Aside: I Hate My Xbox

Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 9:41 am in Asides · Comments

To say I have a love / hate relationship with my Xbox 360 is an understatement. It gives me great pleasure by offering a platform to play amazing exclusives on, not to mention an easy way to connect to friends while playing these amazing exclusives. But it also has a very evil side, which I’ve been discovering on a daily basis recently.

My console refuses to read discs. All discs. Even though there are zero scratches on these discs. My console requires to be booted up three times before the game actually begins, simply because my console enjoys freezing on various parts of the process (the Xbox logo, the dashboard, the game etc). My console prompts for discs to be inserted, despite there already being a disc inside. Give it up, Xbox! Can’t you just work?

I’m on my third Xbox 360, which, given the fact I’ve been gaming on the Xbox for 4 years is a poor, poor figure. Especially as the above symptoms suggest I may well be heading into 4th RRoD territory. This time I’m not going to threaten I’ll jump ship because I now own a PS3, and I certainly won’t be trading anything in for a Wii, but I will be very angry at myself for remaining loyal to Microsoft. I’ll be even angrier towards them for being, well, shit. I dream of the day Apple make gaming consoles (I kid, I kid).

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13 Responses to “Aside: I Hate My Xbox”

Martin

# October 16th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

I recently made the switch from PS3 to Xbox, because I was tired of not having anything cool to play (Fable, Mass Effect etc etc) and although the Xbox is louder, cheaper looking and unreliable it is years ahead of Sony’s piss-poor user experience, especially in regard to the PSN(which admittedly has improved over the past year).

I don’t think I could ever switch back, and although I may pick up a PS3 slim after christmas it is solely for the Blu-Ray and God of War III and the Xbox will always be my gaming console of choice.

Rob

# October 16th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

You need to replace the CD drive. You can buy one online between 40-60 dollars. Then there are several videos on youtube which shows you how to install it. You will first need to watch a video on taking it apart first. After you take it apart look at the CD drive and find out which one is in your Xbox. There’s three different ones. Then you can simply go online buy one and swap it out a long with the PCP board and you will be back to reading disc and playing in no time. I did mine.

vrikis

# October 17th, 2009 at 8:52 am

“It [Xbox 360] gives me great pleasure”
- Ashley Baxter

I’ve never quite understood how I’ve been so lucky with mine. I’ve known quite a few people, and heard rants around the internet, about RROD’s, read errors, glitches, freezes, etc, etc, but I’ve yet to stumble across any problems of those myself. I got mine at launch in Greece, been using it for years, carried it over to the UK and am still playing on it these days :)

I’d always advise people to buying the extended warranty that Game/GameStation offer for accidental and all other damages. It’s a must for Xbox buyers. See if you can maybe get it replaced this time? It’s always a shame to hear that people will leave the platform if their console breaks, but at the same time it’s fully understandable. I think if mine broke I’d sell the games and be over with it… I don’t play it as much as I used to so living without it I wouldn’t really mind.

Dave

# October 18th, 2009 at 7:55 am

Mine is starting to do the same, just every now and then, good excuse to get the Super Elite :)

Rockers Delight

# October 19th, 2009 at 9:41 am

@Martin I agree, I don’t see the PS3 ever replacing the 360 as my gaming console, but I’m sick to death of Microsoft’s inability to build something that works.

@Rob When my 360 bit the dust the first time round, I went out and spent another £300 on an Elite, which means I had spent £700 on 360’s in total when ideally I’d have bought one and have it work from the start. I’d just be extra pissed about dropping more money on it to ensure it worked.

@Vrikis Hmm, maybe you haven’t had any problems because you don’t play it often. I don’t know, I do believe every single 360 is faulty and that it’s just a matter of time.

@Dave Really? Have you had it replaced yet? I saw you mentioning it on Twitter. I won’t be buying another Xbox only for a similar thing to happen. I’m too pissed!

Dave

# October 19th, 2009 at 11:14 am

Luckily, it turns out I am still under warranty. My xbox is being collected tomorrow so at least it will be back in time for Modern Warfare 2!

Steve

# October 19th, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Hi Ash. Like you I’ve got the love/hate relationship with my xbox. Not that its got anywhere near the extent your problem appears to be!
When it works… excellent. When it breaks… frustrating. My drive frequently gave me the “disc unreadable” error, despite being clean without a single damn scratch. Always at a bad time too when I had forgotten to save. The installing to the hard drive has fixed that problem but having to buy a bigger hard drive I felt to be a bit much having spent £300 on the first one.

Recently I’ve got the RRoD hit me. After 2.5 years I guess I’ve been lucky. While I will send it back, I’ve just got an Arcade and pluged my drive into it. Really wanted the HDMI connection, but I was also pleased that it is sooo much quieter! At £130 wasn’t too bad.

Despite all its faults, I love my xbox. Great games, online service is excellent. Having left Sony after the PS2 I don’t really want to go back there…. and no way would I want to get the Wii!

Live you rightly said, we remain loyal to MS, but angry at them being turd. Hopefully you can get MS to replace the drive for you… good luck and happy gaming!

Chris Radsby

# October 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 am

You are on your third one!? oh my god, I’ve only had to send my one in once. Well I guess you could install every game on the hard drive eh? The Xbox 360 is my game console of choice as well, it’s mostly because of how easy it is keeping in touch with friends and a more interesting market place.

Rockers Delight

# October 23rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm

@Dave I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you :)

@Steve I’ll have to give the installing to the hard drive a shot and see if it eases my problems. 2 and a half years is a long time for a 360 to last. Both mine have died around the one year/18 month mark.

@Chris And I don’t expect this to be my last either. Not with the many years I expect to get out of my Xbox anyway. Shocking, eh?

Anyway, I was just wondering if the game/Xbox freezing has anything to do with a faulty disc drive? I wouldn’t have thought so.

Chris Radsby

# October 24th, 2009 at 9:40 am

Well my friend had to send in his Xbox, he had a fault with the adapter-thingie, apparently it didn’t provide enough electricity to the xbox 360, so that the motherboard kept malfunctioning, therefore gave different errors on startup, freezing, and the disc drive not reading the discs.

dkoi

# October 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am

I put it ODST the other week and for the first 3 boot ups I got a warning screen saying the game was meant to be played on a 360. 4th times the charm, I guess.

Imagine the interface for an apple console? An iTunes version steam built in, synced with all music or videos you purchased via iTunes, could be really cool. And a nightmare for gamers. Last thing we need is another console.

Rockers Delight

# November 1st, 2009 at 2:31 pm

@Dkoi I was kidding about the Apple console, hence the “I kid” comment. The last thing we need is another console, you’re right, as is the case for browsers… But that’s a different story entirely.

Cameron Rogers

# May 9th, 2010 at 12:23 pm

I own an Xbox and a Playstation and both are really good game consoles. Let’s see what are Microsoft’s future updgrades on its Xbox game console.:’,

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