As I have hypothesized, and now seen true (twice), two of the "broken down" machines are just because the game store employees are sick of people playing them for so long. Many of the machines have full versions of games, and are getting played for long periods of time. I know at our local EB, their PS2 and XBox (I didn't see a GC) are "broken down." I think that may have a lot to do with the WalMart type breakdowns too. By no means am I saying that all machines are falsely broken down, but I think the number has been overblown due to things like this.

This is quite possibly true.
You can only play for free for a certain length of time before you start pissing somebody off.

Yeah, but I've actually seen these machines "breakdown" in front of me.
So have many other people.

It'll just freeze (crash), and there's nothing that the store owners can do.

That being said, it's unknown whether or not SOME stores are intentionally turning their systems off and saying it's "broken down"
But it's a fact that many stores ARE having serious problems with the Xbox.

this is a possibility, i went to TRU today to play the GCN put to my dismay the system was not turned on. it was all set up, and no broken sign so i followed the power cord from the back of the display to a surge protector; red button pressed, game system on, me happy! i have no idea why it was turned off.

I don't think this is the case, I mean why would they set up systems in their store for people to play if they didn't want anyone to play them? It doesn't make any sense, isn't that why they put there in the first place.

However, systems that are turned off has happened before a number of times, the ones that are turned off are usually just some teenagers or kids who think its funny to turn it off because........people won't be able to play it (they think thats funny in their childish minds).

But, the fact that it was prevalent enough for gaming sites to point it out and write an article about it worried me though, we'll find out this week after launch.