Die Another Way

As we begun our pre-patch testing of Monster Madness: Battle
for Suburbia
, our Xbox 360 froze. We rebooted, and within two minutes the game
froze again, this time giving us the infamous ‘ red rings of death’. Additional
reboots warranted the same outcome. Sadly, this occurrence was not unusual;
this was the fourth Xbox 360 console to die within a span of two years.

Luckily, we had always purchased the Gamestop Product
Replacement Plan(PRP).  The PRP is a $50
insurance policy that if your system breaks down, you can bring it to any
Gamestop store, and they will replace your unit with a brand new one.
Apparently, Gamestop received a high volume of defective 360s; while they still
honor guarantees, they no longer sell the PRPs.

We began our quest looking for the elusive ‘ Falcon’. The
Falcon is the insider codename for a newly manufactured 360 with a thinner
chipset. As the processor is thin, it produces less heat. Many people believe
heat is what kills most 360s, so there is a high-tech superstition that the
Falcon has an increased reliability. Supposedly, one can identify a Falcon in
the wild by examining the 360’s retail box; older 360s have a wattage of 203
watts, while Falcons consume a meager 175w of power.

A call to local Gamestops proved fruitless; one Gamestop claimed
to have the new models, but a trip down revealed otherwise. A manager had
confused the HDMI port, a feature integrated for the last four months or so,
with the newer Falcon units. We had to settle for an older ‘non-falcon’ 360,
and within 45 minutes we were on our way back to tech-gaming HQ.

But our story does not end here. Once the new 360 was hooked
up, and our Gamertag was reestablished, we noticed one new worrisome policy
Microsoft had integrated. Anyone who has purchased a new computer in the last
few years is familiar with ‘bloatware’. It’s the garbage manufacturers fill
their machines with- demo software, ads, videos. New 360’s are now filled with
it. Removing the game demos, Xbox arcade trails, and promotional videos is now
an activity that ads to the frustration of 360 replacement/repair.

About Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

3 comments

  1. What kind of jumk is on the hard drive? Cant you just reformat it?

  2. I wish M$ got their shit together. 360s are still FUBAR 2 years later. Theres no excuses for that.

  3. It’s a bad idea to watch trannie porno DVDs on your 360. It’ll give you the ring of brown death each time.