XBOX 360 R-I-P 04/06/06

[GrizzLee]

Well I had her just over a month and I got the dreaded red ring of death.

I have been hearing mixed stories about MS support on this matter.

I hope they come through quickly.

 

If it was Nintendo, I could take it to their customer support center here in Redmond (across the street from Microsoft Headquarters). I guess MS wants me to ship it to Texas instead.

 

I will have to wait to play some more Burnout Revenge goodness for awhile.

 

BTW: THis is the second micorsoft game console I had problems with. My first one had to be shipped back as well

 

-Lee

[Starscream]

That sucks. Man, I have been seeing more instances of them messing up all the time. Mine should go pretty soon

[Famicoman]

That sucks. Are you sure its down for good. I got this ring once or twice a while ago. After that, it was fine.

[NovaXpress]

Damn, I saw the thread title and figured that Nintendo just announced another feature of the Revolution.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Red ring of death to go along with their blue screen? I suppose it works out.

 

Sorry to hear you've been deprived of gaming goodness. Go dig out an SNES or something and enjoy that 'till you get it back.

[GrizzLee]

That sucks. Are you sure its down for good. I got this ring once or twice a while ago. After that, it was fine.

 

 

"She's dead Jim"

 

-Lee

[GrizzLee]

Damn, I saw the thread title and figured that Nintendo just announced another feature of the Revolution.

 

 

 

Unfortunately.. no

 

 

I guess I can pull out the RCA Studio II. Tha'll keep me entertained for.. oh.. maybe 3 seconds.

 

Actually, I have a bunch of new Atari homebrews to play. So it is just as well.

 

-Lee

[Hyper_Eye]

I got the red ring of death when I first plugged in my 360 on launch night (at about 1:30 ). EEEK!!! Then I realized I didn't have the video cable plugged all the way in.

[GrizzLee]

Update 04/12/06:

 

My experience with MS Tech support has been less than stellar. They sent an email asking me to call them. I got a ESL support person (English Second Language). After fumbling through the conversation for several minutes and trying to figure out what was being spoken to me, I asked to speak to someone who could speak English that I could understand. Of course, I got put on indefinite hold (yeah, go figure :-). A call back and they were confused about my service call. After some time they got it right (I hope). Told me it would be about a month turnaround time to fix my 360. I asked for a quicker turnaround time. A chat to the manager did no good. He told me that I shouldn't believe the turnaround time that I read in the newsgroups (I told him his own support staff told me it would be month!.. I never mentioned the newsgroups to him!). At the end, I mentioned the great support I get from Nintendo and he SLAMMED Nintendo, stating there products were inferior and not as complex. Yeah, inferior… At least their products work and all the support folks I've spoken to at Nintendo speak English . I do not care for the "we are superior" attitude of the MS support folks. A bit of an ego problem there.

 

-Lee

[shadow460]

Knowing my luck with consoles, I'll be one of the few to get a working 360.

None of my Sony consloes have ever had any trouble, and some of my other consoles have survived things they shouldn't. (e.g., Gameshark for the Saturn, Supercharger used regularly with the 7800, Gameboy thrown on a steel deck, etc.)

[King_Salamon]

One thing Nintendo does indeed have is customer support. They really want to keep all customers (as they should!) coming back for more Nintendo goodness.

 

With the issues concerning the 360 (and the fact that I won't bother with a high def tv for gaming) I may sit out this new generation (360 and PS3) and settle for the 'inferior' Gamecube-Cubed! Cheaper and it does have all those games... plus any wireless DS support would be great!

[dalton4life]

No rings, no problems what so ever for me so far. I've had my since January. I'm just hoping for the best, but if it messes up I'll just send it to MS. I have plenty to play to keep me busy until I get it back. So far MS have put out the only disc based systems that I haven't had to repair or replace. I never owned a Gamecube, but I've heard those are pretty problem free.

Edited April 12, 2006 by dalton4life

[christianscott27]

At the end, I mentioned the great support I get from Nintendo and he SLAMMED Nintendo, stating there products were inferior and not as complex. Yeah, inferior… At least their products work and all the support folks I've spoken to at Nintendo speak English . I do not care for the "we are superior" attitude of the MS support folks. A bit of an ego problem there.

 

 

Been there, feel your pain. My issue was PC related, in a nutshell their upgrade nearly killed my computer, anyways I called 1800microsoft and got passed to India. Right from the get go the guy insisted the problem wasnt from MS but from Dell, so he patched Dell support on the line and argued with the Dell woman for awhile. The Dell woman actually made sense and pointed us toward the solution we eventually arrived at, but not before Microsoft's angry Indian trashed Dell to the point that he actually had me go online and read some forum msgs slamming Dell's products. He wasted nearly an hour of my time, in the end I asked for his supervisor and requested another tech person.... So the next day I called back and insisted that I talk to a real customer service manager in the home office, after another half hour of being told off and passed around I got a mid-level manager. I made my case about how unprofessional they were and told them that frankly they should thank me for honest feedback, that and I kept refering to their tech support as the "Apple salesperson". Believe it or not it worked and they called back later and said I could have any home software product I wanted for free, this caught me off guard so I said "I dunno gimme that digital photography thing". Sure enough I got the software in mail about 10 days later. So that was about $60 or so, sorta worth it.

 

Good luck with your 360, keep giving em hell.

[Hyper_Eye]

Knowing my luck with consoles, I'll be one of the few to get a working 360.

None of my Sony consloes have ever had any trouble, and some of my other consoles have survived things they shouldn't. (e.g., Gameshark for the Saturn, Supercharger used regularly with the 7800, Gameboy thrown on a steel deck, etc.)

 

Regardless of what you see online there are well more then a few 360's that work. As matter of fact, this unlucky person got one of the few that dosn't work. People who are mad scream louder then people that are content. That is the entire reason for what appears to be a high failure rate. I have had my console since launch night and I have had 0 problems with it. It works perfectly.

 

It sucks that this support experience went so badly. I have not had to deal with the support so I can't comment on the quality of it. A month turnaround?!? That is crazy.

[toddst]

Lately, I am starting to think that it is worth getting those pricey 2 year warranties from places like Best Buy and Circuit City since they will just replace the unit on the spot.

[GrizzLee]

Lately, I am starting to think that it is worth getting those pricey 2 year warranties from places like Best Buy and Circuit City since they will just replace the unit on the spot.

 

Actually, I wouldn't count on that. I discussed that with the MS rep and with Fryes electronics support (where I bough the unit). I would still be out a month. They still don't have them in stock to do a swap. In fact Fryes told me that I would have to send it to MS for repair since it is still under MS warranty. I wonder how faithful those extended warranties are. Call me paranoid, but I suspect there is some fine print in there that they can wiggle out of.

 

-Lee

[Chickybaby]

I know at Gamestop/EB if you get a warrenty for games hey replace it on the spot, as far as I know if they have the system in stock they'll swap that out too. They have been really good about that even to the point of calling another store to have one shipped. But, you gota keep that receipt!

For what those 360s cost they/Microsoft/Fryes should do better then that.

I would keep calling and keep bitching every day to anyone who claims to be a manager, the bigger the mouth the faster they want to get rid of you.

That and mention that you'll be happy to call the news and let them know what kind of service they have for that nice new system.

Edited April 12, 2006 by Chickybaby

[sku_u]

I wonder how faithful those extended warranties are. Call me paranoid, but I suspect there is some fine print in there that they can wiggle out of.

 

-Lee

 

They are a complete waste of money and time. I don't understand why anyone would waste their money on one.

[keilbaca]

I also have a friend whose 360 died a couple months after playing.

 

Enter: wave 2 of overheating

[Chickybaby]

I wonder how faithful those extended warranties are. Call me paranoid, but I suspect there is some fine print in there that they can wiggle out of.

 

-Lee

 

They are a complete waste of money and time. I don't understand why anyone would waste their money on one.

 

Oh man, when you have an 8-10 year old kid playing PS2 games that cost 40-50 or even 360 games that cost 60 and you can pay an extra 3$ that would cover the game if the kid scratched the poo outta it - it's worth it to me! Some of those discs scratch just looking at them. I've seen so many people come back because the kid trashes the game and they didn't get the warrenty it's not funny. Then I've seen kids come back with a disk that looks like it's been hit by a brillo pad that have the warrenty that go home with a nice new one cause they kept the receipt.

I would say it would depend if kids are involved and if the game will be played a lot.

[sku_u]

I wonder how faithful those extended warranties are. Call me paranoid, but I suspect there is some fine print in there that they can wiggle out of.

 

-Lee

 

They are a complete waste of money and time. I don't understand why anyone would waste their money on one.

 

Oh man, when you have an 8-10 year old kid playing PS2 games that cost 40-50 or even 360 games that cost 60 and you can pay an extra 3$ that would cover the game if the kid scratched the poo outta it - it's worth it to me! Some of those discs scratch just looking at them. I've seen so many people come back because the kid trashes the game and they didn't get the warrenty it's not funny. Then I've seen kids come back with a disk that looks like it's been hit by a brillo pad that have the warrenty that go home with a nice new one cause they kept the receipt.

I would say it would depend if kids are involved and if the game will be played a lot.

 

Yeah, but the extended warranties on the systems are more like $80-120 and a lot of the offers are third party not actually affiliated with the store purchased in.

[moycon]

Yeah, but the extended warranties on the systems are more like $80-120 and a lot of the offers are third party not actually affiliated with the store purchased in.

 

The extended warrenty for Xbox 360 from Microsoft is $59.99 for 2 years.

You can send in a form that you get with your unit or call support and get it added to your account. In this way if say in a year you get the red rings of death you can contact them and they will overnight you a UPS box to send your unit in which they will fix or replace at any time. Either that or you can just pay the (I think) $75 (Each time you require service) if your warrenty is expired. Personally if I just invested $800 in a new next-gen entertainment console the $59.99 is pretty good deal. Especially to me since I already had to have the console serviced. But I can see your point as well, why not save the $60.00 and buy a new game or a wireless controller or something.

Edited April 13, 2006 by moycon

[NovaXpress]

If I invest $800 in a console, I expect it to last well beyond two years without any problems.

 

I had a drive problem with a PS2. The warranty was expired. I called Sony and they repaired it for free. So screw Microsoft if they want me to take out insurance on their system.

 

MA's are a sucker bet unless, as noted, kids are going to be the primary users.

[moycon]

If I invest $800 in a console, I expect it to last well beyond two years without any problems.

 

I had a drive problem with a PS2. The warranty was expired. I called Sony and they repaired it for free. So screw Microsoft if they want me to take out insurance on their system.

 

MA's are a sucker bet unless, as noted, kids are going to be the primary users.

 

Well consider me a big kid. I'd rather have extended guaranteed service on a new product. I do realize though that some peoples wallets are tighter than others. It's all good.

[sku_u]

If I invest $800 in a console, I expect it to last well beyond two years without any problems.

 

Same here. If it doesn't, I will definitely not buy that product again. From the sounds of the issues the 360 seems to have so far and the fact that it is getting zero advertising in my area tells me that Microsoft really dropped the ball on this one by releasing it before it was ready. I hope they can recover from their initial blunder since the system sounds promising.

 

Filing for an extended warranty is a waste of time and money you can spend on more important things. If you don't have enough faith that a product you are planning on spending more than you can buy a working 20+ year old Ms. Pacman Cabinet for will last beyond 2 years, why buy it in the first place?