re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Ok, so he's going by the station after work. He's also got 3 police friends at work, including a Captain (not really sure how that works at a music college, but whatever). He's got everything he needs from me and plenty of support around him to help out.

I can't wait to hear what's next. Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Is he playing SmackDown vs RAW 2008?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

I can neither confirm nor deny.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

I still don't understand how you can be dumb enough, first to login in Xbox Live and then with another user's account. I know, he wants to try Gold and stuff, but that's the easiest way to get caught.

He could be using Tor or something like that but I really doubt it.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Tor?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Certainly possible. Reading through that, it is possible to find origination. While I doubt this person is clever enough to mask their location, I'm just happy to give my brother a chance to recover his possessions. Whether the cops do anything is another matter entirely.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Question, My Xbox Live membership expires in June and will be automatically renewed for $49.99. Although I don't mind paying it, I would love to know if there are any deals right now to get it cheaper?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Newegg: $34.99 + 1-2% back with Bing.

btw, never pay $50 for Live.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Exactly. Deals on it come up all of the time. I don't think I've ever paid more than $30 per year, and generally like to stay at least a year 'pre-paid' just in case they raise the rates.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

You Rock! Thx Dude! I knew I could get some assistance here.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

No sweat. :)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

I hope I don't jinx myself by buying today's TeeFury shirt:

http://www.teefury.com/products_imag...jollyroger.jpg

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

WTF!? My 360's DVD-drive seems to have committed suicide. It isn't recognizing discs at all. I don't even get the "Please insert an XBox-360 disc" message. I put a disc in, close the tray, and it just sits there with an "Open tray?" prompt like I closed the tray with nothing in it.

Do I need this mere days before Red Dead and Alan Wake hit!? DO I, MICROSOFT!?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Sorry to hear about that. And yes, very bad timing considering upcoming releases.

So in my ongoing quest to free up HD space (I install all disc-based games I'm currently playing, and I'm hesitant to uninstall them if I think I might play again, so it stays pretty full), I decided to move some stuff over to my fancy new 16GB USB stick. I moved my profile, themes, gamer pics, and ALL arcade games and associated saves. I'm working on Mass Effect now and inexplicably kept my saves for it on the stick as well. It had been working just fine on my Xbox at home.

On Saturday I took the USB stick to a friend's to play some games there. I had done this plenty of times with the standard pre-USB official memory unit. Everything seemed fine at first - the profile and theme loaded as usual, game history displayed correctly, etc.

I then tried to open Game Room and got an "unable to open" message. I went into the Memory settings and saw that a lot of the games/data on the USB stick had the yellow "uh oh" exclamation point icon next to them.

Right after that, my profile signed out on its own. I restarted the Xbox and the profile was nowhere to be found. I went into memory settings and, despite the fact that the memory stick still only had 6.6 GB of free space on it as before, indicating the presence of the same data, all categories in the list (Games, Avatar Items, etc.) said "0 items."

I was hoping this was some funky problem with my friend's Xbox. When I came home, however, the same thing happened on my machine. So I got to learn about the process of recovering a gamertag and re-downloading a bunch of stuff, including all arcade games.

There's nothing like that sinking feeling when you realize all your game saves are gone. I could deal with the loss of the arcade game saves, even though they collectively represent hours of time. But the Mass Effect file - 65 hours in, level 58 and a half character (max is level 60 for those who haven't played it), second playthrough on Hardcore mode 3/4 of the way complete - stings a bit. Not to mention the 2 other characters I had created and played through more than halfway.

Lesson learned: no more USB memory stick usage on Xbox for me. And back up important saves to a secondary location.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Wow! That sucks.

What brand/model is your USB stick?

I've been using the one that was on sale in Amazon between my bedroom and home theater Xbox without issue. I have my profile there and a game save (Saboteur) and that's it.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

It was the HP v125w 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive. Just got it about a month ago from Amazon, but don't remember if it was on sale.

Also, farewell Hexic. It was nice while it lasted.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

I have my saves in 2-3 different places so I can live with that part. Losing my gamer profile though would really suck since many arcade games save there. I have my profile on a USB stick and now I'm thinking seriously about putting it back on a standard memory card. Sucks your USB stick died like that.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

In-Profile game save data is recovered from the XBL servers with the gamertag as long as you were connected to live when you saved them. Trust me, my time with Texas Hold'Em knows what it's talking about ;)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Hmm...so maybe I haven't lost the saves for some (or all) of my arcade games? That would be a good thing. The only one I've checked is Game Room and everything seemed to be there.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Some games save to a storage device, some games save to the profile - like an internal database/registry/file-system.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

I had something like this happen to me. It turned out to be this little rubber band that the gears used to properly open/close the dvd drive. I was able to replace it myself once I bought a few of the replacement bands on line.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/video-game-...ml#post9703611

If this is your problem, email/pm me your address, I have extras and I can send you a couple.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Since there was some flack (-wink-) last time about me taking some time to vet the contest, here are the details of the new one that I just found out about. It's another text to win promo, but winners are supposed to be announced daily instead of once a week.

Text "GM" to 75920

Apparently some people with iphones are having trouble. I entered and received a "thanks for entering" text immediately. Also, credit to CAG. (Code and number were found in MLB 10 and is part of the GM Military New Vehicle Discount promotion)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

^ message won't go through via Google Voice or directly from my Canadian cell. Bummer.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

That is a bummer. US only I believe.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Again, thanks for the info Michael. I ordered the card last week, got the Bing cash back and it came in the mail today. My subscription is now renewed until June 2011. I will probably hound you for another deal then. :)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Just a matter of trolling here and CAG all day. I know not everyone can do that at work. :lol:

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Thank you, sir! Is this a "enter once daily" thing?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

It sure is! just like last time, only daily winners. (I assume it's the same number of people from last time divided by 7)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

OK, I am thoroughly confused. I spent two days feeling sorry for myself and trying to find a PS3 at local stores. Tonight I gave up and ordered one from Newegg. Then I decided to try my 360 again to see if I could figure out whether I was having the same rubber band problem as Blade. The 360 worked like a dream with no problems reading the disc.

I think God or fate or the universe just wanted me to buy a PS3. Who am I to argue?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

lol Glad it's working for you either way. :up:

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

You'd think my Google Voice number would work, though (GV is US numbers only right now)

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Strange question, does anybody know if avatar items work like other XBL content? In that if I buy something on my machine under my account, would another account on my machine have access to it? The only paid item I have right now is male only so I can't really test it myself.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Well, I have suffered the three red rings. It's intermittent. I got home, turned on my 360 and there they were. I started the process (still under warranty), and I decided to keep trying it out. After 4 or 5 reboots, it started working and I played MW2 for a few hours with no problem.

My 3 year warranty expires in 2011 I believe since my 1 year expired March 2009. Should I try to kill it, or wait a while?

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Wait until E3. Then you'll know if there's a new hardware revision you're interested in. If so, you can force the RROD, get the refurb, sell the refurb, and upgrade to the new version for cheaper.

I think eventually though the RROD will become permanent for you anyway so it's a moot point.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Yes, avatar content is shared.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

This hasn't been the case for me. Avatar content is only usable on the profile that purchased it.

I did some looking and found this:

xbox Avatar Content support

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

As posted above, definitely doesn't work. Each account has to buy their own items.

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Speaking of Avatar items, the new prop that's awarded from the latest Magic: The Gathering update (or DLC) is one of the best props I've seen yet. It's so well done and dorky and, best of all, free with purchase. I had to put it up in my gamerpic to totally geek out.

https://msxb.hs.llnwd.net/avatar/ava...vatarpic-l.png

re: The official Xbox 360 thread - the console of choice on nuclear submarines
 

Speaking of Avatar awards from games, is there a some glitch on Halo:ODST? I finished the game but I didn't get an award. I know I read that there were a few.