I always knew it would happen sooner or later. I was pretty much the only 360 owner I knew who hadn't had some sort of problem.

Well the RRoD finally caught up with me and hit while playing GTAIV. Pants. That sucks. I got it in November of last year so that's what, about six months? I know I could count that on my fingers but I'm typing. The customer service woman was very pleasant but her English wasn't great so who knows if the pick-up guy will ever make it here.

is that the console equivalent of the blue screen of death?

Pretty much. The four lights that make a circle on front of the system ordinarily all light up green. But if they suddenly change to three-red-and-one-dark, there's been a hardware failure in the deck that can only be resolved by Microsoft themselves. The failure rate is close to 1-in-3, making the 360 this generation's PS2 in the area of Crappy Hardware Design.

Oh, I think the 360 RRoD is in a whole different league to the PS2.

Wish I could say that when I called Verizon a month or two ago...

That sucks... but at least Microsoft will fix it for free. Yeah I know, still it's annoying and frustrating. I heard that at some point the 360 is going to use 65 nm chips which supposedly will greatly reduce or even eliminate any hardware problems. Anyone know what's the status of that?

cheers,

-avatar!

Yeah, the RRoD is probably the worst hardware flaw in console history.  With the front-loading NES and original PSX, there were some tricks you could do to get them to work, but with the RRoD, you're done fucked.

Sorry to hear that,

As a PS3 owner, still wondering why Rockstar limited downloadable content for GTA IV for the 360 - bs! (Granted, I have put the sum total of 2.5 hours into the game so far, don't think I need any more content)

Non-the-less, when you want your toys to work, you don't want to mess around with faulty hardware, let along crappy customer services, and outlets that don't immediately provide you a replacement.  Interestingly enough, I was at Gamestop recently and found out if you buy a used 360 from them and warranty (for about $40 less than new), they will swap it for you immediately if it fails.  Thought about it, then told them to 'Go sell crazy somewhere else!'  haha

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs. … -exclusive

Guess I should still wait awhile before I get an XBox 360, eh?

Amen brotha.  Overall, I still think that I'm going to get a 360, the only issue is when.  It'd be nice if the whole RRoD thing could just get solved, but I guess that's what happens when you rush a console to the market.

I still don't get what the whole PS2 hardware messups were about.  I've had mine for about 7 years and haven't had a single problem with it.