After months of teasing, my Xbox 360 finally bit the dust this past weekend. It locked up 5 or 6 times on Friday night while trying to play All-Pro Football 2K8, not even letting me get past the first quarter. The lockups continued on Saturday, culminating with the dreaded Red Ring of Death on Sunday morning. Not a big deal, because I had the warranty from Gamestop – I didn’t have to ship out my console to Microsoft and wait weeks for its return. I detached the hard drive from my lifeless white box and headed off to replace it with a working one.
Except it wasn’t quite that simple. I brought the replacement 360 home and plugged it in, and it was DOA! Red ring of death right out of the box. I looked at the console manufacture date on the back, and it said October ’05. Doubleyou-tee-eff. I know for a fact that particular Gamestop has sold out of 360′s at some point in the near past – how on earth does it end up with a 360 made before its release date? Microsoft, what are you doing sticking refurbished 360s in new boxes? To make matters worse, that was the store’s last 360 – and two other Gamestops that were called were out of stick as well. The gaming gods truly were frowning upon me.
Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. A fourth Gamestop location was called, and not only did they have them in stock, but it just so happened to be one that was manufactured in July ’07. Since it’s been produced after Microsoft finally acknowledged they had some design and reliability flaws, that means it should be more reliable and has a quieter DVD drive than the originals – and not only that, but it’s got an HDMI port too so I’m ready when the wife finally lets me get an HDTV. Huzzah!
I celebrated my return to gaming by thrashing maddhaze in Madden ’08 last night. Now I’m looking for more victims. 