Well, the 'dead' Xbox 360 from my desk at work has finally been sent back.. Actually, they've been trying to deliver it for 2 days now, but I haven't been home to accept the package. Overall, eight days is not a bad turn around time. Shipped out on the 16th, it took three days to get there, two days for the repair, and an additional three days to be shipped back. (They said it would be repaired in three days... looks like they came through.) The only issue I have with the whole process is the fact that I specifically requested the 360 to be shipped to my office, but instead they shipped it to my house... I was unaware they were trying to deliver it there, so if I don't get it today I risk having them send it back to Microsoft!

UPDATE #1:

I managed to contact someone at UPS and have them hold my 360 for me so I could pick it up on the way home. It managed to make it back to me in one piece, but the 'use adequate packaging materials' was severly lacking, so I'm currently inspecting the system for cosmetic damages..... I'll be testing it later this evening.

 

UPDATE #2:

It's kind of funny... There's not a single nick, ding, scrape, scratch, or fingerprint on the 360..... I say "kind of" becasue it's not even the same Xbox 360 I shipped to them. They just replaced my defective Xbox 360 with a new system. I'm pleased by this only because I didn't purchase ANYTHING from Xbox Live with it.

 

Now I've got my fingers crossed that the 360 in my living room doesn't die. If it does, that means my wife won't be able to play ANY of the 31 Xbox Live Arcade titles I've purchased on that console when she uses her Xbox Live profile!!

 

NOTE: If you download and purchase Xbox Live Arcade games, they are 'married' to the Xbox 360 and GamerTag they were purchased with. If you bring those Live Arcade titles to another Xbox 360 and try to play them, without connecting to Xbox Live, they will NOT be the 'full version'. If you try to play them on a different Xbox 360, while connected to Live, with a profile other than the one you purchased them with, they will NOT be the 'full version'. The ONLY way they will be the 'full version' of the Xbox Live Arcade titles, while playing on a different Xbox 360, is if you sign into Xbox Live with the Profile you originally purchased the games with.

 

So, WTF does that all mean? It means that if you purchased a butt-load of content through Xbox Live for your whole family to enjoy, and the Xbox 360 you purchased it all on takes a crap, only the profile / person who purchased all the content will be able to enjoy it... everyone else in the family that used to be able to access that content with their profiles will be playing nothing but demos. (Now how much crap is that!?!?!)

Overall though, my Xbox 360 death, customer service, and Xbox 360 replacement experience was surprisingly good. Of course I would have rather NOT have had my Xbox 360 die in the 1st place. (Don't expect Sony to be that fast, or nice, about fixing any of their console problems... I speak from experience... They'll blame the problem on you, a 3rd party controller, memory card, etc. before saying 'Sorry, my bad' and fixing the problem.)

      - Jay

There's nothing wrong with a little friendly competition... unless it becomes an obsession!

I know this guy who I see and talk to on a pretty regular basis & just recently we exchanged gamer tags. "NEFARIOUSLORD J" is a very cool guy, and we share a LOT of the same opinions regarding gaming.... Well, after adding him to my Xbox Live friends list, I heard through the grape vine that he's pretty unhappy with me. Apparently he had the highest gamer score out of everyone on his XBL friends list, until he added me. [insert sinister laugh here] (He even sent me a message through live to say "I'm coming for you!") Our gamer scores are extremely close, so it shouldn't take long for him to catch up, then surpass mine.... but I'm not sure I can let that happen.

For some reason, I had plenty of free time on my hands at home to get into Lost Planet lsat week. While I was playing I saw that he was online, so I decided to compare my achievements with "NEFARIOUSLORD J" and noticed that he was on mission three while I was on mission seven; I also noticed that I made sure to collect all of the Target Marks during a mission before moving on, while he did not. I decided to take a break from Lost Planet and complete my final UNO achievement, but while in the middle of a round I realized that it was almost 3 AM so I decided to get some sleep. The next dat at work I looked at latest progress, and I saw that he had played UNO and completed the same achievement I was going for.... I immediately fired up UNO, knocked the final achievement out, then popped in Lost Planet. Just before inserting Lost Planet I saw that "NEFARIOUSLORD J" had made it to level five and had begun collecting Target Marks... I was now forced to complete the game & collect the remaining Target Marks along the way.

I haven't had much free time over the past day or two, so I'm watching "NEFARIOUSLORD J" quickly close the gap between our gamer scores.

I don't get it.. I've got several people on my Xbox Live friends list who have FAR higher gamer scores than mine, yet I don't have the desire to play every game I own, all over again, just to squeeze the last few achievement points out of them... but now that I heard about my friend being obsessed with having the highest gamer score on his friends list, I find myself staying up FAR too late trying to increase my score, and thinking about achievement points all day at work.... now I’m beginning to wonder... who really has the obsession? Am I obsessed with staying ahead of him, or is he more obsessed with surpassing me?

Maybe I should just play Wario Ware on my Wii and let him catch up.... hmm... Wario Ware is a pretty awesome game, but I'm not sure I have it in me to just let someone win.

Uno has finally been added to my "Perfect Achievements" list!

01/16/2007
[ 200 pts. ]

Today, when I came into the office and tried to turn on Lost Planet, my Xbox 360 stuttered, grumbled, gasped and then suddenly seized. As I stood there staring in disbelief, three red lights of death flickered ominously at me and the HD TV displayed a garbled mess that once so proudly displayed the Xbox 360 dashboard. Frantically I attempted to resuscitate my dear friend by cycling its power…. Sadly it did not fix the problem, it merely resulted in a single flashing red light and a horrifying error code; “E79” (hard drive failure.). I then powered the 360 down, removed the hard drive, and attempted to boot it once again…. Nothing!... No image was displayed on the TV for a moment or two, and then a scrambled screen of what looked to be the Xbox 360 logo.

Reality had finally set in… All of the horrifying stories from numerous first-generation Xbox 360 owners were all true, and I was experiencing it first hand… My Xbox 360 is officially dead. It was such a sudden, and shocking, death that came with no warning what so ever.

Today will be a day of mourning for me. Now I'd like to have a moment of silence for my dear old 1st generation Xbox 360...........................................

Rest in Piece my friend; you will be missed and my gamer score shall suffer.
(I pray that my personal Xbox 360 sitting at home doesn’t suffer the same fate.)

UPDATE:

I just got off the phone with Xbox Customer Support (1-800-4-MY-XBOX) and I'm happy to say that I qualified for a "No Charge Repair"!!! Something interesting I learned during the trouble shooting steps is that anyone who has had to pay for repairs within the last YEAR will receive a full refund. I'm honestly amazed... The last time I called a support number for a video game console, I was given the run-around for over an hour, then they blamed the dead console on a third party controller that I was using. [sarcasm]Yeah, Sony has some first-rate customer support. [/sarcasm]

So, the good news is that my 360 will be revived by an Xbox support tech and shipped back to me within 3 days; and it's all free of charge! The bad news is that I'll be without my work 360 for 3 days... wait a second... who cares?!?! it's only 3 days and it's gettin' fixed for free!!!

  
01/12/2007   01/12/2007
[ 200 pts. ]   [ 200 pts. ]

 

      - Jay 

(The mountains in the intro scene are the best example of how overly red the colors really were.) 

Another wonderul improvemnt was the aspect ratio. I had never noticed it before, but when running Zelda TP in 480i / widescreen mode, everything looks a bit 'squished' and 'cartoony'. (If that's a real word.) I know it sounds odd, but it looked as if Link were more adult looking, and Epona was more horse-like after connecting the component cables and switching to 480p. Seriously; the aspect ratio and color correction made the entire game look a little more 'adult'. Personally, I'm extremely happy with the improvements I've see by switching to component cables & 480p mode! (I really don't like sub-par video running on my TV. 60 inches can make a bad signal look HORRIBLE!)

If you'd like to watch the video comparison, feel free to check out the YouTube video below or the larger version on Google Video.

If you're in the market for some component cables, your best bet for finding a pair is by shopping online. Here are a few links that you may find useful in hunting down a pair...

• OFFICIAL Component Cable from Nintendo's online store. ($29.95 US)
• InTec "Premium" Component Cable from Amazon.com. ($99.99 US!!!!!)
• GameStop "Premium" component Cable from EBGames.com. ($49.99 US)
• MadCatz Component Cable from Amazon.com. ($19.99 US)
• Penguin United Component Cable from Penguin United. ($14.99 US)

[UPDATE]
I purchased a pair of the 'no frills' component cables for $14.99 from Penguin United recently... I wanted to see if there was a noticible difference between the $99.99 cables I have, and the $14.99 cables from Penguin United... the answer is no. I saw NO difference between the cables when running my Wii in 480p on my 60" SONY KDRSXBR2. I'd also like to pass along that the Penguin United cables are nearly identical to the 1st party Nintendo component cables, my online transaction went smoothly, shipment was prompt, and it took almost no time for the cables to arrive.

 

"Ever wonder why Microsoft hasn't released an HDMI cable for the Xbox 360, or whether the AV port was really capable of digital out? Well, here's your answer: we landed pictures of what appears to be the second Xbox 360 -- the Xbox 360 v2, if you will -- codenamed Zephyr. (The original Xbox 360, if you recall, was codenamed Xenon.) The long rumored about and awaited update to the console won't just feature a new, cooler 65nm processor, it's also finally added an HDMI port for full digital 1080p pleasure, as well as a 120GB drive, just what the doctor ordered. The 120GB drive may or may not come bundled with the kit, we don't yet know, just as we also don't yet know how much a Zephyr 360 is going to run (we imagine it'll go for the same price as currently so they can keep up a little on their expanding margin). But our very kind Xbox insider seemed happy to let us know we'd be able to get them "soon."

 

 - www.engadget.com