Many in the gaming community are familiar with a common pitfall of the Xbox 360. Gamers know the syndrome simply as “the red rings of death.” The issue is common and easily remedied, and is a problem that the newest generations of Xbox 360s are supposedly free of.
So I rested easy after purchasing my 360 Arcade and a 20-gigabyte hard drive last winter, knowing that the folks at Microsoft had eliminated this frustrating problem.
Much to my dismay, I recently powered-on my system and was greeted with a distressing noise. I waited and waited but the system never advanced past the logo screen. After 5 minutes of troubleshooting, the screen flashed to black with the words “error 67” emblazoned near the bottom.
Shit, I thought. Red rings of death I can deal with, but what is this ‘error 67?’ This experience would lead me to verify what I had long suspected: Microsoft isn’t as keen on satisfying their customers as they may appear to be.
So I did what any competent gamer in this situation would do and tried all the home solutions. But no trick-of-the-trade reboot remedy resolved the issue. Microsoft: 1, Me: 0.
Dismayed and defeated, I contacted the team of wizards collectively known as “technical support,” who aren’t all that easy to access. After navigating the labyrinth of touch-tone options, I was finally speaking to a person, a trained professional who could surely guide me through the process of fixing my beloved 360.
Of course, he walked me through all of the “solutions” I had just tried, which again didn’t work. Did he really think I didn’t already try restarting the system?
After his list of possible solutions expired, he simply informed me, “Sir, your hard drive is broken.” It is difficult to remain cordial with these people.
“Surely Microsoft offers some kind of repair service for this type of problem,” I stated to the technician. He greeted my speculation with the earnest answer and said that they cannot repair drives that display the “error 67” message.
“Microsoft must offer some kind of exchange program for their products when they simply stop working,” I replied. Wrong again. This may have been the case, had my one-year warranty not expired a month prior. A device ceasing to work one month after the warranty drops is suspicious to say the least.
No solution, no exchange, no sympathy. Sure, warranties expire and devices stop working, but to think that my one year old Xbox 360 took a dive while my Nintendo circa 1985 works fine is beyond grasp. Microsoft: 2, Me: 0.
At least Apple will offer trade-in value toward the purchase of a new device. There’s no such promise from Microsoft, and no guarantee that if I purchase another drive, the same problem won’t occur.
I wish I could say that I’m now boycotting Microsoft products, but I’m a PC user. Any bit of cooperation on their part would have prevented this article from ever being written. They fail to realize that not only did the loss of my hard drive represent a loss of money, but also a loss of countless hours. More importantly, it represented a loss of faith in a company.
With a fair degree of spite, I purchased a new hard drive from a videogame resale store. Microsoft likes to play dirty. Don’t give them the chance.
Someone needs to stage a coup against Ballmer. He gives me very bad vibes. Microsoft needs to get it together and Ballmer is at the top so I blame him.
Don’t wanna make a super long post but I’ve been burned by my xbox stop working 2 months after warranty expires. So frustrating because these consoles are so expensive now.
Guess when your company is this big you don’t have to give an inch to your customers when it comes to support.
I also had my xbox die on me one month out of warranty. No soloutions offered by Microsoft to cover it. Unless I pay half the price of a new one to fix it!!
PS3 still no problems. XBOX SUX.
Bad luck man, but get over it. If my car breaks down after the warranty expires, I have to foot the bill myself. But neither Microsoft nor the auto makers, have any obligation to go out of their way to please me, above and beyond their own policies. And what’s the trade in value on a non-working hard drive that cant be fixed? Last time I checked, large paperweights are fairly worthless. Sounds like you’ve already got your own beef with Microsoft if you take this opportunity to plug for Apple. Did you just buy the console waiting for something to happen that you could complain about? If you got 1 year of gaming out of it, that should be worth something. If you wanted to be sure that a console that’s already fairly notorious for poor reliability before you bought it, would run for ever, an extended warranty would have been a good investment. Again, the Xbox 360 may not be Microsoft’s best product, but I dont think they’re a bad company, and I dont think you can pin everything on them. No use whining over it.
I know how you feel. I had a launch unit sent it in a few times and recelently noticed the connect button dident work i called the immagrants working for M$ and they said sorry no warranty. I said yeah but you guys took it apart a few times I think its your problem. They said weve never serviced your device. I gave them repair order numbers I had emails when I checked online sure enough they delete all their records when the warranty is up so they dont have to be responsible. Its ok they got it back any how and I got a new one, I felt bad scamming them and the store then I remembered it was a defective product from the start and I deserved to have a working product which I paid for.
Don’t you mean: “Nintendo:25years, Microsoft: 1, Me: 0″
M$ are crap, but so are your consumer laws. They wouldn’t get away with that behaviour in NZ. Our laws would require MS to still repair the console, even if just out of warranty.
all you people facing the rings of death need to do is simple!….wrap a towel round the box with only the power cable still in (take the hard drive and any game in the disk drive out) power on the xbox and leave the thing running for at least 20 mins (with the towel wrapped firmly around) then turn off and leave to cool down for about 30mins, then hey presto your xbox is working! i have to do this like once every month but it actually works (imagine a towel huh) and even with this fault xbox 360 is still the best console out there! ps3 sux! bring on halo reach!!!!
You know the hardware is rubbish, yet you persist in spending your time on money on it, you don’t really have anyone else to blame but yourself!
“I wish I could say that I’m now boycotting Microsoft products, but I’m a PC user. Any bit of cooperation on their part would have prevented this article from ever being written.”
Oh really?
What exactly is stopping you from boycotting them? I am a ‘pc’ user too, have never had to deal with ms software where I had a choice (most of my work life, and always at home).
So you’ve been screwed over and are going back for more then, by choice. Stockholm syndrome?