Much Ado About Everything

Well, I never doubted reports of Xbox360 consoles dying in large numbers, but I never knew how likely it was to happen. Seven and a half months later, it happened to me too. All it took is playing back a HD-DVD for 10 minutes while it was 30C in my apartment. The box froze. After reboot it froze on the splash screen. I insisted and eventually was able to continue playback… only to have it freeze again. I switched to playing a game – Enchanted Arms, not a very demanding game – and except for the initial freeze during load, I was able to finish an entire chapter, playing for over 3 hours. Then suddenly, during a boss fight, it froze. After reboot I was greeted with – you guessed it – the famous Red Ring of Death. I plugged and unplugged the hard drive with various success, occasionally managing to get into the dashboard and rarely getting the red ring, but eventually it stuck and didn’t let go. Microsoft was nice and courteous but this was Wednesday. It is Monday today and my shipping box (so-called “coffin”) is still not here.

Of course, the big – very big, billion-dollar news – happened on Thursday. Micro$oft will be pruning that $ tree of theirs and grant all of us owners a godly extension of warranty – to 3 full years, worldwide. They also apologized for the mistake in their hardware.

So I know I will eventually end up with a permanently fixed Xbox360. I just doubt it will be my next one.