Just want to give a shout out to the fine craftsmanship Microsoft took when creating the 360. The unreadable disc error that I get on a nightly basis makes gaming on their machine such a joy, especially when it means I'll have to replay the last two hours of my game. Thanks Microsoft!

Interesting. I have had my 360 since September 07 and haven't gotten one unreadable disc error.

Neither have I. But I'm on my 3rd 360 so there's still time.

I'll be playing along and then I'll hear a horrible grinding noise followed by a pop up telling me the disc is unreadable. It would do it occasionally before, on Oblivion, but it's happened to me generally everytime I play for the last month or so. Argh.

Both of my 360 failures were due to "disc unreadable" error. They wanted to charge me for the second repair (after having refunded the repair cost on the first one), but I somehow managed to talk them out of it.

Family of douchebags gives kid a "Xbox 360"

That's really sad. Poor kid.

description for that vid:

My mom decides to buy my brother an Xbox 360 for christmas. We leave that night and return the next morning to find he has sneaked a look....just as my mom thought he would, this is the result...and yes he did get the game i will try to post the second video

Wait, so that family of douchbags is your family? I'm not sure I'd own up to that one. Glad that he did get the 360 though. That was too cruel for a little kid.

Not my family But i just thought id post the description to show the whole story.But still a crappy thing to do to a kid even if he did sneak a peak.Like we all havent done that

The video was posted two months ago. Also, Engadget contacted the family: http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/29/w...e-got-an-xbox/

"We think we've gotten in touch with his family (who let us know he never got an Xbox, and the whole thing really was a prank on the poor kid);"

Understatement of the year. Not only do they pull a mean-as-hell prank on this poor kid they posted it on the web for the world to see. Fucking Douchebags is more appropriate.

One year I remember I really wanted a DVD player, and my parents pulled something similar (they put something lame inside of a DVD player box) but being 18 or so at the time, I was like "WTF?" instead of sitting there looking dejected. They apologized, and I somehow got a DVD player out of the deal.

That's the thing. Age. It's one thing to pull something like that on a buddy or even a teen, someone that is aware of how cruel the world is and can accept a prank. This kid is under 10 and it was probably all he wanted for Christmas. It's just wrong.

I'd throw down a few bucks, if there was a pool, to buy the kid one just to piss off the parents.

The fucking idiot taking the video saying "We cannot afford an Xbox" over and over again. And then the asshole in the background laughing.

It just makes me sick to my stomach to see a young kid cry like that.

Chris

I have a question regarding HDMI audio from the 360 and 5.1 content from Marketplace.

I have a January 2008 360 Pro w/HDMI connected with a Monoprice HDMI cable to my Onkyo 605 receiver, which then outputs to my DLP.

I have my audio in the 360 set to Dolby Digital.

When I am in the Dashboard, the 605 shows it's receiving DD 5.1. However, when I play a downloaded movie from Marketplace that is listed as having 5.1 audio, I only get what appears to be 2.0 PCM at the receiver.

I've read about the whole component cable modification where you can use optical audio with HDMI video, but it seems to me I should be able to send DD 5.1 to the receiver via HDMI for rented movies.

Does anyone know if multi-channel audio for Marketplace downloads is limited to optical?

You can count on $10 from me.

I just read the engadget link and it seems they are going to buy an Xbox360 and some games to the kid.

In case people don't check CAG - Radio Shack is selling PGR 4 for $19.99 this week, on clearance. That's a pretty great deal. There's no return/refund on the purchase, though.

Buying that kid an x-box would only reward the parents by getting them off the hook for being bastards.

Then, when word got around that the internets bought the kid an xbox, it would only ensure that more poor bastards would do the same to their kid and post the humiliation video all over the internets.

Part of me doesn't feel sorry for the kid. He had to know there was no xbox in there. Clothes don't weigh near as much as an xbox. When I was a kid I could pretty much tell what present had clothes and what present didn't.

I think that kids emotions weren't so much for not getting an xbox, but that was the sudden realization that he has a shitty family and is stuck with them for the rest of his life - or until he wakes up in the middle of the night and decides to get his revenge.

I remember when I was 12-13 and I really wanted a Sega CD. Christmas morning comes and I opened all of my presents and no Sega CD. I was really upset but I didn't show that to my parents, I just figured I would have gotten one since I never really received any "big" presents that year.

Anyways, my parents had a few presents left under the tree and my Dad said I could open one of his and lo and behold, the Sega CD My mom said I could open her last two presents and they were two Sega CD games. My parents were the best and totally tricked me. The two games were Night Trap and Adventures of Willy Beamish. Willy Beamish was such a cool and fun game minus the horrendeous loading times.

Despite all the problems, Sega CD had some decent games. I have been waiting for a next gen system to come out with another Sherlock Holmes game.

Now that we are in the YouTube age - seeing these videos always sends up a red flag. Was it ever considered that this video was made in order to land a 360 from the public?

I don't want to come off cold - and if the video is legit, then I feel bad for the kid - but it is very easy to fake a video in order to get the reaction that everone is having. And in the end this family ends up with one (or more) 360s for free.

I'm wondering why this video was even posted on YouTube. This young kid was mentally tortured while everyone who he loved, was laughing at him.

Chris

Nice. My parents bought me a drum set when I was about 10 and a Playstation when I was 13. Conversely, they knew I was getting money for Xmas and made me buy the game for the Playstation from them.

Haven't gotten a notable Christmas gift since. FEEL PITY ON ME AND GIVE ME A FREE uhm, uh... oh that $4000 Alienware m15x laptop with the Core 2 Extreme and 8800GTX.

The kid looked seriously dejected.