My Xbox 360 Has Died...and I'm Pissed.

Well as of yesterday, my Xbox 360 is officially dead. I turned it on yesterday afternoon with the intention of playing some Rainbow Six: Vegas and the “three red lights of death” flashed within its ring of light. Seeing this means your Xbox 360 has suffered a major hardware malfunction and thus will not work properly. Those red lights flashed on and off, taunting me, as if to say, “Ha, ha! You’re fucked now, sucker!” As you can ascertain from the title and my general tone, I’m pissed.

As soon as I saw the three red lights, well, after my heart sank, I immediately turned the system off and tried a number of home remedies to fix the problem. I unplugged it and set it aside. I disconnected the hard drive. I even took it to a relatively cold area of my home to let it cool off (even though it wasn’t hot). Nothing so far has worked and my frustrations continue to mount…

Since the Xbox 360’s launch in November of 2005, reports of malfunctioning and dying units have been running rampant in the news, websites and internet forums as gamers everywhere experienced the same thing that I did yesterday. For a long time now I have been defending Microsoft and their failure to diagnose and fix the problems plaguing Xbox 360 but now, I’m through with that. Microsoft can defend themselves.

I guess things like this take on a whole new meaning when they hit close to home…

Seriously, why can’t they get their act together and fix these problems? I know I got mine early, and early adopters usually get screwed, but these problems are still occurring today. Not to mention the fact that my Xbox, which was also purchased early on, is still working fine. So what the hell happened between generations Microsoft?

Another thing that irks me about the widespread Xbox 360 problems at launch and beyond is the fact that this isn’t happening to Sony and Nintendo. While Nintendo has been known for their well crafted consoles and quality of workmanship overall, Sony suffered massive problems with their Playstation 2 at launch and well on into the future. Many even expected similar problems to plague the PS3’s launch. Well, here we are, nearly five months after the launch of the Playstation 3 and I have yet to hear reports of faulty units breaking down on consumers. So it appears that after being the worst in terms of quality hardware last generation, Sony has learned from their mistakes and gotten their act together. It appears the only company left to clean up their act is you, Microsoft. So I guess the real question here is, what are you going to do about it?

It was inevitable I suppose, considering how many Xbox 360’s manufactured during that time period are slowly but surely crapping out. I bought the Xbox 360 that cold January morning thinking I would be one of the lucky few that wouldn’t have a problem with the console and that it would provide me with years of gaming bliss and satisfaction. Well I got one year of gaming bliss, does that count? When you consider that the item in question cost me $400, it doesn’t count for much. It also doesn't sit well with me that with all the reports of 360's dying, I secretly knew in the back of my mind that one day, my 360 would suffer the same fate. All this time I thought I was just being paranoid. Turns out my suspicions were correct.

Perhaps I’m making too much of this. My Xbox 360 was manufactured in 2005, meaning it carries a lifetime warranty and I can get it fixed for free. At least I can give credit to Microsoft for that one. I just wish they would take more time to diagnose the problems in either manufacturing or the hardware itself and take care of it, and I wish they were more like Nintendo when it comes to the quality of work they put into making their hardware. Well, the Xbox 360 has been my favorite of the three new consoles for some time now and I hate to see it go. If Microsoft turns out to be a bitch to work with, or if they end up sending me another Xbox 360 unit that doesn’t work then that may change to the Playstation 3 or Wii. One thing’s for sure though…I’ve certainly lost a lot of respect for the company as a whole and will not likely buy another of their products until all the kinks are worked out. The problem is, if I had waited that long this time, I still wouldn’t have one…

Oh well, time to call Microsoft up and have them send the “coffin”…