2007-02-20

XBox 360: False Positive

[Originally posted on 1Up.com]



In November of 2005 I wrote about the high percentage of faulty XBox 360:s. About how I would never consider buying the system at launch because of all the teething problems the console seemed to have. A year on Microsoft admitted to having a higher than acceptable percentage of faulty first-generation 360:s, but it seems their not out of the woods quite yet.

This Sunday I got a 360. Played the PGR3 demo. A few hours later I switched it on a second time, did an update to be able to connect to Live Marketplace, downloaded the Lost Planet and Geometry Wars demos and played some Geometry Wars before calling it a night.

Monday morning, the 360 was completely dead. The orange standby light shone on the power-brick, but the console remained lifeless despite my best efforts to breath some life into it...

Now I'm waiting on a replacement brick to see if that solves the issue (unlikely) - which MS says could take up to 12 business days to arrive! Today I've borrowed a power-brick from Akegata so hopefully that will solve the issue and I just have to wait for my replacement to arrive, more likely though is that the update f:ed-up the machine and I'll need it replaced, hopefully with a quieter one because GOD DAMN that thing is loud! I've gotten used to the low noise-level of the Slim-line PS2 and the Wii, so this is really irritating.

Well at least this wait gave me an opportunity to finish Twilight Princess this morning, clocking in at around 77 hours! I'm quite satisfied with what I got, and happy to move on.

Next up I will be returning to finish up Okami before delving into the - for me - entirely new world that is Xbox 360.

UPDATE: Well the borrowed power-brick was a no-go, as they say in The Matrix "They've changed something" (sorry about the fuzzy image). And I didn't get the power cable with it so I couldn't test it. Instead, yesterday we went back to the store where it was purchased and after confirming the issue, they whipped out a new power-brick... Great Success!

As you can see from my "Most recently caught playing"-section, I've been trying out some of the demos available. So far Lost Planet has piqued my interest the most, so I think I'll get that or maybe Gears of War first... we'll see.

So, (knock on wood) I appear to now have a fully functioning 360, now I just need to either locate a really long network cable or get a WiFi adpter so I don't have to move my switch around...

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