My Beloved Xbox 360
Launch Day to 20 Dec 2007
Rest in Peace

What a terrible time to have an Xbox to develop the Red Ring of Death. Not only is it Christmas and holidays (who knows how long it’ll take to repair), but it happened on the day I came home with Orange Box, Tomb Raider Anniversary and a new HD DVD drive too!

Yeah, pity me.

Gamerscore Blog is reporting that Xbox.com has posted an open letter from Peter Moore announcing that effective immediately, all Xbox 360s worldwide are covered by a warranty extension to three years for any red ring of death issue. They are also going to do the right thing by existing console owners who have already paid for out-of-warranty repairs by offering them a refund.

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.

If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.

It’s important to note that warranty extension only applies to red ring of death failures and that all other issues are still only covered by the original one-year warranty.

My Xbox 360 luckily hasn’t had any major dramas to date and I already paid EB Games $85 for an extended warranty, but I’m still glad Microsoft has taken this really important step. While they should have acted sooner instead of until now denying that this problem exists, it is nonetheless commendable that Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the Xbox 360’s reliability problems and shown a commitment to fix them.

The one other really important thing that Microsoft needs to do is fix the current situation with Xbox Live Marketplace DRM lockout on replacement consoles. When you have a console replaced, you are locked out of the XBLM content that you have downloaded (and paid for) unless you are signed in to Xbox Live while you use it.

Microsoft are on their way to making all Xbox 360 owners feel a little more comfortable about owning a console with potential design flaws leading to early failures. Let’s hope they are prepared to go all the way.

Note the new sponsored creep enemies in the new version (enlarge)

There’s a new Ink Tower that you can build and a new form of enemy: the dark creep. Since DTD is a game where good players have well-tested, carefully-planned strategies and every second counts, players will have to learn to play to game all over again. This isn’t necessarily a problem, except that the new changes to the game seem rather superficial and not a great deal of fun, so it doesn’t seem worthwhile to relearn it again.

Oh and guess what? There’s a lot more in-game advertising. A lot more. In fact, some of the creep bear the sponsor’s letter ‘K’ logo, which is really annoying and I think just goes too far. The slightly improved graphics certainly don’t make up for it, and the new sounds seem rather too cheesy.

I’m worried Desktop Tower Defense may have just jumped the shark.

OMG OMG OMG OMG! It’s true! Forget Halo 3. Hell, forget everything else in life. Blizzard has finally announced StarCraft II!

Are they going to declare this day a national holiday in Korea? When can I pre-order? Has it really only been nine years? It seems like two eternities!

Help, I think I need a tranquilliser.

Anyway, I’m finally starting to get excited about Halo 3! I haven’t got into the multiplayer beta since I don’t have the time (and I don’t want to buy a copy of crackdown), but come the end of September, you’re more than likely to see me plonk down the equivalent of USD $130 to pick up a copy of Halo 3 Legendary Edition and disappearing for a few days.

Not to mention… apparently a version of Bomberman like the original (not like the Bomberman: Act Zero garbage) is coming to Xbox Live Arcade in a few months too! Now just when are we going to get Boom Boom Rocket here in Australia?

So then the only thing left… is the holy grail itself huh? Don’t worry, I’ll be watching what happens in Korea this weekend very carefully!

Well even though my Xbox 360 has been extremely well behaved to date, I recently got cold feet and extended my Xbox 360 warranty for another 2 years for AUD $85 from EB Games. I hope I haven’t jinxed my 360…

(Before you start asking me questions, yes, as much as I’m a fanboy I definitely agree that the Xbox 360’s build quality and QA processes seem to be somewhat less than ideal. Having said that, you still shouldn’t make matters worse by getting add-ons like the Intercooler.)

The one controller this generation that lacks rumble (removed because Sony lost a lawsuit with Immersion)? The one that has barely changed from the PS2 variant? That is nowhere (IMHO) as comfortable to hold as the Xbox 360 controller? The one that has intermittent problems maintaining sync with the console over Bluetooth? And can’t be paired to the console without the cable? The one that has the half-assed motion sensing abilities (a Wii remote and nunchuck it ain’t)?

What. The. Fucking. Fuck?

gamesindustry.biz: Sixaxis honoured with Emmy
Engadget: SIXAXIS wins an Emmy for Technology and Engineering… wait, really?

(Update: Sony was wrong, the Emmy wasn’t for the SIXAXIS and Nintendo and Microsoft both got some recognition too.)

At that point, I scoffed, wondered why somebody would pay $400 for a glorified, shrunk GameCube, and then went home.

Waiting for the Nintendo Bodily Excretion Wii

Why?!

The Good

Even though I was prepared to be underwhelmed, we visited Julian’s place last night and had a go with a Wii. It’s a cute, small console, but not as small as hyped. (And definitely bigger than “three DVD cases”).

Console pack-in Wii Sports was instantly a great laugh. Boxing was insanely intense and we were all physically exhausted after a few bouts and I can definitely imagine myself trying forever to get a perfect 300 in bowling. The graphics didn’t blow us away, but they were good enough. The Miis were extrememly cute, especially in that crazy find-lookalike mini-game in Wii Play, which you can get in a bundle with a Wii remote.

Overall, it was loads of fun and we were impressed. Sure, we wouldn’t be nearly as happy if we had to pay for Wii Sports or Wii Play, both of which really seemed like prettied-up R&D toys after all, but we definitely enjoyed ourselves.

The Ugly

Then we played Red Steel. Last decade called and they want their graphics back, still-image-and-voiceover-with-subtitles ‘cut-scenes’ and all. Serious, what the hell?! The graphics were just atrocious.

Red Steel: a relic from the past

See? I couldn’t wait to turn off the Wii and fire up my Xbox 360. Nintendo likes to think graphics don’t matter if the gameplay is good. Well, I beg to differ. If it looks craptastic and I want to eject the disc and return the game before I even get past the first 5 minutes, I’m not going to get a chance to appreciate the gameplay, no matter how amazing and innovative.

Mind you, controlling Red Steel using the Wii remote and nunchuck isn’t that brilliant… playing FPSes with a controller is bad enough — this was just not fun. Mouse and keyboard, please?

Conclusion

I can see the Wii being a great party console; lots of fun when you have friends over. But what else would I use it for? Would I pay $400 bucks for it? And will my HD panel ever forgive me for hooking up a SD console to it?

Once I have a chance to play Rayman Raving Rabbids (which had a series of cute ads BTW) and Elebits, I’ll let you know.

Well, PC Gamer has the answer! This man signed a contract requiring him to never buy a PS3 in and in return he got a crazy-specced USD $7 500 Falcon Northwest gaming PC with a 30″ LCD:

One less Playstation 3 on the market, one more PC gamer joins the team
PC Gamer Magazine and Falcon Northwest challenge Playstation 3 hopefuls

Haha… what an awesomely, deliciously cruel thing to do. Ah well, maybe he was so happy with it because he was actually not a fanboy at all and was going to eBay his PS3 anyway! (After all, one did sell for almost USD $100 mil… :roll:)

(Thanks to Engadget.)

Well, no. My Dell 2405FPW LCD doesn’t like it at all. It complains:

Can not display this mode

Yep, that’s right. My LCD won’t display 1080p over component. And you know what? At least nine out of ten LCD owners out there aren’t going to have screens that can display that either. (Nor is their magic in HDMI-land.)

Sure… there’s been an incredible amount of hype about 1080p today. (Sony can yell “only 1080p is the real HD” all they want.) But that’s reality — there’s only four whole people in the whole world who will benefit right now.