Gamerscore Blog

europe.

Nice idea MS. This is another way to help alleviate fears if your box breaks down. Good job :)

I've been loving my XBox 360, but 4 of the 5 people I know at work with 360s have had to have theirs repaired. That's an 80% failure rate. Not exactly stellar.

I still want nothing to do with the PS3 (overpriced and no games worth a damn but one or two) but damn.

Shouldn't all 360s still be in warranty at this point?

I think this is a big joke. I mean ok, it'ts good that MS tries to fix their faulty 360:s. But these kind of homepages should'ent even have to exist. Don't you think? Sorry, but it's not worth buying a consol for 399$ that i know will break down. Not even if i have a three year of free repairs. Buy a Wii or PS3 instead. There values have risen since this disaster started whit 360.

@Highfoot

The PS3 has cooling issues too its just as theres considerably less of them around than 360s the media naturally focuses on the current "winner" of the next-gen war.

I'm not saying the 360 failure rate isn't too high but you need to know the facts, things aren't all rosy in the Sony camp either.  Fact is PS3/360 were rather over ambitious for the technology at the time and so they are both having more issues than if they had waited until they could manufacture them with 65nm chips.

Personally?  Id rather be playing great games now than wait.  I have tried playing several games on PC first and THEN 360, they run better on 360 every time because theres just too many variables on PC.  
Just try playing Test Drive Unlimited no PC, it judders more (despite running on a 8800GTS) and you have to configure EVERY SINGLE button on the pad/wheel.  It takes AGES to set it up, not to mention then having to mess around switching over to the TV instead of the monitor and you cant easily support both.  Once its setup for TV you have to keep it on TV because the monitor cant handle the same resolution and the game just crashes instead of choosing a suitable resolution.

No, console gaming is where its at despite the issues.  Besides, like many people I have mad my console over a year and its not dead yet.  I'm sure how you look after the console is part of the cause and that its probably fine until you get a build up of dust on the GPU heatsink.  What we need is a filter on the air intake to keep the dust out and perhaps a "clean filter" warning for if the airflow gets too poor.  That way anyone who ditches the filter entirely its at their peril.  

So yeah, I do fully expect my console to die eventually but I will just keep buying a service contract with Microsoft every year so when it does I am covered. It costs about the price of a wireless pad and covers the console and all accessories against faults, good value if you have the wheel, several pads, vision cam, etc.

It's kind of weird to say a page like that shouldn't even exist. Even if we were to assume the ROD never happened to anyone, things can still break. There are things that can go wrong with any of these systems. Why wouldn't people want to be able to do that online and save the time of holding on the phone?

I always have to laugh at these ratios based upon friends though. I mean, if I were to use my friends that I personally know the failure rate is more around 5%. It's so meaningless.

That's not a new site. I used it about two months ago to get my blinking, white doorstop fixed.

What? People wouldnt rather call the hotline and receive an incoherent poor indian who doesnt know what he is talking about.

Surprise surprise, tech-savvy people would rather talk to a machine than a layman across the planet.

@ Tony

I'm right with you. It seems like a waste of time at this point to continue speculating about randomly generated failure percentages in the comments section of every website everywhere.

Microsoft has owned up to the problem and is taking steps to make it right - A support site that allows someone to track their repair online is certainly a welcome addition for the folks who have to send one in.  I can track order and repair status of equipment I manage from our office from sites online, so this really isn't any different or anything new.  Folks will complain about the problem and folks apparently will complain at every attempt to correct it - You simply can't make everyone happy I guess.

I look forward to the day when we're all beyond it, though.

I am glad it's now there and I hope I never have to call it.

Glad MS has the 360 website and offers free shipping.  You would not see this type of service offered by Apple just look how much Apple charges their customers for internal battery replacement on ipods or rental fees associated with the new iphone should yours need to be repair.

Sadly, we did not know about the 360 website and made the mistake of calling MS only to wait for over an hour to talk to a live voice.  On the upside, our MS Customer Service Rep. was nice and we received our free shipping box with instructions within 3 days.  

The 360 still dangerous to buy to spend 400 its better to put 100 more and buy the reliable PS3.

Good idea to automate it,
I had a somewhat dissapointing experience trying to go through it:

1st, a warning: "Note your First and Last names must be exactly as they are recorded in our registration system. If you receive an error, you may try again or contact customer support. "

2nd, a message: "A problem occurred, and your request cannot be completed. Please contact support to complete your request. For further help, please contact a support representative. Hours of Operation: 9:00 am - 1:00 am EST Sunday through Saturday."

So much for speeding things up :(

I tried it several times on both links (register and associate) and always came up with the same error.

The error doesn't help much to figure out what the problem is... and 9-1EST is 6-10 PST... not exactly very accessible hours to call but at least open on weekends...

Hopefully I'm in the minority and it'll work better for most people.

My experience is exactly the same as StickBrown above.  Maybe because I bought mine used?  I'm pretty sure the warranty is required by law to carry over with the sale in my state, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the website gives a generic error message that actually means "this serial number is already in my database"...

my xbox 360 have a problem every day i try to play he gives a three red light somtimes the screen of the tv is freses