Good News Everyone!

In the last two days, my gaming fortunes have improved significantly. I am being sent a new Wii for free (warranties rock)and I received my confirmation email on the 17th.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Nintendo regarding our Advance Replacement
program. We wanted to let you know that your order has been shipped to you
as requested. You should receive your replacement product within the next
three to four business days.

Microsoft was a bit more terse in their email, received today.

Your Xbox Video Game system has been shipped! You can expect to receive it in 2-5 days. Thank you for your patience and get ready to get back into the action!

It is such a relief to be getting back to normal, and have such wonderful machines at my disposal, day or night at any hour.

Three Lights Update

Well, I got my shipping box last night, packed up my 360 and dropped it off this morning. Here are a few photos for those of you who are curious what all this looks like.

The address of the repair facility from the shipping label.



Here's the rest of the label



The instructions (sorry for the quality, this is the first time I've used this camera, I got it this week for my birthday)



Finally, this is the little UPS drop-off where I got my receipt, where, incidentally, they tossed my box a good four feet into the spot where they leave all the packages without even asking me if the contents were fragile or sensitive. Good thing for them it's already broken.



So wish me all luck. Hopefully we won't have to document any more failed systems here.

THERE ... ARE ... THREE ... LIGHTS!

Well, my 360 has been hinting that it was on it's way out, crashing during three successive play periods on two different games. I had one last hurrah when I beat a R6: Vegas level I've been stuck on for a month or so (due more to apathy than lack of skill). Saturday night, I fired it up, got about a minute into gaming and it froze on me.

It did not respond to the guide button.

I walked over to the TV, powered down and back up, and there it was. The red ring of death was staring me in the face. I went through everything with tech support, and yes, my hardware has failed. Considering that I was camped out at midnight launch night to get one of these, and given how notorious the 360 failure rate is and that I had a launch console, I'm not all that surprised by this development. It is tremendously unfortunate that the extended warranty, while a nice gesture, failed to cover me when I needed it. It's strange to think that my NES, SNES, N64, Xbox and Gamecube (until I traded it in towards a Wii) all still function perfectly, and that a system I had less than two years, actually for only 17 months died in spectacular fashion. It may happen that as systems become more complicated and technologically advanced, they are subject to higher rates of failure. I hope it's not the case, but it may well be.

They funny thing though (well, not really funny) is that Ben was had not one, but two Wiis fail on him. Luckily for him, they were covered under warranty.

I must say, in defense of Msoft, the tech was nice, helpful, and efficient, and had an answer to every question I had. The box for repair was supposed to be shipped to me in four business days, the system repaired in two, and shipped back in four. With a bit of luck, I should have it week after next. This may prove to be a blessing in disguise, as it will push me to play the games I have on other systems.

I should be getting a digital camera for my birthday this weekend (it was actually Tuesday, but I had to postpone celebrations due to a full schedule), with which I'll document the proceedings.

Wish me luck readers.

Bonus points if you can identify the source material