XBOX 360- Huge Piece of Crap?

Yes, I am embarrassed to say, I am an XBOX 360 owner. And yes, I was an original Xbox owner as well. You know, it's funny how we used to deride the old, ugly black box as a mashed together and rushed to market junk heap. Yes, it broke down. I bought my first one the day it came out (actually, I was on a beach in Mexico on November 15th, 2001, but I paid a buddy $50 to wait in line for me). I think it lasted a year and a half. Not bad, because in 2001 I actually had time to play it, and put some serious miles on the Black Beast. Over the entire console cycle and an additional year, as I did not buy a 360 until it had been out for a year, I had three Xboxes. Yes, they failed twice. And at the time, I thought that was unacceptable.

Well, enter the paperweight known as Xbox 360. How I dream of having only 3 consoles over 5 years now! I bought my first 360 in November, 2006. That one made it almost a year, and considering the rampant reports around the net of the "Red lights of Death", I felt fairly lucky. I had purchased the Best Buy replacement plan (thank god, as the unit was just a few days over warranty), and used the money they sent me to upgrade to the 360 Elite, with a bigger hard drive and support for HD. OK, I thought, they had to have fixed whatever is wrong with these rushed to market machines, right? I mean, it had been a year, right? They had even admitted there was a problem,and right after I got that Elite, they changed the warranty to 3 years from 1, so they must have fixed, it, right?

Oh, my friends, that would just make too much sense! I mean, this is one of the worst companies on the planet, a company that was the world's largest at one point, and now loses market share daily to everyone from Apple, to Google, to Nintendo, to my Aunt Bertha and her baked pies. They are REALLY bad. Dumb. Out of touch. Complacent. Lazy. You name it. I don't have to tell you that. They are pretty universally derided under the Ballmer era for being an also ran, and their new operating system is an unmitigated flop. Why not their console? Hell, shouldn't we expect a piece of shit?

Yes, we should, and until Apple (the anti-Microsoft in everything from the cool factor to being efficiently run to having guys with real VISION actually working there) starts building consoles, we are screwed. My Elite lasted all of 7 months. Red Lights of Death. Yep. (I am pausing to sigh, as I relive the idiocy that is the Xbox division of MS). I called. I sent it back. Their return system is fairly efficient, as I had a label in 24 hours, repacked and shipped it. I was told it would be three weeks, but I actually got it back in two. And with a free month of Xbox live. Ok, not great, but I was feeling better at this point. I had a weekend to play, and felt at peace again.
The interesting caveat is that it was not my old machine. It had new serial numbers, and that actually made me feel even better. I figured that since it had just been manufactured in June of this year, it was brand new! It had to last a good seven months, right? Through the holidays? Through my birthday? Sure, I'd have to eventually send it back, but not until Spring, when there were few good games out anyway. No big deal. And besides, it was new, so they had to have fixed the problem with their machines, right?

Yeah, I know. I'm a Mac owner, and have come to expect too much from electronic companies. I mean, I actually EXPECT stuff to work when I buy it. You know, and be made at least sort of well? Stupid, stupid, silly me. What a rube! I guess I am just the kind of sucker Microsoft has come to depend on. But, I think, based by their free falling market share and share price, that there are fewer of us every day.

So, the point is that after less than two weeks, the new machine died. This time it is a frozen screen. It started out on DAY ONE freezing after several hours of play. I figured it was a random deal. But then it started freezing sooner and sooner, and now it freezes as soon as you turn it on. NICE! A SCREEN SAVER! What an improvement. These guys are real winners. Three years to get the bugs out of your manufacturing process, and you still haven't figured it out? Yeah, I'm naive. I know they don't really fix those things. It's like a recall, they have their bean counters crunch the numbers, and they figure out it will cost them less to repair these pieces of crap over and over and over than to actually make them work right. That's American business, folks, and they watch CNBC (financial tv joke . . . .).

This is a broken company with more than one broken product. Management is awful. Ballmer is a disgrace. It has rotted from the head down. 4 360's in 2 years in a home where it is on for no more than 5 hours a week? How long do they last in dorm settings, or teenage bedrooms? A month? Two maybe?

Now I have called customer service, spoken to a gentleman with a barely decipherable accent, and was told I'd have to call back later, as their systems are down. I suggested to him that they might switch to Apple operating systems to avoid such costly break downs. I am sure he is still wondering how a piece of fruit could fix a computer . . .