You're reading that correct, a whopping grand. However, since it was job related, I could justify it and it would be an investment well spent. Plus between now and grad school, I have plenty of time on hand.
Now, when I play games, I don’t just play them a little here or there. I am the kind of guy who will play for spans of 8 hours or so. I am the kind of guy who unlocks ever secret. Having heard about the overheating problems I bought the intercooler in order to extend the lifespan of my system. (Yes, the system is meant to endure those conditions. To unlock the last achievement on Dead Rising, you must play for 14 hours straight. Microsoft wouldn’t have okayed an achievement that the system can’t handle.)
For the first three weeks, the system worked fine. I beat Dead Rising, Halo, Prey, and Call of Duty (borrowed from a friend), before returning to Dead Rising to attempt to unlock everything. As I was playing, I noticed it kept freezing up when I attempted the 14-hour achievement. Upon examining the disc, I noticed that it had some small scratches on the back. I attributed this it maybe being uncharacteristically scratched between the first time I played it and the second time. You have to understand, that as a perfectionist, my games are all in pristine condition.
I moved on to Hitman. While the first week of playing it, I was unable to beat the game because it froze up on the last level and gave me a disc unreadable error. When I took the game out and examined the back, it had some rather significant scratches. Something was fishy because the disk had went straight into the machine from the time I opened it and never left until I checked it. I figured that it may just have been a quirk and started to play it on a different difficulty. On the other difficulty, there were certain moments in the game it would always freeze until the point where it became unplayable as the system refused to read the disc.
When examining the game for a second time, instead of just a few scratches, there were a large number on the back of the disc. The Xbox 360 ate my disc! Though the reflection obscures some of the scratches, you can obviously see some of them (open pic in new window to enlarge.) When you look at it, you can see that they are obviously small curves, caused by rubbing while the disc is spinning. What you see here is effectively enough to cause a disc to become unplayable.
When I realized that the indeed, the Xbox 360 did scratch discs. I called Xbox tech support. To say the experience was frustrating would be an understatement. Microsoft is obviously outsourcing their tech support to other countries where English is not the native tongue. As result of this, they don’t actually listen to the problem, but instead read from a flow chart they follow on a computer screen. Their job is to try to get you to give up so that they don’t have to accept blame for their faulty product. They don’t make money simply by giving games away.
They first tried to convince me that I moved the Xbox while playing. I corrected them, explaining that my Xbox has not moved since the moment I set it up in its entertainment center. They then questioned if I tugged on the chord and possibly moved it. I explained to them that I only have one chorded controller that I simply use to unlock time based achievements, so that I can put it down, do something else and not worry about the controller turning off. She then said it was probably because of sound vibrations that vibrated the disc inside, causing it to rub. I explained to her that my X-box is in an entertainment center that has no speakers on it, my TV sound is also sent through the auxiliary speakers, and that the subwoofer is across the room.
(The arrows indicate speaker and woofer placement.)
She tried to tell me that it was probably from playing my video games too loud. While this was ridiculous, I could understand that they were still trying to dodge responsibility. I explained to her that I was actually playing Hitman and Dead Rising at lower sound volume than I was Prey, because of how quiet the dialog was, and that if sound was the culprit, then Prey should have been the first one damaged. Next on her flowchart was trying to get me to return the game. Anyone with any common sense knows that a retail store isn’t going to take back a month old game that has been scratched to the point of being unplayable. I told her that wouldn’t work, plus it still wouldn’t fix the issue that my Xbox 360 destroys discs, Microsoft’s faulty product destroyed 120 dollars in video games.
She said that because my system was still new, they could fix it, but they couldn’t do anything about the games because they weren’t manufactured by Microsoft. I informed her that the discs didn’t ruin themselves. Because of the fact the Xbox was faulty and ruined the games, they were ultimately responsible to replace them. When a product malfunctions and ruins another product, the liability is upon the first offending party. I pressed the issue and she asked that I include one disc as an example when I send my system back as proof and Microsoft will substitute my ruined games with games from their own library.
I'm someone who is always careful to document everything, so I included a documented account of the escalation of problems with the system so they would be aware of the problem. I also posed a few questions, listed below, copied from the text.
Now I find myself in a bind. Have I foolishly invested my money in a company who manufactures faulty wares? Even if the system is replaced, will it still scratch my discs in the future? What will happen if it does it again, but not in a near enough time that it would be covered by the warranty? Ultimately I’d be out about 1000 bucks. If that is the case, I would rather just send you all products I purchased for the system and have all my money refunded and not deal with the whole mess.
I am encouraged that you are willing to replace the games it ruined. My consumer confidence is still shaken pretty good as I’ve never had any other problems like this with any other system, not one. Would you please address the following concerns
1. How can I extend my warrantee from here on out to protect myself in the future?
2. How can I protect my games? I’ve since done my research and found that while disc covers do protect games and DVDs, they can cause wobble and add extra weight which causes more wear and tear on the system itself, which could half it’s lifespan.
3. If the system is replaced, will the dnlded games and my hard drive info be transferred over?
So, along with the 360, I have included:
- this letter.
- a copy of the original receipt.
- the damaged copy of Hitman: Bloodmoney (representing the damage to both itself and Dead Rising)
All I ask is that I have the name and reference number of the rep and manager who deal with this case, an explanation of what went wrong with the system, and an answer to how the issue can be resolved. I’m sorry to be so nitpicking and anal about all of this, but as I mentioned, the devil is in the details, so document, document, document.
After about a week, I received my box to ship it back to them with instructions. I sent it out back out with the console, the game in a sleeve, and the letter on top. After a week, UPS delivered the console back. There were no answers to the questions, no replaced games, just a console and the old scratched up game, still in its original envelope. They were simply ignoring the problem in hopes that it went away. I called back and once again explained the problem to the outsourced, un-understanding tech support, and demanded to speak to a supervisor.
The supervisor was obviously an American who did actually listen to the problem. I was surprised how willingly he replaced the game. He assured me that it was just a random fluke and that it’s normal for a small percent of any electronic product to malfunction and that I just happened to be in that small percent. He said he was sorry about the games and offered to replace them with Kameo, and Project Gotham Racing, the only two currently available. Neither were games that I really wanted, but I was thankful to be getting something and have them making an effort to please me.
I decided to removed the intercooler in case it was a cause since it was a third party product. I also decided it best to purchase the extended warrantee for another 100 dollars. Ultimately, I traded Kameo in for 8 dollars and PGR for 10 at Electronics Boutique and put that toward a new 60 dollar Hitman and a 60 dollar Dead Rising, as neither of the games they gave me interested me in the least. So ultimately I ate $110.40 and went 2 weeks without a system. This brings the grand total up to
1257.23. I ignored the fact that I had to spend another 100 to return myself to where I was before the problem and chalked it up to a rare mistake like they claimed, and another to protect that investment.
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