Microsoft Xbox needs to die.

[Wintermoot]

the wired controller I sometimes use for PC gaming works great.
just switch to PC gaming yes you still support MS but at least you got rid of the xbox.

 

[luckshot]

I might be in the minority but the PC gamers can keep their mods. There is a reason game developers generate content for their own games; it's because they're good at it. I haven't seen a mod yet that isn't in some way half-arsed or stands out from the original content like dog's balls.

BTW I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've had with your 360's. I've got three in the house (2 Pros and a 360S) and none of them have had any problems.

and community mods dont stop developers from making their own additional content, but yes there is a lot of junk mods out there but some also a neat/fun/fix broken things

the op definitely seems to have had a very negative series of encounters with xbox support, they really should have gotten some of this fixed by now

 

[Something Amyss]

So I can't contribute to this discussion if my Xbox hasn't broken in the five years I've owned it?

You can, but your console working really doesn't mean much.

Oh so I'm only allowed to quote my personal experiences if they support the "we hate Microsoft" argument.

Quote mining for the win. I mean, his statement was only three sentences long, surely the middle one wasn't so confusing that you couldn't grasp it, or see the continuity involved.

Further, I always have to posit: So what if your system works? What does that mean to this thread?

 

[Savryc]

Because all the other companies are shining beacons of hope and glory in a dark world right? Yes, that is sarcasm for the terminally dense out there. I've never understood why the whole console wars thing actually exists, unless there are a hell of a lot more insecure man-children viciously defending their chosen replacement for the emotional/physical hole in their life out there than I thought.

Here's the thing. Microsoft. Sony. Nintendo. The big three. Not a single one of them cares about you, they care about your wallet. They don't NEED defending, they have cash and armies of lawyers. They don't NEED praising either. They already have your cash (are you spotting a theme yet?) since you no doubt bought their particular version of the "put disk in, play game" device.

As long as there's money Sony will keep snipping features left right and centre, Microsoft will keep charging through the wazoo wherever they can, Nintendo will dole out the shovel ware and waggle sticks and the PC gamer folk will still have to put up with whatever it is they complain about (no one listening about their mouse complex and DRM as far as I can see)

So yeah, I guess grow the fuck up and treat your kit better would be the summary here.

 

[Epona]

What I hate about these threads is there is always one person who types this line. "This has not been a problem for me and my Xbox works just fine." Just fine and dandy random person on the internet who thinks that everybody else must treat their stuff like crap. Like how mine broke as well and is sitting in my closet never to be played again.

I know it's like those people forget that the RROD was a very real, very big problem until the 360 Slim.

I have had a 360 Pro for 3 years and it hasn't given me any trouble. I am lucky because the 360 has a bad reputation. I keep a fan on mine which may be helping but I don't feel the need to do that with any other console, including the PS3.

Yes, Live is too expensive since it's a peer to peer service and yes, needing a Gold account for Netflix is stupid.

 

[GigaHz]

snip

I must admit, the only reason why my 360 still works is because I barely use it to begin with. I've only had one RROD and this was a few months before I purchased my PS3. I gravitated towards it ever since, despite doing the bulk of my gaming on PC.

Many of the reasons you mentioned represents why I gravitated to the PS3. Firstly, the controller itself. I was a bit upset after first purchasing a 360 when I noticed that the wireless controllers were not rechargeable. You'd think this would have been something they would have corrected after the release of the PS3 (which does have rechargeable controllers) but no. If you want to use the controller, you either need to be prepared to eat through cases of batteries or invest in rechargeable ones yourself.

Live itself is an incredible pain to deal with. I have had to call to cancel my XBL Gold Membership more than once, despite my outdated card being tied to the account. The first time I cancelled, I went through all the procedures and was sent an email verifying that my XBL account was cancelled. A year passes (I had an annual subscription) and somehow my outdated card was charged $50. I called to complain about this faulty cancellation and they wouldn't even give me a full refund. They would only refund the subscription amount minus a monthly sub because I wasn't aware of the charge until the end of January. Great business practice guys!

This wouldn't be so bad if they allowed you to unsubscribe through the Xbox 360 itself. Nope, you have to entrust that responsibility to a representative.

Why? If you could set up an account for a subscription through the Xbox, why can't you cancel there as well? Did they really need to resort to potentially reselling their service when people have legitimate reasons for cancelling? That just comes off as harassment.

Then again, what is the incentive to subscribe to Live? I don't have an answer for this, this is a legitimate question.

With a menu that is plastered with ads, with DLC that is not even slightly reduced, what is that $50 going towards? You'd think that a Gold subscription would remove at least a fair portion of the ads but it doesn't. Why is it that I have to pay $50 to use basic community features offered for free on PC or PS3? Perhaps I just love throwing away money needlessly.

I'm not going to praise the PS3 fully as it has it's fair share of problems but at least they don't gouge you at every step. The menu is nice and clean, short of maybe a text blurb to the top right advertising a game or service. It's nice when your menu actually looks like a menu and not a Geocities website.

I'm not sure if Microsoft's new console will change their practices at all, considering that there seems to be a sizeable chunk of supporters. Who knows? Taking into account the downward financial spiral of pricing trends, we might even look fondly at the pricing of Xbox Live in 30 years from now.

The moment that happens, I just might abandon gaming forever.

 

[Agow95]

Your problem with the consoles is just pure bad luck if I'm honest, I'm still on my first xbox, and I got it when they still had the first dashboard, and I've never replaced my controllers either, and yeah, microsoft are money-grabbing bastards, I agree, but I don't mind paying if I think it's still worth it, and why does everyone use Skyrim when complaning about something? The mods can't be done on the PS3 and I'm not really jealous of the PC gamers, if I wanted to play skyrim on the PC I'd have to buy a new laptop, and I only got this one in december, and if I did, I wouldn't mod it, rendering the whole process pointless.

 

[suitepee7]

It just proves the ol' saying true: If something doesn't break, Microsoft didn't make it

I always preferred:
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they start manufacturing vacuum cleaners."[footnote]And before the Elite Xbox Defense Brigade bears down on me, that predates even the original Xbox by a good decade or so. Stand down![/footnote]

ha! lol'd quite hard there, good job.


OT: sorry to hear you have had bad luck, but these things happen. although i would have drawn the line at 3. just try a different console or PC gaming, otherwise you are technically still supporting Microsoft. i have never had an xbox, never really cared for them, but therefore have never had any problems with them, but just switch to a different company if you've had that bad of an experience with them.

 

[Zydrate]

I RROD'd once, sent it in, got repaired for free.

It's 3-4 years old, that's multiple times its usual survival rate. I got it back in the day where every source I had, theirs only worked for about a year before breaking down.

Quite happy with mine, will be sad when it does die.

Tech fails sometimes. Don't blame the Xbox. Get it fixed, or get a better system, stop bitching.

 

[Brian Hendershot]

Haven't seen one of these threads lately. Ahhh....

Also, I would be more sympathetic if this wasn't your fourth console...

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I'm a happy Xbox 360 owner.

I'm not big into online multiplayer, so I don't pay for Live.

I'm still on my first Xbox (it's one of the old-style models) and the only flaw I've faced is it had a problem reading discs at one point, which was fixed for free because it was within warranty.

When I got my 360, the PS3 was too expensive, and even now the idea of mandatory installs seems silly, so I think I prefer the 360 to the PS3. Also, I like the controller better.

I don't have the inclination to get a decent gaming PC. I'm aware that it's not that expensive to get a decent rig. But for me, the biggest turn-off is the maintainence. On top of the usual anti-virus/anti-spyware stuff that all PCs need, there's upgrading, which I don't know how to do and don't want to pay someone else to do. All in all, I'd rather buy a new console every 5-7 years than worry about all that, so I prefer my 360 to a gaming PC, even if I do miss out on Steam.

So...yeah... To the OP, I'm sorry that you've had bad experiences with 360s, but just because you've had those experiences doesn't mean that the 360 is some plague on gaming or that Microsoft is a medieval tyrant. There are many people (such as myself) who are pleased with their Xbox 360 systems who also are not fanboys.

 

[Vardermir]

I'm glad Microsoft has no idea how to build hardware. I was always able to convince my friends to give me their broken boxes after they had bought a new one, I'd just fix them up and have a good console for about half a year. Eventually I got even luckier, one had a box with a still valid warrenty, so I went ahead and claimed it and I haven't had any problems since

 

[Casey Bowen]

I'm on my third 360 and it pretty much never gets used. After two video card meltdowns (the E74) error... I found myself playing my PS3 a lot more... exclusives? I'm not really that into Gears of War, Halo or even Left 4 Dead. Since ME2/3 are on both and Itagaki isn't there to push his 360 only agenda... there is less and less reason for me to use it.

I think the last game I did buy for the 360 was ODST and that was used when it hit like $18 and I still haven't gone halfway through it. Kinect is a pretty cool technology but isn't anything I care about so certainly don't need to spend more money on it.

The redesigns of the Dashboard to me get progressively worse and less friendly to navigate and find what I was looking for which led to a lot less time there.

For me -- the 360 is pretty much dead. I keep it around for those few games I have left that are exclusives and even those have more dust on them than my the few Wii games kicking about.

 

[juyunseen]

I have owned 2 xboxes. One pro refurb, and a 360slim. Neither have ever had any problem. I have never had the RROD (but probably because I never play for more then 2 hours in one sitting max ) and I don't really mind paying for live, aside from the stupid fact that I've already paid for neflix.

But, on the other hand, I have been spending more and more time on my PC recently, playing games on steam. Not Skyrim mind you, because my PC can't run it. I've been having a wonderful time playing Half-Life 1 and 2, StarWars Battlefront 2, TF2, Doom, and Serious Sam and I plan on buying the Steam version of Prince of Persia: Sands of time.

 

[Tharwen]

I might be in the minority but the PC gamers can keep their mods. There is a reason game developers generate content for their own games; it's because they're good at it. I haven't seen a mod yet that isn't in some way half-arsed or stands out from the original content like dog's balls.

I prefer the mods that make minor technical improvements to the game. Things like bugfixes and lighting improvements, which are very hard to make badly.

Most mod makers are much better programmers than designers or artists, which is why they're mostly awful.

 

[Arina Love]

lol raging is not going to help you. Don't like product? vote with your wallet and stop crying.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

A couple of things.

1) Screw mods. Most are cheats of some kind and while I enjoy SOME mods, most just don't improve my game-play experience enough for me to make the switch to PC. And this IS NOT an invitation for you to suggest ANYTHING!!! I know about ALL the mods you are so dying to tell me about.

2) I, like many others, didn't have much of a problem with the RROD. One time about a year into use, sent it in, had it back for free in less than a month.

3) Power for price. A brand new 360 was $400. A laptop(I move too much to have a desktop) that could do the same thing would have cost around 1000-1500. And I REALLY don't feel like debating this one. In addition to this, PC just isn't as reliable. There is always a problem. With install, with the graphics card, with the in-game content, with the performance. And if you found some deal/computer that blows what I just said away, quite frankly I don't care. I am talking from experience.

4) Exclusive games and ease of use. Not only are there several games I LOVE that are only on 360, but I feel that Xbox LIVE is completely worth it for excellent service, good servers and great accessibility.

If you feel differently, that's fine. I however, will be playing my 360 for a VERY long time.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I haven't seen a mod yet that isn't in some way half-arsed or stands out from the original content like dog's balls.

All I can say is that you obviously haven't seen some of the housing mods in Skyrim. The one for Vlindrel Hall is far superior to the default. Makes the whole place less dreary looking.

 

[SycoMantis91]

All that and yet you bought four of the things and continue to pay for their internet services? When you keep throwing money at them like this, you are giving them every reason to think they are doing a fantastic job.

This. You clearly love Microsoft and the gaming services they provide if you continue to purchase their systems.

 

[Spartan753]

I might be in the minority but the PC gamers can keep their mods. There is a reason game developers generate content for their own games; it's because they're good at it. I haven't seen a mod yet that isn't in some way half-arsed or stands out from the original content like dog's balls.

BTW I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've had with your 360's. I've got three in the house (2 Pros and a 360S) and none of them have had any problems.

Two words: Europa Barbarorum.

It is a million times better than vanilla Rome: Total War. Scope, quality, historial accuracy, polish, graphics. Everything is better.