A History of Microsoft's Abuse of My Family

I come from a family of passionate gamers. We absolutely love playing Xbox 360 together. Our collection of Original Xbox and Xbox 360 games is extensive. We have spent hundreds of dollars on consoles, games, and accessories over the years. But we have suffered an unacceptable number of system failures and been helpless in the face of indifferent customer support for too long. Through it all, not once have we been given anything but a month-long wait for our troubles. The following is a complete history of my family's Xbox patronage, entirely accurate to every detail. Note that each time a console malfunctioned, Xbox Support was unable to resolve the issue via troubleshooting and required that we ship the console to a repair center. Each time, we received a refurbished unit after approximately 4 weeks.

GENERAL FACTS

• three active Xbox Live gold subscribers paying $50 a year, netting Microsoft $150 per year
• family currently owns two Xbox 360's so that member at college can play with rest of family at home over Xbox Live

HISTORY

• December 2003: Became Original Xbox owner

• January 2006: Purchased first Xbox 360 after months of dogged searching due to scarcity of product (still technically within Microsoft's self-professed "worldwide launch window" from November 2005-March 2006)

• November 2006: First 360 red-rings a few days before release of highly anticipated GEARS OF WAR, causing us to not have a console for that product's release

• August 2007: Second 360 red-rings shortly before release of highly anticipated BIOSHOCK, causing us to not have a console for that product's release

• September 2007: Received THIRD 360 three days before release of extremely highly anticipated HALO 3; within 24 hours, THIRD 360 red-ringed and caused us to miss the biggest entertainment launch of the year

• August 2009: FOURTH 360 red-rings

• September 2009: Received FIFTH 360 from repair center; after downloading mandatory system update from Xbox Live, console was unable to reconnect to internet. All troubleshooting steps with Xbox Support and ISP failed, forcing us to send in FIFTH 360 for repairs less than a day after receiving it and causing us to miss impending release of highly anticipated HALO 3: ODST

In addition, an individual member of the family purchased a 360 for his own use while at college. That chronology is as follows:

• July 2008: Individual member of household purchases another Xbox 360 console so that he will be able to play over Xbox Live from college with other members of household

• August 2008: Aforementioned member of household trades in recently purchased 360 for newly announced 60 gig model, paying difference in cost out of pocket

*Note that all consoles have always been kept in horizontal configuration on hard surface with large amount of space on all sides to ensure adequate airflow and maintain cooling. Power brick is similarly well-ventilated. Consoles have always been kept at room temperature and have not been subjected to any stresses or demands beyond simply playing video games as designed.

Clearly, we are passionate Xbox 360 users who have invested a lot of time and money into the system and its games. We have been wronged time and again by console failures. These frustrations have been aggravated by their extremely inopportune timing, Xbox's continually apathetic customer support, and shoddy "repair" work/poorly refurbished replacement consoles. We should be entitled to some form of compensation for these offenses, and at the very least deserve a working Xbox 360 console when we receive a unit from repair. And what is Microsoft's response? "Please wait 3-4 weeks for your repair. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Wow. I expected better from a level 37 but just...wow.

Wow. I expected better from a level 37 but just...wow.

93soccer

Why isn't he entitled to express his disappointment with Microsoft's policies? This is the Xbox 360 forums after all. You know, Microsofts console. If he wants to bring up the issue of Microsoft having poor hardware and a poor replacement process than I think he can do it here.

Sorry TC...Everyone knows by now what they are bying into with the 360. Most people have been through multiple consoles now. Its what you deal with if you have a 360..Plain and simple man..

Well he bought it at launch... Dont think that they knew bout the 35% failure rate of the thing back in January 2006...

Well he bought it at launch... Dont think that they knew bout the 35% failure rate of the thing back in January 2006...

chaplainDMK

Glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed the TC state that he/she bought a 360 at LAUNCH! Also, he had his 360 from Jan to Nov 06. I'm sure his collection of games at this stage would have been big enough to justify a repair.

[QUOTE="93soccer"]

Wow. I expected better from a level 37 but just...wow.

Why isn't he entitled to express his disappointment with Microsoft's policies? This is the Xbox 360 forums after all. You know, Microsofts console. If he wants to bring up the issue of Microsoft having poor hardware and a poor replacement process than I think he can do it here.

[QUOTE="93soccer"]

Wow. I expected better from a level 37 but just...wow.

COD4_Shinedown

Why isn't he entitled to express his disappointment with Microsoft's policies? This is the Xbox 360 forums after all. You know, Microsofts console. If he wants to bring up the issue of Microsoft having poor hardware and a poor replacement process than I think he can do it here.

[QUOTE="93soccer"]

Wow. I expected better from a level 37 but just...wow.

Why isn't he entitled to express his disappointment with Microsoft's policies? This is the Xbox 360 forums after all. You know, Microsofts console. If he wants to bring up the issue of Microsoft having poor hardware and a poor replacement process than I think he can do it here.

look lol you think thats a story i got one for ya

i got my first 360 march 2006 ,,

auguest 2006-the 360 stops reading disc tried to play saints row i called support they claimed the 360 wasnt what was messing up so i returned disc to story only to find out it was the 360 so on sept 2006 i bought another core

march 2007 , ironically a yr after my first and 6 mos after 2nd my 360 rrod'd while playing saints row

ms sent me a box 2 weeks later it was repaird then 6 months later the 3rd 360 rrod'd . while playing smackdown vs raw 2008

after they repaired that i went to store bought a 4th unit , which rrod'd 6 months later whilst playing saints row again

the one they repaired started to cause cracks in the center of my discs so i stopped using it

on dec 1s 2008 i bought a arcade - making the total to 4 '5 and 6

the 5th one had to be sent to ms for the scratchin problem it was fixed

the one i bought for xmas- 3 months into use it wouldnt power on so i sent that in to the support center so im on 6 7 and 8 lol

with only one that hasnt been in for along time

Yeah that's true too. I guess just ignore threads like these then...I mean they are bound to exist, as are threads about how much Halo sucks and how much of a letdown the latest Fable was, but all you have to do is ignore them and focus in on threads that interest you.Ovirew

[QUOTE="Ovirew"]Yeah that's true too. I guess just ignore threads like these then...I mean they are bound to exist, as are threads about how much Halo sucks and how much of a letdown the latest Fable was, but all you have to do is ignore them and focus in on threads that interest you.i_noseworthy

Not entirely sure why you would go into so much detail in your post. What can we do? Sure I sypathise with you but that would have been the same if you would have simply put that you got a rrod. I don't really need to know how much money you have given microsoft. Alot of people have these problems.

I personally bought a launch xbox and never got a red ring. I accidently pulled out the disk tray and ruined the console but thar was my fault so I bought another console. Which is still going strong.

I got sent a refurbished 360 when my original 360 crapped out on me and its been working fine ever since.... ive had it for over a year now.