Xbox 360 repair round-up, and a smashed iPod too
I've become a magnet for Xbox 360 repair stories and, so far, they're pretty much all good. Of course, there's the guy in Chicago who decided to sue Microsoft over some glitches rather than send his console in for support and maybe get a replacement system in a week or less. But typically people seem to be pleased - I know we are.
George in California said that he was told not to include any accessories when he shipped his 360, but that his instruction sheet said to include them. Weird! My instructions didn't say anything on the subject either way. George also said he read somewhere that he was supposed to write a repair order number on outside of the package or risk getting it sent back, but that wasn't the case with mine. It also doesn't make any sense; might be some more PS2 fanboy misinformation.
Oh, I've been told that the rattle in the 360 is simply the gizmo that determines orientation. It's called a solenoid, or ball-bearing switch, and it's perfectly normal. (Thanks, Andy in the U.K.!)
So far, there have been no problems with the replacement 360 we received last week. GrrlGotGame has been successfully killing junkies in Condemned on it pretty much every night since we got it back.
In an unrelated event, my 18-month-old iPod bit the dust last week. I must have dropped it one too many times and it started giving me a blinking folder with exclamation icon instead of starting up.
I sent it into iPodResQ and they told me I needed a new $230 hard drive. With that and the $30 battery replacement it also needed, I told them I'd sell it for parts ($40) and I picked up a new 60GB iPod with video support last night.
Interestingly enough, I would have bought it Best Buy but they hassled me on a 360 return.
I ended up with an extra copy of Kameo and asked to return it for store credit. In all fairness, I didn't have a receipt, but the customer service rep asked her manager and I was told I could have store credit only if I traded it right there and then for something else. I had 20 minutes to get to my son's daycare, there are no new 360 games and I was still waiting on the status of my iPod. So I said, "No thanks" - which was much nicer than what I was thinking.
Ironically, Best Buy just apologized publicly for some of their strong-arm launch day tactics like "pressuring customers to purchase items they may not want or that may not fit their lifestyle." That said, this wasn't the case here though I believe it's just as indicative of their corporate culture.
So Fred Meyer, a local department/grocery store chain with a more customer-friendly return policy, got my iPod business.
Right off the bat, I have to nitpick a few things on the new iPod:
- FireWire is no longer supported. It took 4-5 hours to sync some 15,000 tracks over USB 2.0. Some other accessories won't work - for instance, anything that requires the control plug found next to the headphone jack on older iPods. That means there's no way to easily remote skip songs while driving or when it's stashed in my jacket or pullover - at least not out of the box or with my existing stash of cables and add-ons.
- No demo videos. There's nothing preloaded. The only ones available for download in the iTunes store cost $2 a pop. And there doesn't seem to be a way to download the free iTunes movie trailers. Xbox Live Marketplace does this right - the trailers and promotional videos are free. They're ads for what the service can do, and you can bet that any videos that do eventually cost money won't be ads. I'll need to see if there's a way I can convert and download my own videos, but I haven't had time to check into it.
-=Gamewatcher
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