This should be part of the Bugs/Glitches but is so epic as to reqiure it's own space. I bought a launch day 360. Stood out in the cold for 11 1/2 hours. I have purchased numerous titles, all of which played without incident. Even MLB2k6 was fine. Then I received NCAA 07. I should have know that there might be issues as the demo ran terribly on my console. But there were guys on this site that had issues with the demo and their retail copies ran fine. So I waited anxiously.....
I received my copy from BestBuy.com on 7/18, having paid 2nd Day Air to receive it promptly. It ran in a sluggish,choppy manner. Well, maybe it was a bad press. Returned it to the local store for a fresh copy. Still no luck. Then I went to EB and bought one of their copies after being told by EA that it was possible that the two discs were quite possibly from the same press. If that one was also faulty, I was told to send it to them for replacement out of "their" batch, as if they had a different,special batch. Well, the new disc simply froze my 360 after a few games. This became increasingly frustrating. I decided that maybe it was my 360. I contacted MS, who let me know that since my console was out of warranty by 2 months I would have to pay $120 to replace the disc drive. I informed them that NCAA was the only game that had issues. Sorry sir, there's nothing we can do. Then I had an epithany.
I purchased my brand new 360 that same day and it worked fairly well. Not perfect, just fairly well. Now I had an extra 360 that played every game, save NCAA. I sold it to a friend from work for $200, with the understanding that this console had issues with this game only. Well, he jumped at the offer. I took it over his house and hooked it up to his 42" plasma. I showed him Table Tennis and Madden to wow him. Table Tennis froze! WTF! Then Madden froze halfway through a game. Now What!? Well I called MS who asked me to remove the HDD. We did that and cleared the cache and the console performed without incident. He decided to play it for a day or two to make sure that it was OK. It did fine. Now I'm happy. My credibility restored. I returned 50.00 toward a new HDD, thinking that this was fair. I'm taking a small loss, but,hey, the console is out of warranty.
Well last night he calls me, and the console is freezing with the new HDD. He also went to purchase a memory card to try that. As a sidenote, EB offered him 40.00 for his 1 hour old HDD. He said "screw that." So now no memory devices work with the 360. Well, I call MS today and explain all of the various issues that have occured and they acknowledge that there are known issues with NCAA and that it will be 120.00 to repair whatever is wrong with the console, including shipping. So I took it, after much wrangling and possibly messing up a friendship, and I got a free copy of PGR3. Whohoo! We are going to sell the HDD on Ebay, trying to get as much as we can for it. He gets a Refurbished 360 with a 90 warranty. I now have a 360 that is slowly doing the same things as my old 360 (sluggish play, glitchiness) but I do have a BB 2-year replacement warranty this time that I fully intend to exercise frequently, if need be.
I'm probably going to make about 100.00 off my old 360. But my friendship and credibilty are intact. And to end this story on a positive note, Microsoft is fully are of the firmware issue and is actively working on a patch. I'm glad for those who have had no issues, But feel fully for those who are in my boat. This has been a terrible showing on both Microsoft and EA's parts. EA for shoddy coding that didn't account for possible compatibility issues and Microsoft's for not catching this during the certification process. And duel Shame-on-you's for hiding behind their warranties and EULA's when the issues arose. But hopefully
I have gotten past this and have taken the proper steps to never have to go through this mess again.....
P.S. In an ironic twist, my new 360 is one with the same Hitachi drive and is slowly dying. Come on with the patch!
I received my copy from BestBuy.com on 7/18, having paid 2nd Day Air to receive it promptly. It ran in a sluggish,choppy manner. Well, maybe it was a bad press. Returned it to the local store for a fresh copy. Still no luck. Then I went to EB and bought one of their copies after being told by EA that it was possible that the two discs were quite possibly from the same press. If that one was also faulty, I was told to send it to them for replacement out of "their" batch, as if they had a different,special batch. Well, the new disc simply froze my 360 after a few games. This became increasingly frustrating. I decided that maybe it was my 360. I contacted MS, who let me know that since my console was out of warranty by 2 months I would have to pay $120 to replace the disc drive. I informed them that NCAA was the only game that had issues. Sorry sir, there's nothing we can do. Then I had an epithany.
I purchased my brand new 360 that same day and it worked fairly well. Not perfect, just fairly well. Now I had an extra 360 that played every game, save NCAA. I sold it to a friend from work for $200, with the understanding that this console had issues with this game only. Well, he jumped at the offer. I took it over his house and hooked it up to his 42" plasma. I showed him Table Tennis and Madden to wow him. Table Tennis froze! WTF! Then Madden froze halfway through a game. Now What!? Well I called MS who asked me to remove the HDD. We did that and cleared the cache and the console performed without incident. He decided to play it for a day or two to make sure that it was OK. It did fine. Now I'm happy. My credibility restored. I returned 50.00 toward a new HDD, thinking that this was fair. I'm taking a small loss, but,hey, the console is out of warranty.
Well last night he calls me, and the console is freezing with the new HDD. He also went to purchase a memory card to try that. As a sidenote, EB offered him 40.00 for his 1 hour old HDD. He said "screw that." So now no memory devices work with the 360. Well, I call MS today and explain all of the various issues that have occured and they acknowledge that there are known issues with NCAA and that it will be 120.00 to repair whatever is wrong with the console, including shipping. So I took it, after much wrangling and possibly messing up a friendship, and I got a free copy of PGR3. Whohoo! We are going to sell the HDD on Ebay, trying to get as much as we can for it. He gets a Refurbished 360 with a 90 warranty. I now have a 360 that is slowly doing the same things as my old 360 (sluggish play, glitchiness) but I do have a BB 2-year replacement warranty this time that I fully intend to exercise frequently, if need be.
I'm probably going to make about 100.00 off my old 360. But my friendship and credibilty are intact. And to end this story on a positive note, Microsoft is fully are of the firmware issue and is actively working on a patch. I'm glad for those who have had no issues, But feel fully for those who are in my boat. This has been a terrible showing on both Microsoft and EA's parts. EA for shoddy coding that didn't account for possible compatibility issues and Microsoft's for not catching this during the certification process. And duel Shame-on-you's for hiding behind their warranties and EULA's when the issues arose. But hopefully
I have gotten past this and have taken the proper steps to never have to go through this mess again.....P.S. In an ironic twist, my new 360 is one with the same Hitachi drive and is slowly dying. Come on with the patch!
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