right. At least I think they did. I should probably check my credit card statement to be sure.
I had a talk with John about this and he promised me he'd never drop any more money on a MS system. The thing is, while the 360 is functional it's a thing of beauty. Perfect sound, brilliant online play, graphics so clean and beautiful you'll almost cry the first time the console powers up. The navigation system is easy to use. The whole experience is just amazing. But when it goes ass-up *which happens more often than not* you're left with at best, a very costly DVD player. Or at worst, the most expensive night light you've ever purchased.
Meanwhile, we have two PS2s (one bought in 2000, the other in 2001) that work like brand new, no issues with the Wii, the PSPs, the DSs, the GameBoys, or the Sega system that I bought used and is almost as old as John. I think it's safe to say we're experienced (obsessed?) gamers here, and our collection has been built up one unit at a time as money allows over the last several years. I even have a replica console that plays original 8 & 16 bit Nintendo games that I bought dirt freaking cheap - and that thing works better than any MS gaming system (with the exception of the one that still works, of course), we have ever had.
My advice to other gamers: stick with Nintendo and Sony. In addition to being better systems in general they have better warranties, and it's going to cost you far less in the long run, in terms of both money and aggravation/frustration. The PS3 has sound and graphics that are not only equal to the 360, in some cases they're superior, the navigation is easy to use, online gaming works beautifully and the PS3 is compatible with the full spectrum of Playstation games all the way back through the originals. Plus Sony offers free downloads of classic Nintendo games. Right now it's a bit more expensive than the 360 but the price is already starting to drop due to the availability of previously owned units and what you save in repairs and aggravation is more than worth it. John absolutely loves that thing, and after seeing what it does I do too.
For XboX 360 users who have not had the experience yet of seeing the red ring of death, I submit this photo of what you can expect, along with the message your unit will be sending you:
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