Dont buy a warranty! MS covers the 'launch consoles' (prior to 12/06 I THINK--possibly later) for FREE.

As long as you own that console you can always count on a free replacement from MS. I was in the same dilemma as you and had a thread about it. I had a replacement plan through gamestop and just went ahead and traded it in for a new console from them because I could.

Also as stated in this thread, MS is refunding anyone who already paid for a warranty for a 'launch console' or paid for one to be fixed.

Mine was manufactured on 12/24/06. Does that count? I've had 0 problems with it so far...

They're only replacing them for free through the end of 2006.

I just bought a 360 last week-didn't check the manufacture date yet. I declined Best Buy's coverage.

Assuming it's a recent date (within the past few months), should I still be looking to buy some sort of warranty?

Yes if its new, Id get the MS warranty--You get unlimited amount of replacements for 2 years. Its not a bad price/deal for peace of mind.

Thanks for the advice. I assume this is just done through the official site?

I think its 1-800-4my-xbox?

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

i bought mine last week on the 23 played for a hour and some change, then went to sleep. next morning i got the red lights of death!. so i bring that back the day after and got a new one. i have proper air flow etc. but im going to buy a small fan for it whenever i play. im a casual gamer though only put in about 3 hours since saturday.

I dont think every problem is heat related. Some people had theirs with extra fans and it broke and people (like me) had them sitting in a cabinet and they were fine.

-eek- What up Doc Brown!

anyone have theirs manufactured around june or july 06? any problems?

Well, my 360 may be done. It was not a launch console. We got it in March with Oblivion. This weekend, I was playing for Gears of War fine. Tonight I load it up and get well into my first battle and the game freezes. I restart, freezes at the menu. One more time and freezes immediately into the battle. I tried the console without a game in and was able to use the dashboard fine and play videos off the hard drive. I tried a demo and 30 seconds in and it freezes. I tried another 360 disc and sure enough it froze too. It seems that it just freezes on actual gameplay. I will try a few other things, but as nothing has changed for several months, I am not holding out hope. :( is sucks, because I had to replace my original Xbox as well.

Gears of War probably causes it to put out a lot of heat. Maybe you should try one of those coolers. I believe the nyko one is said to be pretty good.

General question to all of you. Have any of you that used a cooler had the same problems?

YES theres a problem.... fucking M$.

No they do not replace them. I dont give a shit what the issue is Im now stuck with paying another $150 for clearly yet again what is M$'s fuck up. First time round damn dvd rom drive is a POS. This time who knows what it is , don't really care all I know mine was made Jan 18th 06 and they REFUSE to fix it. I have the 3 blinking light issue. Which clearly is a problem take one look at their website to see tha much.

Needless to say Im one very pissed off camper......

It's pretty sad they didn't include a 1-year warranty.

I can understand why early adopters (last fall, Jan/Feb 2006) didn't buy the extended warranty (who knew it was needed), but I'm surprised at how few people buy them for their new systems today. Why is that? It should basically be considered required, considering the high failure rate of these units.

Anyone know when the new model of the 360 comes out. How would I know to distinguish the newer model than the older model?

Anyone with access to a Costco really should buy it there.

Better not to reward MS with money for problems in their product design.

I have to say, I'm having a lot of fun with my 360 though!
Much more than I expected.

Still no refund from MS :(

I'm completed three acts no problem. But, I did move the unit last night and econnect everything and started with Big Bumpin' after letting it sit for over an hour and it still froze. In Dashboad alone, I am fine. Load any game, even a demo, and it's frozen, hard drive connected, not connected, whatever. :P

Aside from speculation, there really is no reason to expect a new model. It might happen, but certainly nothing official (or even unofficial) has been even hinted about a new model.

They'll probably shrink the CPU die at some point (will save money and help with the heat), but they could do that without anyone knowing (it could have already happened, would be impossible to say if MS didn't want to publicize it).

After much thought (and wanting to play Dead Rising, Vegas, etc.) I rounded up enough cash flow (and early christmas gifts) to get a 360. Got everything hooked up, turned on the power and.... an error message! E67. Something to do with the hard drive. I tried all their troubleshooting and it still didnt work so I took it back to the store for another. Got this one home and it thankfully this one is fine! I'm now off to update my system with the download from Xbox360compatible.com so I can play a handful of my old Xbox games.

:hscratch: I've never heard of this. Don't any BC updates just come from LIVE?

I think that download is for peple without an internet connection. You burn it to a cd and the xbox eats it.

Ooooooh ok. Thanks.