360 Fails... AGAIN!

[bigbroon]

Believe me, we've assessed many options, lol. The first option was to use the PC, an expensive PC we already owned, to play FFXI on. My wife decided to play on it, as I've always been more inclined to play XBOX than PC (before I knew you could use controllers on PC too). She used the PC for a while but MANY problems with that, including being unable to enter Aht Urghan or Dynamis without DCing, meant a switch back to XBOX was on the cards.

In terms of getting it replaced, I had a lengthy, and rather heated, discussion with a Microsoft Customer Service representative about this. Here's how I see it:

If you buy something which comes with a 1-year warranty, and it breaks within the year, it should get replaced/repaired. The repaired machine should then have another, or an extended, warranty. This, to me, seems like common sense, especially if it's a repaired machine.

Here's what the customer service representative told me:

You get your 1-year warranty with your console, and once that 1 year is up, you get an additional 90 days. REGARDLESS of whether or not you've had your XBOX repaired, they won't extend your warranty by any more than this. You have to pay the £60 (which was $120 at one point last year, it's much less now) if your XBOX, repaired or not, is out of the 1-year warranty which started when you bought the original console.

It seems like common sense to me that, if you have to repair an ALREADY faulty machine, to at least extend the warranty by the same amount of time as the original warranty, not as compensation, as an act of showing that they have confidence in their repairs, and also to cover the customer in case what happened to me happens to them (that would be the repaired xbox breaking 4 months after the repair, 1 month after the 1 1-year + 90 days warranty ended). What they're basically saying is "You have 1 year for your XBOX to break in. If it does, we'll repair it. Then, with your BRAND NEW FRESH REPAIRED XBOX, you have the remainder of the original warranty + 90 days." 2 of my XBOX's broke in the 11th month, meaning that the newly repaired xbox had a what... 4 month warranty?

I've never heard of any other corporation work like this, let alone a massive company like Microsoft. It's fair enough to accept that their machine's are MAJORLY flawed. But this bullshit about warranties is unacceptable.

By old xbox's do you mean the older versions? Because I know for a fact we ARE getting older versions because our replaced xbox's are all the older version. If you mean old in terms of second hand, then no, they're not, they were all repaired or brand new if a repair couldn't be done.

We're running out of options fast here, I have been through 7 XBOX's, my wife has had 2 now, the PC route isn't looking to sexy, and there is no such thing as ffxi for PS2 over here (Britain.) <- We looked into that possiblity after maybe #3 IIRC, as I've never had a problem with PS2's before.

/sigh, is Altana trying to make us quit or switch to WoW? lewl

 

[Morcheeba]

I completely agree with you Bigbroon on your outlook of the integrities of corporations honoring their own Manufacturing warranties and repairs.

I had the same issues with Panasonic on a $800 tv. They offered to "repair" my brand new $800 television when it crapped out within 1 month, 1 MONTH of bringing it home. My response to their policy, "it's the manufacturers problem their products crap out within months of purchase not mine as the consumer. $800 may be pocket change to you but it's a lot of money to me. Have the vendor replace my television with a new one of the same value or MORE and you won't have me in the middle of the mall on a Saturday with your shitty ass product make a scene to where you lose a number of customers."

That is how Morchy loses her patience with Corporations and their ridiculous policies. lol

Needless to say, my television was replaced with a newer model right from the vendor I originally purchased it from.

This is the same action I would take in your case. I also feel that if Microsoft as the manufacturer can not stand behind their products and technicians to properly repair their products we are paying good hard money for they are (at best) a shoty, sad excuse for a corporation.

We all know they have the funds to back their products if they do indeed crap out within such short amounts of time. If they find the over head is too much with the volume of crapped out xboxs they needed to get back to the drawing board much earlier than releasing unprepared.

That's how I see it anyways.

EDIT: As with Osi above he would probably get a better reaction than I lol.

 

[TheOsyris]

Believe me, we've assessed many options, lol. The first option was to use the PC, an expensive PC we already owned, to play FFXI on. My wife decided to play on it, as I've always been more inclined to play XBOX than PC (before I knew you could use controllers on PC too). She used the PC for a while but MANY problems with that, including being unable to enter Aht Urghan or Dynamis without DCing, meant a switch back to XBOX was on the cards.

In terms of getting it replaced, I had a lengthy, and rather heated, discussion with a Microsoft Customer Service representative about this. Here's how I see it:

If you buy something which comes with a 1-year warranty, and it breaks within the year, it should get replaced/repaired. The repaired machine should then have another, or an extended, warranty. This, to me, seems like common sense, especially if it's a repaired machine.

Here's what the customer service representative told me:

You get your 1-year warranty with your console, and once that 1 year is up, you get an additional 90 days. REGARDLESS of whether or not you've had your XBOX repaired, they won't extend your warranty by any more than this. You have to pay the £60 (which was $120 at one point last year, it's much less now) if your XBOX, repaired or not, is out of the 1-year warranty which started when you bought the original console.

It seems like common sense to me that, if you have to repair an ALREADY faulty machine, to at least extend the warranty by the same amount of time as the original warranty, not as compensation, as an act of showing that they have confidence in their repairs, and also to cover the customer in case what happened to me happens to them (that would be the repaired xbox breaking 4 months after the repair, 1 month after the 1 1-year + 90 days warranty ended). What they're basically saying is "You have 1 year for your XBOX to break in. If it does, we'll repair it. Then, with your BRAND NEW FRESH REPAIRED XBOX, you have the remainder of the original warranty + 90 days." 2 of my XBOX's broke in the 11th month, meaning that the newly repaired xbox had a what... 4 month warranty?

I've never heard of any other corporation work like this, let alone a massive company like Microsoft. It's fair enough to accept that their machine's are MAJORLY flawed. But this bullshit about warranties is unacceptable.

By old xbox's do you mean the older versions? Because I know for a fact we ARE getting older versions because our replaced xbox's are all the older version. If you mean old in terms of second hand, then no, they're not, they were all repaired or brand new if a repair couldn't be done.

We're running out of options fast here, I have been through 7 XBOX's, my wife has had 2 now, the PC route isn't looking to sexy, and there is no such thing as ffxi for PS2 over here (Britain.) <- We looked into that possiblity after maybe #3 IIRC, as I've never had a problem with PS2's before.

/sigh, is Altana trying to make us quit or switch to WoW? lewl

Older versions is what i ment by old 360s. The older version have the high rate of failure. There are specific dates when chips were changed but the easier way to determin is just look if you have an HDMI por ton your 360. If it does have one its rather new and does not have the same defective percentage.

As for your warranty... You get a 3 year warranty with your 360 purchase. This warranty is from MS. AND when your console is repaired the warranty starts all over again on the new console.

I think you have a shitty deal going on and must be someone taking advantage of the EU customer.

In first 360 repair they just send me back my 360, fixed... This was during the one year warranty period.

In my second 360 repair i was sent a brand new 360 with an HDMI port and all. This was after they announced they have a 3 year warranty.

What you need to find out for sure is...

Why are you still receiving older models of the 360? I received a new one in my repair.
Why do you only have a one year warranty? I received a 3 year warranty.

 

[Tribalinius]

Older versions is what i ment by old 360s. The older version have the high rate of failure. There are specific dates when chips were changed but the easier way to determin is just look if you have an HDMI por ton your 360. If it does have one its rather new and does not have the same defective percentage.

As for your warranty... You get a 3 year warranty with your 360 purchase. This warranty is from MS. AND when your console is repaired the warranty starts all over again on the new console.

I think you have a shitty deal going on and must be someone taking advantage of the EU customer.

In first 360 repair they just send me back my 360, fixed... This was during the one year warranty period.

In my second 360 repair i was sent a brand new 360 with an HDMI port and all. This was after they announced they have a 3 year warranty.

What you need to find out for sure is...

Why are you still receiving older models of the 360? I received a new one in my repair.
Why do you only have a one year warranty? I received a 3 year warranty.

The 3 years warranty only cover the RRoD btw, other problems such as dirty disc are 1 year ^^ (this applies to refurb sent by MS AND new consoles)

 

[bigbroon]

Ya, we pursued the 3-year warranty path and were told it only applied to RRoD.

On a separate note, we found a quick fix that worked for our 2 XBOX's, in regards to the message "Could not read disc, please clean it with a soft cloth" or something along those lines. This problem, as acknowledged by Microsoft, was cause by the update to the dashboard etc.

Anyway, my wife was messing about as we were both unable to even get in to the PoL install/reinstall screen, and went in to "GAME LIBRARY -> PoL Viewer -> Install to Hard-drive." She did this, it took about 10 minutes tops, and the game now works fine. I did the same with mine, and it also works.

So for anyone experiencing these problems, try what I just suggested, I get the feeling it might just work =/ Props to my wife for fixing our problem anyway lol.

 

[Firestreak]

Just a simple suggestion.

Problem: Xbox 360 is broken, but not RROD. Only RROD is covered?

Solution: Get a RROD.

 

[bigbroon]

Solution: Get a RROD.

How? Please explain, would make things easier, I didn't know you could go out of your way to GET a RRoD, otherwise I would.

 

[TheOsyris]

How? Please explain, would make things easier, I didn't know you could go out of your way to GET a RRoD, otherwise I would.

Hmmm... Place towel over 360 for a long period while playing games. This is also a temp cure for the RRoD.
But i would assume it also overheats your system seriously and can increase RRoD over time.

Dude dont start a fire.

 

[Chasym]

just had my first ever 360 hardware problem, Happened on my elite.
I played for about an hour lastnight and turned it off and went to bed, well i fell asleep watchin a netflix movie. But besides that, its been off all day since i was at work and no one was home at all.
I come home, work on a few things and then turn on my 360 to hear a loud grinding sound, panicked i opened the tray to remove my COD 5 and pray it wasnt damaged, thankfully it wasnt, so i pulled out viva pinata to test the drive which kept grinding and wouldnt read the disc.

So i take it all apart to find the magnet in the motor had come loose somehow and attatched itself to the magnet at the top of the tray, a little super glue and im back in the game, but damn thats odd. Fine lastnight, i even played off the HDD, didnt even use my disc but to spin it up, then turn it on today and bam...magnet pops out. weird.

 

[Tribalinius]

So i take it all apart to find the magnet in the motor had come loose somehow and attatched itself to the magnet at the top of the tray, a little super glue and im back in the game, but damn thats odd.

We had to do the same thing with one of my friends old 20gb pro. There's like over 9000 tutorials available on youtube anyway. ^^

 

[Zaltana]

lol its called stop wasting your money on a system that will just break again. this 360 breakdown thing is almost routine.

 

[Morcheeba]

lol its called stop wasting your money on a system that will just break again. this 360 breakdown thing is almost routine.

Is it really too much to ask that companies put more quality into their mass-produced products.

Quality and mass-produced... right, they should never be used in the same sentence. Shame really ;-;

 

[Zaltana]

no it isnt. i really wish they would. there are a few exclusive games on the 360 that i would like to play, but im not gonna buy one just so i can play it for a week before it breaks.

 

[Tribalinius]

Is it really too much to ask that companies put more quality into their mass-produced products.

Quality and mass-produced... right, they should never be used in the same sentence. Shame really ;-;

Exactly my thoughts, I would have expected a certain "quality standard" coming from Microsoft especially for a big piece of technology like an X360.

 

[TheOsyris]

I think this gen of gaming is over run by people who...

A: Bitch far too often.

B: Are worried about company standards and moral.

C: Do not want to actually play games.

Seriously if you want to play the exclusives on the system, just go play them. If not then fine... But what is the point of the bitching?

Ask someone like Cheeba... EVEN with the bad quality of the 360 and potential breakdowns... Are you not happy with your gaming experience???

Sorry i have to keep bringing you up Cheebs but you are the perfect type of person to stop the bitching of so many other people.

We have...
A woman who takes tones of shit on Live because she is a woman.
She feels she was done wrong with the advertising of netflix by MS.
She is not happy with the quality of the console from a harware standpoint and over the long run scared of a breakdown.

YET...

She is online every freaking single day... I kid you not. She loves Live, she loves 360 and she loves to be with her friends through both of these...

Just get one or dont. We dont need to hear the bitching.

 

[kicamo]

ive had great luck so far with my 360. had it almost 2 years now. first one gave me a disc read error the second day i had it so i returned it and have been trouble free since. im glad i chose 360 over ps3 now.

 

[Firestreak]

I think this gen of gaming is over run by people who...

A: Bitch far too often.

B: Are worried about company standards and moral.

C: Do not want to actually play games.

Seriously if you want to play the exclusives on the system, just go play them. If not then fine... But what is the point of the bitching?

Ask someone like Cheeba... EVEN with the bad quality of the 360 and potential breakdowns... Are you not happy with your gaming experience???

Sorry i have to keep bringing you up Cheebs but you are the perfect type of person to stop the bitching of so many other people.

We have...
A woman who takes tones of shit on Live because she is a woman.
She feels she was done wrong with the advertising of netflix by MS.
She is not happy with the quality of the console from a harware standpoint and over the long run scared of a breakdown.

YET...

She is online every freaking single day... I kid you not. She loves Live, she loves 360 and she loves to be with her friends through both of these...

Just get one or dont. We dont need to hear the bitching.

I'm not really sure I understand your point. The people who are complaining are people with an Xbox 360 already. The complaints are pretty valid as well. Complaining about your expensive machine breaking is not just bitching for the sake of bitching. On the other hand, people complain about far less important things, like a 2 minute install time between each MSG4 act. As well, things like... certain territories not being supported with advertised services, without any warning. Fail rates deliberately concealed and lies being told about it for over a year... these are things that can cause people to buy a product, and then have a justifiable complaint.

The only thing I'm reading here is that the only complaints that are valid are the ones being cited by someone who despite them still loves the Xbox 360. The problem here is you are not differentiating a physical product, like an Xbox 360 hardware unit, and services, like Xbox 360 gold, and separating them from a strange sort of online life you've built around them. Much like someone can for instance, bitch about FFXI and all the things wrong with it, yet still come in every day and camp that HNM, that they hate.

The evaluation you yourself do is of this active, living world, populated with real people, that infuse themself into every game. With a personal connection and stake in the world, that's very important. You have friends on XBox, hence to play with them, you play on your Xbox 360. That enhances the experience for you, but at the same time, if you don't continue to play and exist in that world, you lose those friends, and the world is both a portal and an ultimatum.

What's being evaluated here, however is the hardware, not the experience. The experience is personal. The same 10 friends could have met on Xbox live, or PSN, over Steam or playing World of Warcraft. You could meet 10 different people on the same platform, and those 10 people might have quit, or you could have fought with them constantly and grew to hate them. People and their connections are liquid, ever changing.

Hardware and services are easier to evaluate. Does the Xbox 360 as a physical piece of equipment do as is advertised, ext. These are more important questions, especially for the vast majority of gamers who don't have 3 hours a night to play Gears co-op. Rather for the people who play when they have spare time, don't have a friends list, or barely know the people on it. Or how about the 40ish% of Xbox 360 owners who don't even have a silver account.

Note, I'm not here myself evaluating the hardware, its games or its services. I'm just talking about a fair way to evaluate it. I'm also not talking about purchasing decisions here. Like my friend at work, he says he's looking to get an Xbox 360. He likes tactical shooters, so I said PS3 has Socom as well as Rainbow 6 Vegas(which Xbox 360 has). He says his friend in Florida has a 360 and he wants to play with him. That's it, end of story. It's the console for him. I'm not saying it won't RROD on him or chew his discs. In the end though, when it does he has the right to complain. It's Microsoft's fault not his.

And you don't have to defend the system. You're a Microsoft CUSTOMER, just like him, not a representative. If the Xbox 360 suddenly stopped getting any new exclusives and an update kicked up the fail rate to 50% every month... it's not your job to defend it... and if you can't or simply don't want to, it doesn't mean you have to sell your system, denounce it and feel stupid about your purchasing decisions. If your own, personal experience is still great, and your friends are still there and you're having more fun playing Xbox 360 than anything else you'd be doing with your time, you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.

But doesn't doesn't make a game "better" because it's on Xbox 360 than it would elsewhere, not software, not the hardware. Your experience is personal. Evaluation of a product or service is generalized.

 

[Morcheeba]

Ask someone like Cheeba... EVEN with the bad quality of the 360 and potential breakdowns... Are you not happy with your gaming experience???

Sorry i have to keep bringing you up Cheebs but you are the perfect type of person to stop the bitching of so many other people.

We have...
A woman who takes tones of shit on Live because she is a woman.
She feels she was done wrong with the advertising of netflix by MS.
She is not happy with the quality of the console from a harware standpoint and over the long run scared of a breakdown.

YET...

She is online every freaking single day... I kid you not. She loves Live, she loves 360 and she loves to be with her friends through both of these...

Just get one or dont. We dont need to hear the bitching.

So Osi.. are you saying I shouldn't take part in these discussions because I do so love my online experience? You know me better than that. A massive corporation like Microsoft SHOULD appreciate their customers like me. I'm "loyal" if you will, but I do have complaints, they should be taken seriously. I like games, I'm a hard core gamer, always have been.. so what choice do I have?

lol you're going to get a nasty tongue lashing from me online you know <3

 

[TheOsyris]

So Osi.. are you saying I shouldn't take part in these discussions because I do so love my online experience? You know me better than that. A massive corporation like Microsoft SHOULD appreciate their customers like me. I'm "loyal" if you will, but I do have complaints, they should be taken seriously. I like games, I'm a hard core gamer, always have been.. so what choice do I have?

lol you're going to get a nasty tongue lashing from me online you know <3

Cheebs, MS should not care about you any more then the next 360 customer. For some reason alot of people tend to think its a company duty to "Care". If you left live today there would still be millions online. Its a cold world, i know. (We would miss you tho;

If that part you mentioned is what you picked up from my post then sorry. You complain yet are still satisfied is all i wanted to include you for.

I really wanted it to be aimed more towards the bitchy people. As with most times i dont reread my posts and put down exactly what i was thinking. Screwed the wording i guess.

If you purchase a 360 and it has some malfunction... You knew this could happen as with any purchase in the universe and even at a higher rate with the 360... Not your fault it happened. But trust me MS does not hate you and did not single you out... Do not buy the system if it has enraged you so much. Or sell your repaired one.

Was MS wrong for faulty hardware, sure. Do you want to play games or not tho? No, leave. Yes, deal with the week long wait from repair.

You feel MS does not care about you enough as a consumer... We are talking about the market trend setter as far as software goes. Would you care if people bitched and you still received profit in the billions per year? This is a real business. Wake up.

Show me where, Sony, Apple, Nintendo and every other large company you want to name gave you roses or some BS for being a "nice person".

There are more but fuck it. Some one will just show up with their sensitive post and make this all irrelevant.

Fire i dont have enough time to sit and respond to that whole post. I was so confused with you being confused... Doesnt matter.

I dont want to make MS look like great guys. They cant be, they are a business. Express whatever you want but think about the bullshit you are about to post sometimes.

 

[Morcheeba]

Well Osi.. this is what I think about, .. that many many people that still own an original Nintendo system have no complaints (less a hard blow once in a while in the cartridge) as that anceint system still works for them.

However, with as far as technology has come, the 360, which costs a pretty penny has so many issues. Ultimately.. that's what irritates me. At least put some effort into your top of the line competitive consols if you're going to sell them for what you do. When I purchased my first consol, I walked out of the store having spent over $800. Sure, to me it's worth it, I love my games. However I feel it's not only ridiculous but unacceptable that a machine that expensive breaks down within months and needs to be replaced, and that the replacement break down and so on. AND, that the company doesn't have enough confidence in their product to back it 100% .Unacceptable


Edit: I know what business is all about, it's not going to stop me from feeling the way I do.

And I know I'd be missed lol. I'm the sassy one ;p