41. I had the same experience as Gombard. Zero Corpse Id love to be a PS3 fanboy but the simple fact is that Im just not. I love my 360 - I want it back soon. I bought it on launch day and had no problems with it until SF2 came out. Shortly thereafter my box would freeze and then not restart with the 3 red lights. I was very irratated to have to pay $129 US to fix a faulty piece of hardware that is less than a year old. I am an adult and I take excellent care of all of my electronic equipment as well as my game discs. I never had a problem with the box until a few weeks ago. I guess what I am saying is that this could happen to you as well - so if are still able to - purchase the warranty. The 90 day Microsoft warranty is a joke.

Posted at 12:33PM on Aug 21st 2006 by tom

42. I'm with you, Modano. I used to have similar thoughts as Zerocorpse... that the problems that were reported were blown out of proportion by a vocal minority. Now I'm a part of that seemingly growing minority. Looks like it stands at over 25% according to the current poll. Even if it is skewed 5%... there are 2400 people who've voted. Either the entire Sony fanboy army has really mobilized or there's a problem with the 360.

I think another poll is warranted... I wonder what percentage of launch consoles are failing/have failed.

Mine blew up on the dashboard. My wife watched a DVD (Madagascar), and the next day, when I went to play, it froze up (checkerboard) on the dash. No game in the drive. The majority of my gameplay has been limited to COD2. No other freezing issues to speak of.

Again, well ventilated & taken care of, never moved. My guess is that one of the components within the machine is simply expiring across many many consoles... and at a much greater rate than the 3-5% MS has touted.

At what point does the term 'class action' come up? And on what grounds?

As far as zerocorpse goes, I'll keep my fingers crossed that his console fails next so he won't be so quick to be such an idiot in his post.

Posted at 1:50PM on Aug 21st 2006 by Goblemonster

43. No sense in pussyfooting around...the damn thing ..or the capcom discs are fucked up!....I have had no problems with my 360 until I bought dead rising....it always freezes at loading screens..and I've gotten 3 replacement discs so far. I'm so pissed $60 fucking dollars went to waste!..I could have saved that money for Enchanted Arms..now I wont be able to get it ... ...dead rising is sitting in the fucking corner unplayable.

Posted at 2:49PM on Aug 21st 2006 by Tribeca08

44. I have had freezes with most of the games I have played, NFS, Oblivion, to name a few.

Posted at 7:15PM on Aug 21st 2006 by krazyman

45. I got my 360 at launch. It would crash randomnly on almost any game, and refused to play some titles like Madden. No red lights of death, just hard crashes and lock-ups.

The replacement Microsoft sent me didn't connect to XboxLive which was very infuriating. After going through 3 more 360's and the ensuing exchange processes (which took about 20 weeks in total due to extremely rude/incompetent Customer Service), Major Nelson got involved with some of the angry messageboard users who were going through the horrific process of getting a working box.

They finally reciprocated with a free month of XboxLive and 3 free wireless controllers. I think I was only supposed to receive one controller...but since I had gone through 3 exchanges (and lots of headaches) this eased the burn a bit.

My latest box (from late November) hasn't locked up yet.

Posted at 10:02PM on Aug 21st 2006 by Nerdtacular

46. I forgot to mention, they ALSO sent me a free game: choice of PDZ, PGR3, and Kameo. All of which I already had. I took PDZ and traded it.

Posted at 10:04PM on Aug 21st 2006 by Nerdtacular

47. No problems with any of the games so far. I have played and owned close to all of the titles except for the tennis game at launch and Condemned. The 360 has been flawless easily handling whatever function I want to use at any time.

Posted at 11:08PM on Aug 21st 2006 by J Money

48. hi all,

my launch 360 died playing espn's basketball game. I had mine ventilated and played it lightly. If you add up the people with problems, from the poll (36 percent) you see that a whole lot of people are having issues. Freezes, deaths, etc.

For people like Glewis and zerocorps to think that grown men like I and others who paid six hundred dollars for games warranties etc and have been playing games since the age of 5 are just taking the time to just make up stories while meanwhile we are throwing this expensive equipment around the room is completely stupid.

I personally was tired of weak sony crap so i bought a 360. it crapped out on me and i'll be getting a replacement one with my warranty but there are an awful lot of people making rediculous statements (sony fanboys, making it up) when stuff is really going wrong.

Sure some mistreat their systems but the days of all the gamers being twelve and tearing up their stuff is over. Many adults are having problems with their systems to.

I cant wait till the same people saying all this crap have their systems cut out on them. Then we can all have a good chuckle!!!!!

Those of you with issues I understand and it's a darn shame we spend this much and pay for such blatant errors.

Posted at 2:30AM on Aug 22nd 2006 by keenan

49. and it's a shame we have to find "normal lockups" as "normal" it should be EXTREMELY RARE Lockups not Normal.

Posted at 2:38AM on Aug 22nd 2006 by keenan

50. Interesting how GLewis is such an expert on the experience of millions of XBox 360 users. I have experienced freezes and blinking red LEDs several times over the past two months. I bought my 360 at launch, so it's not covered by warranty. It will cost me $100-$200 to ship it in for repairs. See, GLewis, that doesn't fit your scenario. Now, comment on something you know about.

Posted at 10:14AM on Aug 22nd 2006 by KennyH

51. Getting my 4th 360 any day now.

Posted at 12:24PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by joynt

52. Maybe you guys are being honest, and maybe not. If you're stuck with a bad system, then you have my sympathies-- But really, wishing your misfortune on others is pretty childish.

Anyway, I wasn't picking on the legitimate problems. I was pointing out that polls like this can be clicked by just about anyone who happens to see them, and are easily- and frequently- skewed by Sony fanboys. Just like at launch, when there were THOUSANDS of reports of consoles overheating, not working, and even a false rumor about a recall. All of it was much less true that people were led to believe.

I personally dealt with hundreds of customers who said they were holding off on the 360 because they heard it overheats or that it was discontinued so it could be fixed. This was utter B.S. spread by Microsoft haters. We never had any Xbox 360s returned to us because they were overheating. The defectives were showing problems- if any- with either the power connection, or the hard drive, and a few worked fine once you seated the power cord better or replaced the hard drive.

If this game is screwing up your hard drive, or causing some other internal error, then fine- There's a problem. But we need to keep it clear that what you read on the internet is something of an exaggeration of the truth when it comes to ANY consumer electronic device.

In short, the people with busted units complain, and they're joined by the enemies of the system. You never hear from people like me, who are perfectly happy, and far outnumber those with defects in their system.

I *do* agree that the 90-day warranty was horrible. I dig Apple because everything gets a year out of the box, and the 4-year Applecare isn't very expensive (especially if you're a student) and is very flexible. The Microsoft warranty was a bit of an insult considering how much people spent on the system. They should have gone with a 1-year warranty, with a $40 extension program. Instead it was 90 days, with a $65 extension program.

What sucks for me is that I got mine as a prize, and couldn't get ANY extended warranty because I had no receipt and MS wouldn't accept my application for their extended warranty. That sort of ticked me off, but I didn't complain too loudly. . . My 360 was free, after all.

I hope you all get things sorted out and repaired. And once it is fixed, if you're happy with MS customer service, don't be afraid to mention it online so that the people who see your negative comments can later see whether or not you were satisfied with the resolution of your problem.

Don't just talk about the bad. Let us know the good, too.

Posted at 2:44PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by ZeroCorpse

53. This thread wasn't created to outline the good. It asked who was having problems with their XBOX 360. If Sony Fanboys get on here, shame on them. There are too many of us that legitimately have problems. When we try to ask questions or commentary to the XBox.com forums then the moderator won't publish our posts. Yes, ask questions or complain, your posts don't get added. Frustrating...

Posted at 3:56PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by eXciter1

54. No problems except Oblivion, NFS:MW & Dead Rising - where it seizes up *a lot* and once in a while on other games. Mostly DREs. Sent my 360 off for a looksee this week.

Posted at 5:53PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by Dave

55. my xbox 360 rock since lauch before i put dead rising in there and play for like a week. then it start t freeze even in the dash board then................ 3 red light of death so i bought one at wallmart and put the old in the package and refunded it lol so no more dead rising in my new 360 lol

Posted at 5:57PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by peyo670

56. Background : I started console gaming Holiday 2003 and have been turned into a huge MS fanboy ever since. I bought my 360 on launch day and I even started buying Red vs Blue DVD's and Penny Arcade books. I also have been a frequent reader and poster at places like 2old2play and shortattentiongamer. The point is I was really getting into the video game scene.

June 21st : 360 shows 3 red lights, the classic hardware failure configuration. Called MS once, got India, didn't really understand the guy. Registered console over phone. Called MS a second time, got a very nice girl who said my 360 was out of warranty and it would cost $129 to ship and fix. I said, "call you back." Got on support chat to verify details and found out that I could have purchased an extended warranty for $30 and I would have been covered. Called MS a THIRD time and got a very nice guy who offered to elevate my claim and get 25% taken off the $129. I said that if my 6 month old console costs that much to repair, I'm done with you guys.

And so I put all of my 360 stuff in a box and put it in the crawlspace. Meanwhile, I wanted a portable video device for my train ride to work, so I bought a PSP, financing it by selling every piece of my 360 that still worked. Fortunately for me, the guy who bought the hard drive didn't pay. Also, while at Circuit City, buying my PSP, the sales guy says he's been hearing some weird stories about people's warranties being magically extended.

July 22 - MS sends a very confusing letter soliciting me to buy an extended warranty, saying my console is covered until 9/12. I called up - got India and asked if they would send me a "fix it" box if I paid them $30 for the warranty. The guy says "We'll send you the repair kit without the $30. What's your address?" Say WHAT? He said that someone changed my warranty status.

August 23 - I have my 360 back and I am obviously going to buy the extended coverage. For the record, they did replace instead of repair my box. It appeared to be a video chip failure based on the symptoms.

All in all MS could have saved themselves some serious ill will on my part by just fixing the darn thing for free in the first place. In the process I changed from a person who buys 1-2 new games a month to someone who is waiting for Halo 3. They did get it right though so I have to give them credit for that.

I can't say that a specific game killed my console. I played GRAW, PGR3, and Halo2 mostly. PGR3 was by FAR the buggiest game I owned - froze the console whenever you would hit the guide button.

Posted at 6:39AM on Aug 23rd 2006 by JRock3x8

57. zerocorps,

you of all people would definatly know about childish comments. Who was the one saying we are all making up our problems, feeding the hype?

Thats right. You were. Who's childish again?

Posted at 12:04PM on Aug 23rd 2006 by keenan

58. i love the system by the way. blows away everything in the past but so many people shouldn't be having problems. Poll's being rigged or not.

Posted at 12:05PM on Aug 23rd 2006 by keenan

59. Yeah, I returned my 360 twice for repair, just sold the third one on ebay. I'll get another 360 when MS fixes the damn thing. 3-5 percent my ASS. I have two friends with a 360, one has no problems, the other has sent his back for repair too.

If the poll is even close to accurate we're looking at 15-20 percent failure. And that counts the "multiple repairs" as a single failure.

All I know is that MS must have a HUGE pile of broken consoles in Texas if they keep sending out refurbs in place of new ones.

Oh, and the XBOX forums regularly clean out posts that complain about repairs. None of my posts are on the site anymore. It's not the JFK assassination, but MS IS COVERING UP THE HUGE AMOUNT OF BROKEN 360's OUT THERE.

I'm taking my ebay money and buying a Wii with about 5 games.

Oh, and I laugh when these guys post "I've had my 360 for a month with no problems". Good luck pal, that's the best month of your 360's life.

thank goodness for ebay

Posted at 3:41AM on Aug 24th 2006 by SeeOne

60. @ZeroCorpse:

your "holier than thou" attitude really sucks. I guarantee I took better care of my stuff than you do, and still, the 360 broke. first time, the DVD tray would get stuck. not a big deal, but for $400, you'd think MS could get that right. Did they fix it? Nope. Send me a fucking refurb. Someone else's broken 360. Guess what? That had hardware failure.

So tell me again how I don't know how to take care of electronics. I'm a full grown adult with bachelor's and masters degrees in electrical engineering. I have electronics at home you couldn't even name, let alone take care of.

failure rate of new 360's seem to be about 10%

failure rate of replacement refurbs seem to be higher.

MS will never tell you their defect rate, even the "sanitized" numbers that don't count multiple returns.

Stop talking out of your ass. Your 360 will break, and then I will accept your apology.

Posted at 3:50AM on Aug 24th 2006 by SeeOne