jslakes

Lips, Saints Row 2

Halo 3, BF: Bad Company, and Rock Band!

This is certainly great news for folks like me who have had to pay the $140 out-of-warranty repair cost. Now, MS needs to get on the ball and fix the Marketplace content DRM problem so that people like me who are on replacement boxes can reauthorize their Arcade games and other content on the new box so it will work offline on the replacement console.

I'm on number 3. My launch console locked up every time I tried to play a DVD movie. Upon sending it in for repair, DHL "lost" it, and I had to fight with DHL and MS for three months, enduring piss-poor customer support until I finally wrote a certified letter, cc-ing Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, J. Allard, Todd Holmdahl, and two other departments. Within 3 days of the receipt of that letter, Todd Holmdahl emailed me and I had my replacement box (along with free game, and all premium accessories) the next day. This unit worked perfectly until March 25 of this year, when I received the RROD. Despite the new promised 5-day turnaround time, I had to wait almost another month this time for replacement. At least they sent a free month of XBL gold with it. However, another problem introduced with these replacements is that you can no longer play your Marketplace purchased content (expansions, XBLA games) offline as the DRM scheme is tied to your console ID AND your Gamertag. Bad design. (see http://forums.xbox.com/1159815/ShowPost.aspx for the gory details and lack of proper response from MS on this issue)


I'm still an Xbox 360 Fanboy, though. When it works, it's brilliant. Too bad it seems to be so prone to failure.

...Bugs? I hate bugs. Bugs drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once...

@ Jason

My first console return was a launch console that out-of-the-box would not play DVD movies. Pop a DVD in, 4 or 5 seconds later the box would freeze. The replacement console died a couple of weeks ago. It had never left it's perch. Could not have been more well-ventilated.

I'm ecstatic for you since you seem to have a great-working console. That's what I thought I was buying too. Simply because you aren't having a problem, however, please don't cast aspersions on those of us that are having issues. I hope you never have to experience the frustration of console replacement, but if you do your tune might change a bit.

Since this apparently couldn't make it through the filter over at MajorNelson.com, I'll post it here:

As a launch day purchaser who is now waiting for his second replacement unit, I can honestly say the DRM-lock preventing offline access to purchased content IS a big deal to many users. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a leading technology company like Microsoft can't figure out a way to "relicense" purchased content/edit the console ID associated with said content. This is a major ball-drop on the part of Microsoft and I would like to see an official comment on whether we can ever expect a solution that doesn't punish the legitimate consumer, either financially or through unnecessarily complex, drawn out, convoluted procedures.