[boojiboy7]

On October 20th, 2007, I sat down in my living room, booted up The Orange Box on my 360, and continued to work on beating Half Life 2. I had never beaten it before, and my opinions on it were mixed as far as I'd gotten, but I was still playing, which says something. I tend to give up on games when they start to bore me. Anyhow, as I was breaking into Nova Prospekt, my screen suddenly tinted green. Everything did. I checked my TV, and it turned out to show everything else just fine, but the Xbox made everything green, so I figured it was busted.

This was not a big deal, as I had a two year warranty at Best Buy that was only halfway completed, so I packed up the system and all the relevant stuff, and drove out to the exact same Best Buy I bought it at, and exchanged it. The Best Buy people suggested it might be the hard drive that was acting odd, so I opted to replace the whole thing with a brand new one. OK, so I lost some saves, but I could just redownload all my games and such when I got home and it wouldn't be too big a thing. As a bonus, the 360 had dropped in price by 50 dollars, and now came with Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. What this meant was I had 50 bucks in Best Buy credit, plus two games (one of which I already owned, but oh well). So I re-upped my warranty with the 50 bucks (plus 10 of my own) and off I went. I got home, hooked it up, and started downloading some games.

Now, I had read in numerous places about the problem with downloading your games to a new Xbox, mainly that you could only play them on your profile, and only when online. This turned out to be totally and frustratingly true. I decided that the next day I would call 1-800-4MY-XBOX and get it sorted out.

I call them, and after being on the phone for over an hour, I end up talking to a 'supervisor' who got all my info sorted out, and said it would take about a week to fix, but it would help it along if I faxed over the receipt from the exchange. As soon as I got off the phone with him, I went to my local Staples and faxed it all over.

Two weeks go by. Nothing from Microsoft.

I call them back. The first guy I talk to cannot find any information on me at all and seems to have no clue what he is doing. He proceeds to transfer me to the hardware department, who are as baffled by his action as I am. They get me back to someone who can help me, who transfers me up the line. His 'supervisor' miraculously does find my info, but tells me it will take another month. He gives me the same load of crap that the first guy gave me, all about how MS has to transfer the licenses for the software and such, and that this will take a month. I am incredibly frustrated, but what can I do, right?

So I wait.

And wait.

A month goes by, nothing heard from them. The holidays show up, and I get buys with that, and forget about it. Come January, I start thinking that I need to call them again and find out what the deal is. On Tuesday, January 8th of 2008 (note how long this is after my original call), as if reading my mind, someone from MS calls and leaves a voicemail for me. They need my serial number. I have given this to them every time I have talked to them, but I figure them calling and asking for it is a good sign I might finally get something done. I am pretty busy for those next few days, so I don't get around to calling them until today (Friday, January 11th).

I wake up this morning, call in, and after sitting through 'Max', the smooth talking annoying computer voice of 1-800-4MY-XBOX, for what seems like the 800th time, I finally get to talk to someone. I give him my reference number, and then give him my serial number. He tells me that someone should be calling me at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon, and they will be able to finish this up.

I am pretty happy at this moment; still a bit frustrated that it is taking so long, but happy that the end is near.

This afternoon, as I am waiting in line at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to renew my registration on my car, a voicemail shows up on my phone. It is MS again, and again they want my serial number. What the hell?

So, after I leave the BMV, I am out in my car, and I still have the number in my little binder of useful info (which I had with me to get things taken care of at the BMV). After going though one lackey in Customer Service who has no idea what is going on and beginning to talk to his 'supervisor', I find out that I need the Console ID number, which is totally different from the serial. I am about a ten minute drive away from my console, but I tell the guy to just hold on with me until I get home.

As I am driving home, I start asking him questions. Why has it taken so long? Does it take this long for every one of the 360s out there that have failed? How long is it going to take from this day?

His answer to this last question pushes me over the edge, I fully admit. He tells me 30 days. He tells me he is restarting the whole process. I lose it at him. What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you people? etc. etc. etc.

His response to this is to warn me not to use such language.

Seriously.

His company is doing their darnedest to make sure they don't refund me the somewhere-between-$100-and-$150 I have spent on their games, and he is worried about my language. I point this out to him in some even more colorful language and in the middle of a sentence, he hangs up on me. CLICK.

I am furious at this point. I get into my apartment and call back. After sitting through that jackass 'Max' yet again, I finally end up talking to a woman. I didn't quite make out her name, but she is actually very nice, and when I explain the situation, apologizes profusely for the behavior of the last guy, and pulls up my file. She gets a bit more info from me (the same info I always give: full name, address, phone number, gamertag, and so on...I ask if she wants my blood type or my birth certificate as well) and transfers me to her supervisor, who is named Alfred, who actually explains that MS will call me at 2:00 (not 1:00) tomorrow, and that they wanted to verify the serial number and such before they called. This sounds like crap, but the guy is nice enough that I let it slide. I get a new reference number, and yeah, call it a day.

Hopefully, tomorrow this will get worked out. It has only been three months, right? Yeah, I am not confident at all.

The moral of the story: The BMV is more fun than 1-800-4MY-XBOX.
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[Kappuru]

I've been going through this same song and dance, even with a personal rep at Microsoft. It's been two months.

Your post inspired me to call again, but I'm about to give up. Really sucked not being able to play Lumines during the live outage.
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[RyogAkari]

[ApM]

It's been my experience that when this shit happens to me more than once, it's systemic rather than just somebody fucking up, and it'll be at least 10 phone calls before I get ahold of someone who is actually interested in solving my problem rather than telling me they will and getting me off of the phone. Call centers are hell.

It's much more efficient to find a different route. Sending letters CC'ed to various higher-ups about how badly you've been treated by their call center often works. It looks like Microsoft generally listens to complaints to the Better Business Bureau.
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[EU03]

Ok, I was bitching about this earlier in September.
Got my new 360 in the mail, boot it up, find my games are worthless offline. So I call up MYXBOX, chat with the operator, and he says to just redownload my games. Cool.
God, why don't they know anything? Of course it doesn't work so I go through the same song and dance with a new operator. He then says to delete my profile and recover it. I do that and it doesn't work.

It also managed to delete ALL my fucking save data (and I SPECIFICALLY picked "delete profile only"). Good bye Armored Core blueprints. Good bye Ridge Racer 6 progress. I still haven't gotten over this grieving to this day.

I call again. The next guy explains to me the DRM situation, that I have a new 360, blah blah. After confirming my console ID, he said my games should be re-registered to my account after two weeks or so after he takes it to the higher heads. Good to go, right?

More than a month passes. I call them up again, give them my reference number. This time, they tell me that since this goes by a case-by-case basis, they actually CHECK if you've been on XBL to see if you are warranted to have your games back or not. Since I was indeed on XBL a few times (mostly for CoD4), my situation was deemed not worth their time.

Fuckers.

I have no reason to go back on Live in the next few months or so (actually, I can't), so I'm going to try this again when I can muster up the patience to do so.

With so many people given so much shit with broken 360s, I can't see why people haven't been more vocal about this problem to Microsoft.
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[Aaron]

I'm on the cusp of going through this shit. My 360 is back in it's box, and just waiting for Best Buy to get more in stock so I can do the exchange. I often play XBLA games offline, so I'm expecting the pain.

BTW, the green tint was a video related error, either the chip or the outputs going bad. Anyone who told you it had something to do with the hard drive was a total moron.

[boojiboy7]

[SplashBeats]

lol, this is why paying for the rights to play a game is a business model structured specifically to fuck the customer in the ass.

enjoy it!
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BOUNCE SHAKE TWERK JERK !!!!

[shnozlak]

They do it and do it again because you'll keep coming back. You'll keep coming back again and again.

I have a similar issue with steam. I cant play my games off line because I didn't set up "off line mode" online and currently cant connect that comp to the net for various reasons.
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Shnozlak is riding around town on a bicycle.

[Felix]

for this thread, i would take a picture of the five hundred dollar PC hooked up to my HDTV running acceleration of suguri, call of duty 4, gears of war, and frets on fire, except i can't be arsed to build such a thing and i don't have nor want an HDTV.

[boojiboy7]

[Felix]

[boojiboy7]

Well, in theory I can almost agree with you on that, with a few problematic exceptions. First, I know what will run on my 360. Even if I built a really solid computer (which I have, aside from the 64 bit decision, but that is working out alright), I have no way of knowing what will run on it. Secondly, unfortunately, the 360 right now has the games I want to play. The PC is a great alternative if all you want to play of the 360's library is the FPSs, but sadly that is not the case.

and yes, joe, it is designed to fuck the consumer in the ass. but it ain't like syaing that or not participating in it is likely to change it, so oh well.
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[Kappuru]

A 500$ computer does not play games like COD4 at the same res or detail as the 360, either. Plus, I already have a computer, so that' really kind of missing the point.
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[Felix]

[SuperWes]

[XORDYH]

[Baron Patsy]

[internisus]

Is there any way to play XBox Live Arcade games on the PC? I think I can play all the regular 360 games I want to on a PC, and I don't ever, ever want to go through this.

I mean, what will people do in five years when MS has pulled all "support" whatsoever?
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Thinking about videogames.

[Chuplayer]

I just sent away my 2nd 360 after dealing with another moron. Here's hoping for a better 3rd unit.

[XORDYH]

[boojiboy7]

[Worm]

Why'd you give up the harddrive?
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gonna right the wrongs, an' gonna wrong the fuckin' rights

[Schwere Viper]

As of yet, I've only had my Xbox freeze up occasionally when fiddling with in-game dashboard menus, but if I've come to one conclusion while reading this thread, it's that my hard drive will be staying with me regardless of how many Xbox(es?) I go through.
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boost chains explode brains

[boojiboy7]

[XORDYH]

I'm pretty sure they tie your XBLA purchases to the serial # of the console, not the hard drive, so taking the old hard drive and putting it on a new machine wouldn't work. It sure would be nice if they could get a better system in place for this crap. Even if there wasn't the huge defect rate with their hardware, they're still shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to accessory sales; who's going to buy a bigger hard drive for his X360 if there is no easy way to transfer items from the old drive to a new one? They could at least put a system in place where maybe you send them both the old and new drives and they do the copy themselves, if they are that worried about unauthorized sharing and whatnot. I think the Wii is the only system that has a sensible policy in this regard; though I'm not too familiar with how it works on the PS3. This problem is only going to get worse, since these types of downloadable content are going to be the standard for all future console generations.
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Live, PSN, Battle.net, & elsewhere: XORDYH

[boojiboy7]

[Moogs]

After owning a 360 for a little over a year, I decided to join Live and get a silver account just to download shit. When I put in my gamertag, it says that it's already in use and that if it's mine, I can reclaim it or some shit. So, that's what I do.

What happens?

I now have two gamertags with the same name, except only one of them can sign on to Live. It makes things a bit unwieldy when I want to download something and then play a game in the meantime, because my offline tag is the one that has all my game saves and whatnot attached to it.

So, I don't get it.
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[boojiboy7]

Ah the fun continues. Guess who didn't call me back on Saturday? If you said Microsoft, YOU WIN!!!!

So I tried to call them today, and got the usual form response of 'it should take a few weeks' and that also it has been 'escalated' to 'level 3' but that I am not allowed to talk to anyone at 'level 3', but should expect to hear from them in the next few weeks.

So, any ideas of what I should do?
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[XORDYH]

Contact the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint.
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Live, PSN, Battle.net, & elsewhere: XORDYH

[boojiboy7]

[internisus]

[rabite gets whacked!]

Holy hell does this thread make me glad I bought a free PSP instead of a $200 360.

When do you think they'll have these hardware (and support) failures fixed? Another 2 years? 5?
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[GalaxyHead]

I thought some people were already taking Microsoft to court over the Live outage?

Also where is my free arcade game( I didn't use Live during that time anyway)?
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“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” - Harry Schoell, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc, in response to erroneous reports about a robot under development.

[XORDYH]