My first call to MS to start the license transfer process took place in mid-September.

MS' first call back to me happened in the middle of Christmas Eve.

About a month ago, I, on my own, deleted and re-downloaded my XBLA games and discovered that, this time, the procedure worked.

This past week, MS finally called to tell me that they fixed the problem and were going to tell me how to make the games playable offline.

-----------

So, the process works.

But, unless things have improved in the last six months, it's a slow process where MS' right hand doesn't deal with its left in a very effective manner.

Good to hear you had a good experience. As for the admittal of the defects,
that's only in some instances. There are a bunch of manufacturer-related
defects that'll brick your 360 that only bring up a single red ring instead of
the 3 that are covered by the extended warranty. Get one of those and
they'll do their best to charge you :) So far my refurb works ok. It's louder
and to tell you the truth, though it seems childish and petty, the whole
experience (the bricking out of nowhere and the hassle I went through with
the repair) has kind of soured me on the damn thing. I still have tons of
unopened games for it (including things like GRAW2, Bioshock and other A
quality titles) but putting stuff in it just leaves me wondering when it'll
brick again. ...or scratch a disc, or any of the other things you read happen
with them.

Anyone get this feeling after their initial bricking? I assume it'll pass, just
doesn't sit well right now.

Yes... I had that feeling too. It didn't go away. My confidence in my 360 never returned. When Live went dead in my area for over 3 weeks it (and the associated problems with that) were too much for me to put with.

Of course. It's impossible not to feel that way. So far my 3rd 360 has been running fine. However, I've been playing it a lot over the past couple of months and there's always that lingering feeling of equipment failure.

The RROD isn't what scares me about buying one of these machines; it's the disc gouging. Why doesn't Microsoft release completely redesigned hardware, like the DS Lite or Slim PS2? Only instead of being smaller, it could just <em>work correctly</em>? Surely there's someone at Microsoft who could redesign this thing.

Maybe what I'll do is buy some Xbox 360 games now, wait about 8-10 years, then play them on an emulator. :lol:

I just returned my 14-month old 360 after the optical drive died (thank god for Costco's old return policy), but not before it scratched the heck out of my COD4 disc. I had just signed up for a year of live about a month ago too, which I enjoyed greatly, but am pretty wary of jumping back into the M$ death pool.

The disk scratching issue is an abomination. I can, well, not understand the RROD, but it's at least a little more explicable, the 360 is basically a computer, and the main harm is annoyance--but we wouldn't put up with a cable box that broke our TV, or a DVD player that scratched disks, or a car that ruined tires.

Last night while playing RB I started seeing weird stuff happening with the colors of the game, they started getting really faded out and yellowish/greenish, intermittently. I tried the cablebox and I didn't notice anything. It's possible one of my cables somewhere just got loose, and I'll check those today, but is this symptomatic of anything else?

It has been redesigned a few times (smaller and more integrated chipsets, HDMI, etc.). There are at least 4 different DVD drives (with different models and/or manufacturers) in use in the various 360 revisions. You would think that, if there is a widespread problem with disc scratching, it would be limited to one or two of those drive models (i.e. the problem, if any, is in the drives themselves, not the 360). However, I don't know that I have ever seen any documented proof that a particular drive model is "bad" and to be avoided because it consistently scratches discs in normal operation. Therefore, I am skeptical at just how prevalent this problem really is assuming proper use of the 360 and a non-defective drive. Now, if one moves the unit from horizontal to vertical while it is on, then yes scratching will occur. Same thing is likely if one places the 360 on a spot that will be subjected to excessive vibration (e.g. on top of a speaker). I suspect such misuse accounts for most (but not all) of the scratching reports.

My launch era 360's DVD drive seized up a month or two ago (motor would not spin up the disc) and reported unplayable disc error. It never scratched discs though. I opened up my 360 and gave the disc a spin with my hand as it tried to start. That got the motor going again, and my 360 has been fine since. Never had any other problems with my launch era 360. Knock on wood.

I got my box back on Thursday. Looks like they repaired and sent back my original box, as it has the same SN and has no problems with XBLA games or anything. What a relief!

In a lot of cases it's the investment we already have in the system. I have
upwards of 60 games for it so it's not like I'm just going to pack it up and call
it a day. After my RR issue I have decided to buy for the PS3 whenever
possible in the case of multiplatform releases. Rainbow Vegas 2 was the
exception due to friends from the 1st carrying over to the 2nd not having
a PS3.

Is the RB Rainbow Vegas 2? If so, while playing splitscreen with my wife last
night I noticed the center would sometimes have a blue and red blob appear
for a split second in the center of my screen (similar to rainbowing, but more
of a centralized blotch).

No, Rock Band. I haven't tried any other games since this happened. I was thinking it might be a video card overheating or something, although why it should start now, I don't know. Nothing has changed; I don't move the console when it's on (I rarely move it at all), it's on its own unenclosed shelf (well, the Wii is vertical next to it) and nothing's on top of it except the Rock Band USB switch.

No, I agree, I don't have 60 games but I've got enough that I still enjoy so I wouldn't want to just 'quit' with the 360. I think MS should be pilloried for creating such a relatively shoddy product, but they should also be praised for such a wide variety of great games and the Live system that makes us take the risk of the hardware dying.

Well, looks like I made it 11 months before my disc drive decided I should join the exclusive fraternity of defective 360 owners.

The 360 at my local Toys r Us RROD'd. :lol:

Funny! I was at TRU to pick up some Wii games on their buy one get $20 off deal. I noticed their 360 was displaying the RROD. I asked the guy behind the counter about it and he seemed pretty annoyed with it, saying this was the 3rd time they had to deal with it.

I am personally still leaning towards selling my 360 when I get it back. I only have 3 games and an extra controller for it and never really found many games I was willing to spring $60 on. I think, with what will be my 4th 360 in less than a year, the thought of another failure looms to large for me to want to invest anymore time/money.

Such a great concept for a console, such horrible execution.

For anyone interested - not sure if this has already been discussed or not, but that guy that had MS repair erase all those signatures from his xbox got some cool goodies... a Halo collector's kit signed by bungie and then later he got a new Xbox 360 signed by even more people including Bill Gates. Pretty neat end to that story.

if i remember correctly, that is what started to happen before my xbox died and i got the RRoD. and guess what... it's happening again! (while playing viva pinata today).

debating whether to actually send it in again or just give up.

Hm. That's good and bad. Bad in that I don't want it to die at all....good in that it'll be covered. I guess I'll keep turning it on even though I can't play, to get the rings, then get them to send me a new one (I bought it in Aug 07.)
I'm sorry its happening to you again :(

That's nice to hear, thanks for posting it.

Finally got my 360 back. I missed the delivery last week.

I got MY Xbox back, not a replacement, so that is good.

All in all, not a terrible ordeal. At least I didn't lose any signatures!

Wow, I got my xbox back, exact same one, and it started up ok, for now!

Hope to play Call Of Duty 4 and get through the single player campaign.

They gave me a 1month subscription to xbox live which was nice.

JJ

Sent my 360 off first thing this morning. Hoping for a quick turn around, but I guess we'll see. Luckily it looks like Smash Bros. was going to take over for awhile anyway, so I shouldn't miss it too much.

My off-color thing got worse, now I get no video, just lots of cycling purple dots all over the screen. I've tried in another TV port and on another TV, using the "TV" setting, still the same. I called support and they sent me a new cable pretty quickly, which I just put in, same thing, so it's obviously the unit. I don't have any red rings though (yet).

Yeah my first 360 had "video issues" and it wasn't the cord. I was getting a green tint and weird checkering. Sounds like you're up for a "new" unit. :(

Well I got the circle of death last night.

I don't even use this thing every day :( I play a game every now and then after work - then I don't use it for months.

They are sending me my coffin.

Do you need to sign for the package when it is returned?

Yes, they require a signature. I had to have my delivery address changed so they could deliver to where I work so it could be signed for.

Alas, my time with the 360 is over!!! Sold it yesterday,hopefully the new owner won't inherit my bad luck (3 systems with problems, latest one with a build date of 07/2006). I may come back to the fold if they ever do a real internal re-design.