Brennan’s Blog

I finally purchased an XBox 360 just over a month ago and I immediately started having problems. The screen would freeze at random points and I would have to restart the console. I figured it was just a problem with the games I was playing and that software updates would fix the problems. But when I did connect the console to my home network to get updates from Xbox Live the problems continued. Since the problems were sporadic it took a while to see if the problems remained or if the updates helped at all, but over the next few weeks it froze up many times. It became so frustrating because a few times it failed to save many checkpoints which caused me to redo levels that took me a long time to complete. I decided something had to be done about this flawed hardware and I planned to return it to the store. Later I would get a new one once Microsoft fixed the flaws. By this time it was past the 30 days that Best Buy allows for returns and they refused to do anything about it. If you buy a new Xbox and it locks up just once, return it right away or at least exchange it. Maybe you will get lucky the second time around.

Since my problems were not fixed with software updates it had to be the hardware. After many calls to Xbox Support I was able to arrange to return it to them for repairs. (on a brand new console!) Yesterday my Xbox return box arrived and this morning I packaged up my newly bought Xbox and dropped it off at the UPS Store. As I arrived another Xbox owner was also returning his Xbox for repair. We got a good laugh out of the sad situation. The clerk at the store said they get about 20 per day. I learned from the Xbox technical problems page on Wikipedia that 30% of Xbox consoles fail. It seems they have multiple flaws in the hardware design. Either an Xbox will overheat or it will scratch your discs according to most of the problems reported. In my case it simply froze at random points in different games. My nephews even came over one time and played the downloadable preview for Lego Star Wars and it also locked up, showing the problem was not just with games on disc like Halo 3 and Gears of War.

Now the Xbox will be gone for a month, and this is after I just signed up for a 1 year Gold Membership on XBox Live. I am told I will be credited with an extra month, but it will take a month for the Xbox to be "repaired" and returned to me. It hardly seems like they are making it up to me for a widespread flaw in their expensive piece of hardware. They should give 2 additional months of Xbox Live access and throw in a bunch of points for movie rentals or whatever.

I was aware of these hardware problems before my purchase which is why I took my time getting the Xbox 360. Actually when the Xbox 360 came out I purchased the original Xbox because it still played Halo 2 which is all I wanted to play. I attempted to avoid the hardware problems by purchasing the Halo Edition thinking they were using parts built using revised designs to correct the flaws. It seems Microsoft needs to do a very thorough redesign to really fix these problems, otherwise they would have done so by now. After all, they chose to extend the warranty to 3 years due to the hardware problems. That indicates to me their inability or unwillingness to fix the problem for the near future.

At this point I expect to get my new Xbox back from repairs in the middle of December and within 6 months something else will go wrong and I will have to send it back in for repairs again. This could continue for the 3 years that it is covered under the warranty until they can actually fix the problems. Not good. With a failure rate this high I really wish some sort of automatic recall would kick in and also prevent any of these flawed consoles from even being sold. That would force Microsoft to really fix the problem instead of forcing 30% of their customers to jump through these hoops. In the very least they should let me exchange my console with another one at a local retailer so I get a new console right away instead of waiting for the 30 day turn around.

My brother has a Wii. He has had no problems and spent a lot less money.