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Red Ring of Death

Posted by Rowdy on July 18th, 2008 at 03:01 pm

Not to long ago my beloved Xbox 360 suffered from a severe case of Red Ring of Death-eritis and unfortunately I had to send it in. It was the second time this occurred and I was pretty p*ssed off because of that.

So when my doorbell rang last week, and I saw this brown coloured UPS truck standing in front of my house, I jumped up from my seat, sprinted to the door, opened it, kicked the delivery dude in the nuts and grabbed my beloved Xbox!!!

Huhm, okay. I didn’t actually kicked the poor delivery dude in the family jewels but I really wanted to express my anger. Why? Because I get the feeling that a big company like Microsoft doesn’t really care if my launch day 360 died two horrible deaths already.

Sure, Microsoft has set up this little repair arrangement and extended warranty for your Xbox 360. That’s all very nice but doesn’t make up for all the Xbox 360 complaints worldwide in my opinion.

Besides that, it all seems just a little bit unfair you know? Last year the Xbox 360 had a reported failure rate of a whopping 33 percent, and in the same year Microsoft released the superior Xbox 360 Elite! Not only does it look great because of the matte black finish, it even includes a 120GB hard drive and an HDMI 1.2 cable! And it is also a fact that new units load faster and with much lesser noise. Strong rumors about more upcoming price drops are also pretty annoying as I paid full price for my launch day 360.

So here I am, playing games on my grey coloured-launch day 360 which produces more noise than my parents 20-year old vacuum cleaner. When Microsoft is going to release their next-next gen console I’m gonna wait just a little bit longer before buying it I think. If my current Xbox 360 is going to last that long of course…

Ah well, enough complaining for now. Have a nice weekend folks!

5 Comments on Red Ring of Death

1. Adam on July 18th, 2008 at 07:53 pm

Yeah, I try to actually make it a habit to wait a solid year before I pick up any of these new consoles. I’ve noticed the HUGE amount of bugs when adopting them right away. Plus, I might end up getting it a little cheaper than on release day. I can usually find ways to stretch out the old systems to occupy my time. The only thing that pushed me early to get the 360 was Halo 3 being released. Other than that, I think I would’ve waited even longer than I did!

2. Rowdy on July 21st, 2008 at 09:38 am

Wise words indeed Adam. I have the same sort of problem with my Wii. The novelty is beginning to wear off for me and I havent touched it for a few monts now! A real shame actually, but there also arent any interesting games coming out for it. But thats my opinion of course

3. Adam/Cleric on July 21st, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Nah, I think you’re opinion of the Wii is on point. I never bothered to get one, because it seems to me that it’s targeted more towards families and children. Granted Mario and Zelda are absolute classics, but most everything else I think is geared toward young children. Whereas Playstation and Xbox heavily market towards older teens and adults. Plus any of the “good” games marketed towards adults that come out on Wii also come out on either Playstation or Xbox. That’s what I’ve seen so far, again my opinion as well. Though I think we’re rather on point.

4. Rowdy on July 22nd, 2008 at 08:12 pm

Very true, and hey, glad to see someone else sharing these thoughts.

I’m very curious about how things will develop in the course of time. Maybe I shouldnt have sold my PS3 and bought this Wii instead last year…

5. Josh on July 29th, 2008 at 12:45 am

They don’t make video game systems like they used to. Case in point, I got an Atari 2600 hooked up and WORKING in my basement. I think that thing is coming close to 30 years of service, I doubt we’ll hear anything about a working 360 in 10 years let alone 30.

I have yet to buy a 360 or PS3 for one reason. I got taken on the Xbox/PS2 battle. I purchased both systems thinking there would be different titles for each, but there wasn’t. There were a few different titles for each, but most everything came out for BOTH systems, which made it pointless to own both. Don’t be fooled, game makers create the games for mulitple platforms, it all comes down to who wants to pay up and have the title for their system. During the PS2/Xbox battle it was thought “he who has the most games wins” therefore pretty much EVERY title was released on both systems.

RRoD makes me nervous about even buying a 360, and the ridiculous pricetag on the PS3 makes me laugh, as the new versions aren’t even backward compatible. I’ve invested too much in my PS/PS2 games to just box them up and put them in the basement to make room for another next-gen system.

I’m not a really BIG fan of the Wii either, however I do own one. Nintendo is infamous for “children” games and has been for years, so I don’t see why it is such a big shock to everyone there’s no adult games for it. Zelda, Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart are good games, but that’s about it. At least they finally released a CD/DVD based system even though it still doesn’t play movie DVDs or music CDs like all the other systems do. I play mine mostly because of the virtual console, which was the reason why I bought it. I’m an old-school gamer, always have been, always will be.