“You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job.” – Peter Moore, Microsoft VP Entertainment in an open letter to the gaming community

Holy crap!?!  Did you just hear that? 

Respect.

During the last week, we’ve seen more and more stories circulating about failure rates of the XBOX 360 console.  According to some retailers, near 30% of XBOX 360 consoles were failing.  “We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival” said an EB Game employee.  Microsoft has always maintained that the failure rate was under 5%.  That’s a major difference.

Oh.  And then there was the story of the guy who is on his 11th (eleventh!) console.  Talk about bad luck (or bad quality assurance?).

Hmm.  The report that some XBOX 360 consoles are being sent back to owners with additional heat sinks installed in the case also made the rounds recently.

And finally, there’s the story about Forza developers deleting forum posts of fans who have reported that Forza 2 causes the “red ring of death” to occur on some consoles.  Over 900 posts were moved or deleted.  Was it a cover up?

Microsoft has taken a beating of late.

Here at the Hushed Casket we’ve seen our share of broken XBOX 360s.  Yours truly is on his second console.  I can count over 10 people close to me that have had to send XBOX 360s in for repair.  If I think a little harder (or perhaps pay more attention to our forums), I bet I can increase that number to 20.  I’ve always felt that the failure rate was a lot higher than 5%.

Today, Peter Moore sends out an open letter to the gaming community.  While they don’t admit that their estimated failure rate is higher than 5%, they are dishing out 3-yr warranties to all XBOX 360 consoles.  “As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles…Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.“

I’m satisfied.  While I think Microsoft is a little shady with the failure rate, I’m very excited to see such a sincere letter to the community that delivers good news for 360 owners. 

Now, where’s my apology for the Zune, Windows Media Center, Windows ME, and Games for Windows – Live?

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currently playing: Shadowrun
on the back burner: Catan, Guitar Hero II, HALO 2 (PC)
Shadowrun rocks!

While part of me still hopes somehow that the list of Halo 3 Achievements discovered awhile back at Xbox.com is not entirely legitimate, or at least not complete and final, it did contain something quite interesting. The final nine achievements are worded like so:

Score over points in the Campaign meta-game on the nth mission.

While the idea of points might be new to the Halo series, at least in campaign mode, it is certainly not new to first person shooters or to Bungie games in general. Looking at those two sets of precedents could produce a pretty good picture of what this feature might entail in Halo 3. If that’s not enough, a good hit off the crack pipe would provide visions of even more outlandish implementations.

Click “read more” from the front page for the entire text.

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Can I find a group of racist twelve-year-olds trying to ruin my Halo 2 experience if I tried?

I just read an article that lamented the state of Halo 2 Matchmaking. While articles like these aren’t new, this one prompted me to try something out; I’m going to use Halo 2’s matchmaking system (Rumble Pit) to see if I run into the jerks everyone claims infest Xbox Live.

Game 1
The only noise in the pre-game lobby was dooooo talking to his friends. The worst thing I heard in the game was “Yeah, punk!” from doooooo, and he was the only person who even bothered to speak. No insults here.

Game 2
Not one word was spoken for the entire game until the post-game lobby. Cederlof, who recognized me from the last game, said, “You won again.” sublymonalZACH said, “Good game.”

Where are the racist twelve-year-olds?

Game 3
jjnorth had a voice mask, and the first thing he said is “Please do not kill jjnorth.” That was the only thing spoken all game. In the post-game screen, Nockternalassn said “Game Over.” Thanks for pointing that out, man.

OK, I started getting bored, so I stopped. It seems matchmaking isn’t the infested cesspool everyone says it is. I believe everybody thinks Halo 2’s matchmaking is as bad as it seems because it only takes one asshole to screw it up for everybody. You can game an entire night, and if only one person insults you with their racism, homophobia, or what-have-you, that can mar the entire night. One bad apple spoils the bunch, so to speak. Don’t let the jerks get you down, focus on the good times that keep you coming back.

*Note: These are the first and only three games I played for this experiment. I only said the occasional “nice shot” when appropriate.

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Currently Playing: Shadowrun, GHII (PS2), Resident Evil 4 (PS2)