LoneRanger17

I haven't received mine either. I believe the warranty statement on their site said to check back to the support page before November 1. They don't actually say when they will have anything in place to start the process. Knowing from my past conversations with Xbox live support, they won't know anything.....

Just to follow up on my earlier comment.....there's more to this than having your hotmail account expire. For my family, we did not create hotmail accounts, we used our existing yahoo account and tied them to the Windows Live Id's we created for our gamertags. So in this case, if you do not sign in with your Windows Live Id over a certain amount of time (Windows Live Id support said it was a year...Xbox Live support said it was 6 months) then Microsoft will cancel your Windows Live id. Which then wipes out your gamertag's ability to play online, if you let your gamertag expire for a period of time. In our case, Microsoft got rid of it after 3 months for my wife...and also my son's gamertag. The solution here is that Microsoft should never expire a Windows Live Id if it is tied to an Xbox Live Account.

Something similar happened to my wife last year. She had a yahoo account linked to her gold membership. Her gold membership expired and she didn't renew it. Although she still used her yahoo email account but just never logged into her Windows Live Id. After about 4 months she finally wanted to use her gamertag online. But when we tried, it wouldn't let her. Since she didn't log into her Windows Live ID (which was tied to her yahoo email account which was linked to her gamertag) Microsoft deleted the Windows Live ID. Thus, ending any chance to user her gamertag online ever again. In order to play online, she would have to create a new gamertag, thus losing her gamer points. Which mystified me..because Microsoft wants to cater to the casual audience (which my wife definately is) but immediately turned her off by yanking her windows live id. She only used it for the gamertag anyway and had no reason to ever log into it. I brought it to their attention that the Windows Live ID terms of service did not match the Xbox terms of service regarding the inatctivity of the account at the time. I called them and wrote Windows Live Id support for a couple of months before they gave me a free year of gold to make me quiet. Which I think is just a flaw in their entire thinking of forcing a link of your gamertag to Windows Live Id. So if you don't renew your gold membership right away...make sure you keep logging in with that Windows Live Id.

At last count, Microsofts cash reserves are at $29 Billion dollars. It used to be more, but since they have settled their anti-trust lawsuits they have reduced their reserves. Microsoft Office and Windows products generate $1 Billion dollars per month.
So as a company, the Xbox and games division is not going to hurt them in the long term. winning Japan would be good for their ego....but if they can win North American and be even in Europe...then that would keep them happy.

I have the one that is supposed to have the problem, the port next to the power cord.
I noticed that if I have the whammy bar pointing in the direction of the neck of the guitar, that it will not work.
I have to have the whammy bar facing down or at an angle facing down. Then it works every time. I'm assuming that is because when it facing that way, I just naturally put more pressure on it when I press it. So it's getting pressed down a bit and to the side.
Where if it's just pointing in the direction of the neck, I just press it down without any extra pressure. Then it doesn't work.

The slight difference I suppose is any third party usb wireless adapter will work on the 360. You do not need the Microsoft branded one. And those can be found for less than $25. So you never needed to buy the Microsoft one. It's there if you wanted it but you didn't need it.
The hard drive is different. If you want more storage space, you need to buy it. As there will be no alternatives.
That being said....why people are shocked is interesting. Hardware manufacturers (except for the Wii) always sell the console at a loss. And the accessories are always overpriced. It's always been that way. The larger HD is an accessory and Microsoft needs to make money. The only reason you would need the larger HD is for downloadable content and IPTV when it becomes available. If you are not interested in those two things...then the cost of the harddrive should not be a problem.

In the recent Major Nelson podcast they talk about the price. Their argument was that the drives are self powered. They have to meet a minimum specification for read access time. Apparently, drives you buy off the shelf can have a wide range of performance stats. Meaning one drive may not be as good as the other. So all of their drives, since they are used for gaming have to meet a higher standard. Then the drives are sold to Microsoft where they undergo more processing. Such as Microsoft adding security to the drive to prevent hacking and the what not. That increases the amount of costs.
I believe they also stated that is why they will not allow third party drives in the future because they have to have this layer of security added. So their content partners will feel secure in releasing content for the 360.
So...self powered...higher yield drives...and then extra layers of security added on net the $179 price tag.
Not saying I agree with it...but that is their reasoning from his podcasts.

I went to a local Target this morning and saw two PS3 60 GB on the shelf, first time I had seen them. Went back at lunch to pick up another gift and they were still sitting there 4 hours later. Now they could have sold the previous two and restocked, I don't know. But no one was looking at them. Where two weeks ago, when I bought my family a Wii there...20 Wii's sold out in about 15 minutes.

I went to a local Target on Tuesday. There were no Wii's so I started look at the 360 stuff behind me. People were just steaming in to look at the Wii and see if any were in stock. I waited 3 minutes and in that amount of time 14 people came down the aisle to look at the empty Wii case and walk away.
So yesterday, I take a late lunch and get there about 1:45 pm. I see people walking out with Wii's. So I go there and see 8 in the case. I get one for my kids and ask the employee about them. They had just put out 20 Wii's about 10 minutes. And by the time I walked out with mine in the bag, they were sold out. So they sold about 20 Wii's in about 14 minutes. they had some nunchucks as well and they were gone by the time I walked out. Of the people that were there, I'd say about 85% were moms buying them.

Reading Google News today, they state on various sites that Microsoft has cut production costs of the 360 by 40%. They are now making roughly $75 in profit on each 360 (before shipping costs). So Microsoft is in great position now to cut the price when they choose. And price cuts always give a nice bump in sales. Which will then drop the ratio to a lower number and dilute the attach ratio a bit.