Alright, I bought the 250 GB Xbox 360 Slim. I wish we wouldn't have bought COD:MW3 a few weeks back because the COD:MW3 version of the console comes with the game and a 320 GB hdd for another $100. Oh well, it is what it is.
I also bought one of those transforming d-pad controllers. I would say the new d-pad is a very slight improvement over the standard controller's d-pad and pretty neat engineering, but overall it still inherits the flaw of having the d-pad stand so far away from the actual buttons being pressed on the PCB. It feels just as mushy as the other one and in fact you can now actually see how the thing is sort of a tall joystick rather than a traditional/conventional d-pad. Before there was a ring of plastic hiding the tube the d-pad lives in and the d-pad's overall movement, but the new mechanism needs the space formerly occupied by that ring so you can see right down.
My sister-in-law wants my old console and wanted to pay the $99 to have it repaired. I didn't mind and gave it to her, but she and her fiance didn't have the slightest clue how to get it repaired so I obliged. Microsoft was not my friend last night because the execution of the repair process was not a fun one. Aside from the fact that my 360 RROD'd twice, which is bad enough, when I went to create the repair ticket online the website was broken. It just kept saying "A System Error occurred" when I tried to request a repair. So I got on a Xbox support online chat. Well, they can't do a repair request through chat support. The tech asked me to file one on the website, which of course I couldn't because the site was broken. Then he asked me to call support, but to file a repair request via phone support it is $119 for the repair instead of $99. He said I could probably get the $20 discount if I called and had the case escalated because of the website problem, but wasn't sure. The chat tech said that there was an open case already filed regarding the website problem and he added another report to it and to check back in an hour if I wanted to try to file online instead of call.
In any case, I thought it was crazy the amount of work I had to do at this point in order to get a repair order in for something that shouldn't have even broke in the first place, much less twice! But that's not all. Oh no.
I was bored and had previously discovered that someone used my Xbox Live profile to play Dance Central and some other really lame/embarrassing games. So I started doing research on how I could delete such games from my profile (answer: unless you don't have any achievements for those games, you can't). It was at this time that I found out that forums.xbox.com was down. It was getting an application error like there was something wrong with IIS or the database. Nice.
So about an hour later I go to file the repair request online again. I find that it does let me in to begin filing the request. However, after completing the request (and using my sister-in-laws debit card to pay), it gives me another error saying something about the service request doesn't match the postal code. I worry that due to problems on their end, a request isn't properly created yet $106 just got charged to my sister-in-law's debit card. Thankfully, I do receive an e-mail regarding the service request with a service request number and my 360's serial number.
I was supposed to be redirected to a shipping label I could print at the end of the repair request, but since I received an error that never happened. Luckily the email had information on how to get to the shipping label. I just had to go to the repair status page and enter my service request number and ZIP code. I do that and get the same error as before that the service request doesn't match the postal code. I recall that I had changed my address from my former Cincinnati address to my Florida address when I first tried to do the repair request and think that possibly it is attached to my old address somehow due to the system issues they are clearly having. So I try my old ZIP code with the service request number. No dice! Same error.
So I get back on the chat and this time there are like 18 people ahead of me and I wait about 25 minutes to get someone. This person confirms that the request is attached to my correct Florida address and doesn't know why it is giving me that error but sends the shipping label image directly to my e-mail, which I successfully receive and print.
WTF Microsoft! Get your shit together! It is bad enough that such shoddy hardware design results in peoples 360s dying left and right and then requiring people to bear the cost of repair. I don't care that they extended the warranty and that my console was way out of that extended warranty. If the 360 was designed correctly in the first place, it wouldn't have to have been repaired at all unless I mistreated it. But that on top of the fact that I have to have the experience I did in order to even get the repair request filed? Absolutely ludicrous.
