Failing Hardware

I really love my Xbox 360... when it is working. Over the weekend I had my second 360 fail. It was really odd too, since there was no real hints that anything was wrong. I didn't have any problems with the console, hadn't been using it excessively, and really had only been using it lately as a DVD player and for playing arcade games. Sunday morning I watched an episode of the X-Files (just finishing up the 7th season) before breakfast and turned the unit off. When I came back after breakfast to play a game of Scene It with Kristi, the thing gave me the red rings of death.

This is the second time I've had to have my 360 replaced. I had to have my 360 replaced last year because of the same problem. I also had to have my power cord replaced last year. On top of those repairs, I also had both the guitar and drum set that came with Rock Band get replaced since they had broken. The 360 is, in my opinion, an amazing platform that does it all--games, a great online experience, DVD player, media streamer, and entertainment center--but the console and peripherals have such a high fail rate it's ridiculous.

I've had two 360's replaced. My brother has had to have one replaced. That's three broken consoles between the two of us. Not a great statistic if you ask me. Thankfully, Microsoft is pretty good about repairing or replacing broken machines. Oddly when I called to have this 360 fixed, it came up as out of warranty for over a year, which is odd since Microsoft has a 3 year warranty on all of their consoles. It must have somehow got screwed up in their system that I no longer had my original system, but a replacement unit. I didn't have to dick around with them, however, to get it classified as under warranty. All I did was tell them their records were wrong and they took me at my word, emailed a shipping label, and set me up to have it serviced free of charge.

It's stuff like that which keeps me so torn on the 360 and Microsoft. Their service is great. I love it, but I hate that I have to take advantage of it because of their crappy hardware. Oh well, I'll deal for now. Thankfully I've never had any issues with my Zune. I beat the crap out of that thing and it's still ticking.