Gone Elite!
I had a bit of bad luck followed by a bit of really good luck the other week.
My XBox 360 DVD drive had been reporting intermittent “unreadable disc” errors on random discs for the past few weeks. I’d been persevering with it but it was the final straw when I bought Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 and it said there was a fault with an absolutely pristine disc.
With a sigh I trundled off to register the console for repair on the XBox site. I tapped my serial number into the site and Microsoft said the console was already out of standard warranty! Huh! I’d only had the thing six months so this was slightly annoying to say the least. I couldn’t ring them either as it was a Sunday.
Plan B. I’d bought it from Sainsbury’s and I had the receipt so I thought I’d just take it back there. Result! Swapped it over with no arguments and actually gave me an brand new black 120GB Elite in exchange for a dusty old broken cream 60GB Premium.
I had to sacrifice my hard earned save games but an extra 60GB of hard drive space for nowt was worth it. My warranty is also reset to 12 months again and this time the Microsoft site agrees!
It doesn’t happen very often but it’s nice when it does! 
March 16, 2010 - 10:39 PM
LiQuidGFX
March 17, 2010 | 1:44 PMSpawny bastard! lol I have to confess, Im looking for a good Elite deal myself! So i may be joining the RROD gang soon ;-p Oh! and update your site more often ya lazy gite!!! (Or get yourself a mod or 2
)
zyclonium
March 19, 2010 | 10:15 PMIf you shop around you can find some good deals on Elites at the moment. Supermarkets are sometimes a good bet. Also you can pick up a lot of classic 360 games for almost nothing pre-owned now. I got the original Gears of War for about £7 about a year ago! Bought Halo 3 as well and thought it was good but overrated.
LiQuiDGFX
March 21, 2010 | 2:48 PMNot sure if this is still live but its a free 1 months gold! Free 1 month xbox live
No it’s not a sham or anything like that it’s 100% legit just follow the steps and you’ll get a free month ^_^
just hurry tho cuz supies are limited I assume?? Your welcome..
First: Go to this link https://xbox.promo.eprize.com/tokenbase/?affiliate_id=netflixgold
Next: Enter this promotional code (5M9G1A) in the instructed area.
Finally: Enter a valid email to get the code.
LiQuidGFX
March 22, 2010 | 1:49 PMArse! Its gone now! Sorry for the false hopes!
LiQuiDGFX
March 22, 2010 | 8:37 PM1 year old xbox 360 elite comes with one controller, all the leads, headset, gears of war & no.2, GTA, far cry 2, virtua tennis 3, call of duty 2 and rainbox six vegas 2 all for £170! MINE!
zyclonium
March 23, 2010 | 10:33 PMYeah, I checked that XBox offer as soon as I got your link but it was expired. Oh well, you aren’t missing much. I don’t think XBL is any better than PSN to be honest.
So you got your own 360 now? Don’t forget to add me to your friend’s list! My ID is the same as always.
LiQuiDGFX
March 23, 2010 | 11:30 PMWill add you as soon as it arrives mate!
Bucko
May 5, 2010 | 9:55 AMYou should have transferred your save games onto a USB stick, any old USB stick will work now. Also, you get three years warranty for RROD and I think the DVD drive failure. Don’t forget to transfer any licences from your old box for any arcade games you bought, http://www.xbox.com/drm.
Xbox Live not better than PSN? You’re clearly mad
Though to be fair I couldn’t get the Halo Reach beta to background download last night.
zyclonium
May 9, 2010 | 9:29 PMIt broke before the new patch got released that allowed you to transfer your saves to any old USB stick. (At least I assumed you couldn’t transfer them before. I never actually tried it though.)
The three year warranty is okay if you are past the first year. If you are still within the first twelve months you may as well get the retailer to replace it. No waiting for Microsoft to repair it and you can get a brand new console.
I still honestly don’t get the “incredible wonderfulness” of Xbox Live over PSN. I want to understand but I think I’m missing something…. Someone please convince me what is so good about it?
That said, if Microsoft allowed you to save all your games to your Xbox Live account online I would seriously consider paying the subscription.
Matthew Buxton
May 15, 2010 | 1:37 PMI think it depends how much you play and how many friends you have. The 360’s dashboard/whatever is clearly better (no installing demos/downloads, no mandatory installs, no being locked out of your friends list, smaller, more streamlined updates, custom soundtrack streaming in all games etc) features like party play and such only come into their own when you have lots of friends you play with. Even LBP was a disappointment to me, I was really surprised that you can’t take photos in game and then download them from the website, most of the social games on 360 let you do this. Heck, even the scoreboards don’t always update instantly on the PS3 (at least not on some games).
zyclonium
May 16, 2010 | 10:49 AMI think I play a decent amount on both consoles. I think it comes down to the fact that some features are more important to some people than others.
Regarding your specific points:
No installing demos/downloads – Yeah, I admit the extra step of downloading and installing demos is slightly more cumbersome on the PS3 (although not a major concern for me – it’s only more one button click after all). Presumably the 360 must still download demos in compressed format but most likely just decrunches them on the fly before it informs you that its ready.
No mandatory installs – This is more of an issue with developer technical design than the machine itself. Some games have no installs (ie. Final Fantasy XIII) and some games have ridiculous installs (ie. Bioshock).
More streamlined updates – Completely agree with you on this one. The updates on the PS3 are getting silly now. Big, mandatory downloads every couple of weeks for minimal features. I’d rather they just did an update quarterly unless it was a critical fix.
Custom soundtrack streaming – This is one of those features I think you either use all the time or just don’t bother with. I see the attraction but it’s not personally important to me.