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Blog: Gadgets Xbox 360 in Purgatory
Marcus Yam (Blog) - April 11, 2007 3:06 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 20 comment(s) - last by mars777.. on Apr 23 at 7:54 AM

The open casket with foam, plastic and paper

All dressed up to go to Ontario

This may be the last time I see you, dear machine from April 28, 2006
My Xbox 360 is still broken, but it will soon be on its way to defibrillation

I’m still in the possession of a broken Xbox 360, but I’m already impressed with Microsoft’s speedy service. My Xbox 360 ‘coffin’ arrived yesterday from the courier, less than a full business day after I made the initial call to the service center.

I made the call last Thursday, and the shipping label on the empty white box shows that it was processed the very same day on April 5. Just before I picked up the phone, I debated the value of calling just before the start of Easter weekend, as I figured that nothing would get done until after the holiday.

So arrived the fabled coffin, which I opened to find two pieces of molded packing foam, a plastic bag, shipping label, directions on what to do and even tape for resealing the box. The directions were clear with pictures on exactly how to pack up the console and what NOT to include (hard drive, custom faceplates, accessories, etc.).

By the time I finished taking pictures and packing everything up, my closest courier drop off location had closed. My deadbox 360 will have to wait until tomorrow before getting sent off to the place where all other naughty Microsoft consoles go. Actually, wait, I need to clarify something. I wrote in my first blog on the subject that my Xbox 360 would be headed off the Texas, but that’s not the case. Since my console is of the Canadian variety, it’ll be shipped off to Teleplan, an outsourced repair service, in Vaughn, Ontario.

The fact that the console is headed off to an electronics repair facility makes me doubt those reports saying that all broken Canadian Xbox 360s get replaced with brand-new units instead of refurbs. I won’t know for sure until I get mine back, though I’d have no problem getting my original console back in working condition. What I don’t want is to get a console with a DVD-ROM drive that’s of the jet turbine Hitachi species, even if it’s new.

I’m still terribly disappointed by the shameful reliability of the Xbox 360, and this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but Microsoft appears to be doing its best to help those with broken consoles.

And no, I did not try the towel trick nor did I spank it.

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Well... Unfortunately
By cheetah2k on 4/11/2007 5:40:08 AM , Rating: 2
... these babies are all made in China... M$ obviously sacrificed some QA/QC to get these rolling out the door, and as a result, M$ will pay for it in the end. Lets just hope that the Elite doesnt suffer the same fate (especially at US$479+!)

Sony may well be doing the same thing now - trying to cut costs in fab so that they can inturn, cut their losses (ref: noisy PS3 batch)

Its a shame really, as we all demand quality products, and 0 fatalities.




RE: Well... Unfortunately
By ObscureCaucasian on 4/11/2007 9:40:37 AM , Rating: 2
Hopefully the 65nm 360's won't be so unreliable.


RE: Well... Unfortunately
By zsouthboy on 4/11/2007 11:55:15 AM , Rating: 5
There is a rolling slope at which you pay more for QC and suffer less customer returns and problems that have to be dealt with by CS, or you spend less on QC and deal with it.

Guess which is almost always more cost effective?
It's why everyone does it.

Also, we the consumers may demand quality products with 0 fatalities, but we're also unwilling to pay. Pretending it's the evil corporations doing it is just kidding ourselves.


RE: Well... Unfortunately
By Sahrin on 4/11/2007 12:14:26 PM , Rating: 3
trying to cut costs in fab

If Sony is having noise issues, the problem isn't in fabrication - it's in manufcaturing.


RE: Well... Unfortunately
By Roy2001 on 4/12/2007 12:21:50 PM , Rating: 2
It is not because it is made in China. It is poor desigh and poor material (PCB board) it used. MS did not realize the heat generated by ATI graphic chips when they designed it.


Not brand new - refurb
By chdude3 on 4/11/2007 12:47:13 PM , Rating: 2
"reports saying that all broken Canadian Xbox 360s get replaced with brand-new units instead of refurbs."

Mine came back with a giant sticker on the bottom saying "REFURBISHED". My friend got a brand new unit. :( Probably just depends on the stock at hand.

I also had to pay shipping back to Teleplan, and the overall turnaround was 10 business days. Not bad, but not great either. Plus then I had (and still have) the console ID issue - all purchased content is still tied to my OLD console, and I have to be on Live to access it on this console. And my wife's profile cannot access ANY of it. :(




RE: Not brand new - refurb
By Marcus Yam on 4/11/2007 1:23:48 PM , Rating: 2
The whole Xbox Live thing is a bit of a disaster for people who have bought a ton of stuff over XBLA. I heard that if you make a big enough stink, MS may actually give you the points you need to re-buy all your original games.

Interesting stuff on the new vs. refurb issue though. Fingers crossed for getting either my console or new one back. :\


RE: Not brand new - refurb
By chdude3 on 4/12/2007 8:59:45 AM , Rating: 2
I raised a stink because I had over 5000 MS points invested in Marketplace content, and after many discussions with various reps, finally got reimbursed. I just used my wife's profile to re-buy all the content so that she could access it again.


Surprised!
By Zelvek on 4/12/2007 1:20:19 AM , Rating: 2
I must say I am very surprised by the number of people with problems for two reasons. First I only have two friends out of 20 odd that have had issues (one the red ring the other a stuck drive bay but that was from him dropping it on his way to a LAN party). Second is that I am the PC tech for a small electronics store where we have probably sold close to 60+ Xbox 360s and we have only had two customers have any problems one was trying to do media player connectivity with windows ME... LOL and the other had a extra noisy drive. I'm not saying a problem isn't there but I am amazed that so few have had problems in my direct experience.




RE: Surprised!
By FITCamaro on 4/12/2007 6:55:58 AM , Rating: 1
Yeah really. Of the people I know that have one, none of them have had an issue. A friend of mine has a launch day console still going strong. And it's not noisy either either from the DVD drive or the fans.


RE: Surprised!
By chdude3 on 4/12/2007 9:02:40 AM , Rating: 2
Zelvek, maybe it has to do with the age of the consoles? I have a group of 5 friends including myself who play online all the time. Three of us got launch consoles (build dates of October 2005), two purchased in December 2005. Of those three launch consoles, two of them died (one being mine) and have been replaced. The third is now giving my friend sporadic red rings and it'll just be a matter of time before it dies fully.

Of the two December 2005 consoles, one friend experiences an unusual amount of freezing/crashing, but hasn't gotten far with MS support yet.

That leaves only one of the five of us who has/is not having problems with their 360.


My repair went well
By DCstewieG on 4/11/2007 11:26:24 AM , Rating: 2
A few months ago I got the 3 flashing red lights. My experience actually went really well, considering.

I had a launch day console, so this was more than a year later. I called and after confirming about 5 times that yes, the thing was broken, they gave me the shipping address and shipped out a prepaid box, no cost on my part at all. A week and a half later, I had my new 360.

The worst thing about it is that now I can only play Live Arcade games when I'm online and signed in. When you buy one, they get tied to your profile and console. I read on a forum that if you call and bitch they can set up a silver account for you with enough points to buy back all the games (thus tying them to the new console) but I haven't tried yet.




RE: My repair went well
By mars777 on 4/23/2007 7:54:38 AM , Rating: 2
It will sound mean but,
if I had to do this and do that to use a simple peace of hardware in order to make it work as supposed I'd rather send them an Antrax love letter.


My 360 experiance
By snorky on 4/11/2007 4:29:22 PM , Rating: 2
About a month ago I was 10 days out of warranty - the MS people were total asshats about the whole process. They acted like I was the only one on earth that ever had a problem with the ring of death. They weren't even offering the shipping box. Luckily, I had purchased a replacement plan at Best Buy (forgot about that when I called MS).

The day I returned my 360, five 360's were returned. The 360 has problems - Ask any retailer. Love the games, but the hardware is fragile.

btw - not a Sony fanboy - bought the 360 so I could also play original X-box games - never bought one of those.




RE: My 360 experiance
By OxBow on 4/12/2007 10:00:10 AM , Rating: 2
I've had similar problems with tech support. After calling over and over, I finally got a live person, who hung up on me. I finally got them to admit that the thing needed service and am waiting on the box to ship it out.

I play online with two other local guys with 360's. They had launch units, while mine was made last summer. One has sent his in twice, the other only once. They had been saying I was lucky to have a later unit that didn't have trouble, but there you go.

I'm suprised that the 360 has had so many problems. It really looks like Microsoft was so eager to be first to market that they rushed through quality control.

My PS3 has been running non-stop every day for three weeks now with no problem (folding@home and games). The wrist strap thing on the Wii was unfortunate but they handled it well. Why can't Microsoft improve their quality control? By all accounts, they are breaking even with costs now, so surely they could address some of these obvious design flaws.


it will be a refurb
By Smallies on 4/11/2007 7:53:05 PM , Rating: 2
I've sent 3 xbox 360's to vaughn ontario, none of them have come back as the original. You WILL get a refurb unfortunately :(

Just consider yourself lucky.. I'm on console #6.




RE: it will be a refurb
By Marcus Yam on 4/11/2007 9:48:22 PM , Rating: 2
Argh, bastards. I wonder where the whole thing about Canadians getting new Xbox 360 came from.

Well, I dropped off my machine at Purolator today, and it'll be there on Friday. It won't be until next week before I find out if I get someone else's stinky machine.


Warranty was almost up.
By wallijonn on 4/12/2007 2:02:18 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
dear machine from April 28, 2006


Two more weeks and he may have been s.o.l. So it's a good thing that it died when it died.




RE: Warranty was almost up.
By Marcus Yam on 4/12/2007 3:20:28 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, that was the manufacture date. This console I had only owned for less than six months.

I wonder how the warranty works for that though. My cousin bought his Xbox 360 on Dec 26, 2006, but he got a machine that was made November 2005. I don't even know how that's possible considering how the console was selling when it launched. It was definitely a new unit though.


By OxBow on 4/11/2007 10:28:48 AM , Rating: 2
It's going on three weeks for me now and I still can't get through to their tech support number. They e-mail me saying call this number early in the morning, but no luck. Since I live in Texas, maybe I'll just take a day off work and drive it over. I wonder if that would do any good.

Considering I know no one who hasn't had to send their 360 in for service, it's incredible that Microsoft hasn't been more responsive on this. At first I was philosophical about this, but I'm getting more irritated as each day goes by.




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