Warning for those considering buying a 360

[pk500]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Also, lets not act like we dont have a choice. Its not like it was in Nov. 2005 when no one knew about the widespread issues with the 360. Now everyone has heard about it so you can either choose to wait until MS figures out these issues, buy a ps3 and wii or be happy or buy a 360 and a warranty. There are plenty of alternatives out there.

No question. And it's why I'm exercising my choice to get a DS Lite, which I don't think is the town whore of handheld gaming despite it being cheaper than the PSP. And yes, I am going to bone her without a rubber, as I'm not buying a warranty. I'll probably just insist on her using a diaphragm, via screen protectors.

Take care,
PK

[fishepa]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I buy a warranty on all my electronic purchases over about $200. I like having that warm fuzzy feeling that if something were to go wrong, I could happily walk my *** back in the store and come out with a brand new widget.

[aholbert32]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

One other thing: When you bone the town whore, you know you're not getting quality. You're getting sloppy seconds, 12ths and 15ths.

So by making the above analogy, are you admitting that the 360 is a sub-standard console, that if you buy it you better get an extended warranty because it's a piece of sh*t worthy of that extra protection?

It sure reads that way to me.

Aaron, your analogy to a town whore would be apt if we were buying a $20 handheld single-title Pac-Man game at a checkout. But this is a $400 device that's supposed to be both the Rolls Royce and Land Rover of its industry.

An extended warranty shouldn't be an accepted part of the program, and someone who sees their 360 fail without a warranty is a victim of shoddy design, parts sourcing or manufacturing, not an idiot. The reality of the defect rate of the 360 states otherwise, but my point is that it shouldn't be this way, and gamers are MUCH too willing to accept it and be lemmings to the hobby.

Take care,
PK

The reason I bought it is because 360's arent guaranteed to fail, its just many of them do. I know more people who still have their launch 360s than people whose 360's broke. That doesnt mean that the 360 doesnt have serious design flaws or that it doesnt have rampant issues. It just means that the failure rate isnt as high as people are lead to believe. As with anything, the people who have issues with a product are always much louder than the people who are satisfied.

I guess I'm just different. I have a warranty for my HDTV, 360, Pocket PC, IPOD and Home Theater. Now 4 of the 5 cost me under 500 bucks but they way I look at it is I would rather pay 20-50 bucks upfront and be comforted that I wont have to pay the full price to replace my device if **** happens.

Also, the 360 is a great system when its working. This past year Ive enjoyed a ton of games and I dont regret buying it even though I've missed two weeks of playing it because of the 3 red lights. I guess I'm saying that the town whore may have been around with everyone but she's an incredible lay.

[born_bad]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I buy a warranty on all my electronic purchases over about $200. I like having that warm fuzzy feeling that if something were to go wrong, I could happily walk my *** back in the store and come out with a brand new widget.

It's not worth it on most electronics. If electronics are going to fail, they usually do so within the frist 60-90 days, which are normally covered by the manufacturer's warranty (which you don't have to pay for).

I never buy extended warranties for that reason (consoles being the exception because of my past bad luck).

[cjonesfan921]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I'm an idiot, I bought the warranty. In reality I should've saved the money. The only reason you should buy a warranty is if you are scared that your system will break do to misuse or carelessness. If the system dies because of a vendor defect then it would have to be fixed or replaced free of charge anyway. If not hen obviously you can take the necessary steps and in the end you will win. OBviously some people would rather just put the $50, all the power to you, but we buy these products and expect them to last for 3-4+years, not 3months, 6 months, or even 1 year.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

That's just it... things won't change. This is the norm and things will only get worse. I had no idea of the warranty for game scratches. That's incredible. Can you imagine the horror stories you're going to read about that?? "EB wouldn't honor it because they said it was the 360 that caused the game scratch." I mean, what kinda **** is that??

I'm saying this now: The Wii will most likely have more problems than any other Nintendo console. Why? Everone loves to compliment Nintendo's quality when it comes to consoles. Hell, I agree with them. But up until now, they've pretty much stayed cartridge based. The NES, SNES, GB, GBA, DS, Virtual Boy, N64... the GC was the only cd-based media used in a console system, and even then, there were no issues because (and this is my own reasoning) of how the CD sat in the drive. It was horizontal. Most systems that can hold a CD or similar media vertically always have more issues sooner or later than horizontal based devices. Why? No one reason... but if you follow this stuff, you'd realize that. Couple that with fact that it's a dual slot-loading drive... well... history is going against Nintendo here that's for sure.

I hope that it does well, as I'm interested in picking one up further down the line... but I'm still willing to bet things won't be all fun and games (no pun intended) a bit down the line...

One thing to that if the Wii has issues, Nintendo will stand behind it. They were replacing DS' with 1 burnt pixels, not 5-10 like the PSP, ONE. I have no worries when it comes to Nintendo products, they stand behind them, and they work, something I can't say for MS or Sony.

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

It's not worth it on most electronics. If electronics are going to fail, they usually do so within the frist 60-90 days, which are normally covered by the manufacturer's warranty (which you don't have to pay for).

I never buy extended warranties for that reason (consoles being the exception because of my past bad luck).

I agree. I've read how much money these guys make on these insurance/extra warranty sales and it makes you want to throw up. I did buy a 5 year in home warranty for my parents TV (family anniversary gift) only because I got it half price after refusing to buy it. They wanted $150 warranty on a $600 (Canadian) TV at the time. They kept asking if I wanted the extra warranty and I said no. The store manager had to come over and make sure the salesman asked me and why I didn't want it. I told him I read how much these stores make on that stuff and he begged to at least allow him to make an offer. He offered $75 which was $15 a year for full in home warranty and I did make the jump but how much is that stuff marked up if he cut the price in half and still made money?

Edit: Here is a recent article talking about how much money electronic stores make on the sale of extended warranties and how the vast majority of time, its a huge ripoff to consumers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/te...l?ref=circuits

[born_bad]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I agree. I've read how much money these guys make on these insurance/extra warranty sales and it makes you want to throw up. I did buy a 5 year in home warranty for my parents TV (family anniversary gift) only because I got it half price after refusing to buy it. They wanted $150 warranty on a $600 (Canadian) TV at the time. They kept asking if I wanted the extra warranty and I said no. The store manager had to come over and make sure the salesman asked me and why I didn't want it. I told him I read how much these stores make on that stuff and he begged to at least allow him to make an offer. He offered $75 which was $15 a year for full in home warranty and I did make the jump but how much is that stuff marked up if he cut the price in half and still made money?

That's exactly why places like Best Buy push it so hard. I've litterally had to fight them on it and start getting loud. "I DON'T WANT IT!" They don't give up on it and try to force you into it. The reason being, it's 100% profit for them and the percentage of products they have to actually replace is incredibly small. It's just all extra money for them that they never have to do anything for.

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

That's exactly why places like Best Buy push it so hard. I've litterally had to fight them on it and start getting loud. "I DON'T WANT IT!" They don't give up on it and try to force you into it. The reason being, it's 100% profit for them and the percentage of products they have to actually replace is incredibly small. It's just all extra money for them that they never have to do anything for.

Not quite 100% but more like 80%. Read the article I posted above (in the edit) and it will just re-affirm your belief in not buying extended warranty.

[p2xgamers]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Argh you bastards. Had to wait until after my 360 and awaiting right this moment for UPS to arrive, to post this thread? :P (make that they just arrived)

[Pared]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

One thing to that if the Wii has issues, Nintendo will stand behind it. They were replacing DS' with 1 burnt pixels, not 5-10 like the PSP, ONE. I have no worries when it comes to Nintendo products, they stand behind them, and they work, something I can't say for MS or Sony.

I hope so... but things can always change rather quickly. For everyone's sake who purchases one, I hope it works out well in their benefit...

[Victor99]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

Well, I guess I'll throw in my two cents. I bought a 360 at launch and it died three weeks later(three red lights of death). The total turnaround time to me getting a replacement console was about a month. Like others have stated, MS customer service is absolutely horrible. I probably spent more time on the phone in that one month than I do for an entire year, no joke. I'm a pretty easy going and laid back guy, but it was very hard for me to keep my cool during all that time on the phone. I would get completely different information everytime I called them up and sometimes no information at all. Very frustrating and annoying to say the least. Finally, after a lot of wheeling and dealing, my replacement console finally arrived. So far, I haven't had a single issue with it. Not one freeze, hiccup, or lockup(knock on wood). So for the time being, I'm happy. But I bought a 3 year warranty for 60 bones just to be on the safe side. I wish I could tell you with a straight face that I don't worry about the stability of my 360, but I can't. The back of the console still gets REALLY hot after extended play and the disc drive is still noisy as ever. The 360 obviously has issues, and anybody who denies this is only fooling themselves. Yet overall, I do enjoy my 360. It has a lot of innovative features as well as the best online system of all the consoles IMO. There hasn't been a whole lot of great games for it yet, but their slowly on their way. I think in time, it will deliver. But MS has it's work cut of for them.

[Holic]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I've had nothing but pretty good customer service. My Xbox 360 was out of warranty, and they still managed to fix it for free.

[Pete1210]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I just read over this thread with great interest since I am on my THIRD xbox 360.
I got the first one in January from Target without warranty. It was defective out of the box. It would not read game discs most of the time. Supply was still very scarce, so I had to get it replaced via MS. The service was A+. I had a new console 3 days after I sent in the broken one. Kept my old hard drive and got a 2nd one with the new 360. I netted $100 selling the new HD on amazon.
I did not get a warranty on number 2. It broke (3 red lights) in August. My plan was to fight it out with MS and get them to repair it free under the implied warranty. Most States have laws that extend express warranties. But I took the easy way out. I bought a new one at my local big box retailer and then put the broken one in the new box and returned it for refund. I made sure they marked it broken so they would not put it back out on the shelf. I felt a little guilty, but not too much.
I usually never buy extended warranties, but I paid the $60 for the MS warranty on #3.
The failure rate is ridiculous, buy I'm already hooked on xbox live (since NFL 2K5) with great friends list and the 360. So at least I'm covered for replacement for the next 2 yrs.

A 3 month warranty on a $400 electronic device is bs. MS should stand behind the console with a 1 year warranty.

Here's my best warranty story:
I bought my first HDTV from BestBuy a few years ago. Real great price for a 32" at the time, like $500. They are pushing the warranty for $250. I resisted but finally they say they'll sell me the TV and warranty for $620. Now I felt the TV was worth $600 and it was an off brand, floor model so I went for it.
They ring up my purchase $370 for the TV, $250 for the warranty. I get home and now I'm thinking its silly to insure a $370 item for $250. So I read the warranty and it says you can change your mind with 30 days. Next day I went back to BestBuy and got $250 back!

[DaveDQ]

Re: Warning for those considering buying a 360

I've posted this elsewhere and I'll post it here as well: It is completely INEXCUSABLE that gamers should feel they need to purchase a "warranty" for a video game system. Console makers should be putting out a quality AND RELIABLE product. It's a complete sham that they can sell you a system for hundreds of dollars only to say "whoops, you mean your 360 stopped working in 4 months? We can fix it... for $215.53 cents." These damn systems should be made to function and last. We're not even one year in yet since release and I've read horror story after horror story with the 360. It froze, 3 red rings of light, my HD won't come up, I lost all my gamesaves, my system won't turn on... it's absolutely ridiculous.

EB, GameStop, CC, Best Buy... all these stores live off customers purchasing warranties for anything and everything. Worried your bag might break on the way home? Purchase a warranty for $.50 and we'll replace it free of charge.

That's a great post right there.

Mine has had no problems...knock on silicon.