By evergimp on 9/14/2006 6:18 PM
I heard from another Ghost Recon player on my friends list. Apparently his 360 broke a couple of days ago. So now out of 29 people on my friends list, I’ve had 5 responses, 4 of which have broken 360’s. So, 80% of those who responded to my question have a broken 360.
Again, even if everyone else on my friends list responded back with “No, my 360 works fine”, I’d still be at 4 people out of 29 have broken 360s. This is 13.79%, not a good breakage rate.
My broken 360 got shipped out to the repair center yesterday. I’ve been without it for 3 weeks now. So I’ll be interested to see how long before I finally get back to playing the 360. I still haven’t even decided if I’m going to sell it on ebay, or try and renew my faith in Microsoft. Even if it’s an immediate turn around time, I’ll still be looking at 1 month out of the 10 months I’ve owned being unplayable.
Currently I’m working on a GamerTag Vote for the site. It’s my first attempt at PHP and MySQL. You enter your gamertag, the # of... Read More » |
By evergimp on 9/10/2006 6:16 PM
On Friday, Sept 8th, 2006, I sent a message to the 29 people on my friends list. Most of these people I have never met. Most are people I’ve met during online gaming.. They are fairly random assortment. About the only consistent theme throughout these people are that most of them were gained from playing Ghost Recon on the original xbox. The message I sent was straightforward. “Do you own an xbox 360? If you own a 360 have you ever had to get it repaired?”
I’ve only gotten back 5 responses. One was a player asking me how I’d been, but didn’t answer my query. The other 4 people had answered my question. Only one person had not had problems. Even if you consider the possibility that everyone else on my friends list has a 360 and hasn’t had any problems. Then there are still 3 people out of 29 with failed 360’s. That’s slightly over 10%.
One respondent even pointed out that he knows of someone who has had 4 failed 360s, and of 12 of his friends and coworkers, over half of them have had problems.
... Read More » |
By evergimp on 9/8/2006 6:14 PM
I hate blogs that point to other blogs, but apparently no one reads this anyway. C’mon guys. Leave a comment or two. Make me feel wanted.  Anyway, One of the IGN editors has posted a blog about their broken 360’s. So if you haven’t read it yet, run on out and check it out. Gerry-IGN Blog |
By evergimp on 9/6/2006 6:11 PM
Yesterday I experienced a frustrating call to 18004myxbox. Which was slightly more confusing than
http://www.illwillpress.com/tech3.html
and slightly less frustrating than
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY
However, today I got a call back from the CSR who called me last Tuesday initially. She apologized for the delay in getting back with me, and told me she had good news. They evaluated my problem and were going to fix my broken xbox free of charge. She was very nice, pleasant, and had the power or will to actually do something about my problem. She also came off as very compassionate about my situation. I hope she becomes the rule and not the exception to the 18004myxbox experience. However, I have little faith in that.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do after... Read More » |
By evergimp on 9/5/2006 6:09 PM
Well, you can’t get much more sensational a headline than that.
Microsoft is apparently losing money on fixing their broken consoles for $129. As of 9/1/2006 the price has increased to $139. The customer is also required to pay for the shipping of the product to Microsoft.
Are there so many broken 360’s that they can’t afford any loss at all in fixing the product?
The increase in the price certainly makes it seem a little more appealing to go ahead and buy a core rather than wait to send your defective unit in, and then get someone else’s defective unit back. That in itself would help Microsoft in their battle with the Sony PS3. If the defective console buyers just went ahead and bought a new unit rather than have their broken defective unit fixed then the sales # for the 360 would certainly benefit. This is the exact behavior that some Fans of the xbox point as being the reason that the PS2 sold so many in the last generation.
Sorry Microsoft, but if you’ve got so many broken... Read More » |
By evergimp on 9/4/2006 6:07 PM
Last Tuesday I was told that I would get a call back in a couple of days from the Microsoft support person regarding my BBB complaint. This is a holiday weekend, but I really was expecting a call back by the end of the week. I suppose, I’ll have to call them on Tuesday. I had said in a previous post that my boss had also called to get the extended warranty and never got any paperwork. He did finally call in last week to verify whether he actually had a warranty or not. Apparently, he does. So I guess I’m the only one who called and purchased a warranty and didn’t get one. I haven’t been able to find any charge for the service contract… and I don’t expect we will. I still feel that I got off the phone with Microsoft with the understanding that I had purchased the warranty. I guess we’ll see what they say on Tues. |
By evergimp on 8/29/2006 6:05 PM
On sunday, I filed a BBB complaint about my xbox. Although, I realize this likely wasn’t going to make any difference, I wanted to go through the formality anyway.
Early this evening, before I left work I got a surprising phone call from Microsoft support. She informed me she was calling about the BBB complaint. One of the first things she talked about was what I had listed as wanting as a resolution. I had written that I either; wanted my money back, or wanted my defective unit replaced. I knew that I’d never get a refund and she of course quickly pointed that out. Then she told me that she could of course replace my defective unit…. but since I didn’t have the extended warranty she would have to charge me the fee.
I explained once again, that in January, I had call and purchased the service contract. She then went back through my logs and said while yes, I had called to purchase the service contract at the end of the call the status was set to…. Created Service Contract. She actually sounded surprised when she said it. I was pretty certain from the sound of her voice that she expected the call to have ended with the customer would call back later.. or the customer was just inquring about the extended warranty.
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By evergimp on 8/27/2006 5:50 PM
I’m not a 13-year old PS2 fanboy. I’m a 36 year old professional working adult with a home and family, but I’m still very angry.
Most people would consider me a Microsoft apologist. I tend to defend Microsoft when they are flamed unnecessarily, and I generally lean towards Microsoft products. I’m a programmer by trade and am responsible for our shop using Microsoft products for development and databasing.
I am a fanboy.. I am an XBOX fanboy. My gamertag is evergimp.. or was.
I purchased an xbox in May of 2002. I became an xbox live beta tester and have subscribed to the live service ever since. I’ve been a driving force in getting my co-workers to buy xbox’s and get on Live.
I got my xbox 360 in late December of 2005. As I’m sure you can imagine, it took a lot of effort, but I was able to secure my xbox 360… and life was good. In Jan. I called 1-800-4-myxbox and purchased the service plan. Or at least I thought I did. While... Read More » |