Unlockable Content 3.07.07: The Red Ring of Death
Posted by Will Scott on 03.07.2007
One month and a dead X-Box later, Unlockable Content returns!
Welcome to the triumphant return of Unlockable Content, the column that always goes away for weeks at a time. While the last break was brought to you courtesy of Adelphia Cable and Earth's Enraged Climate, this last break was brought to you by our good friends at Microsoft, Dell, and American Bar Association. Big round of applause for all of those guys!
While we won't go in to the others, we'll be focusing on Microsoft in this re-re-redebut of Unlockable Content.
The Red Ring of Death
The day was February 20th. I had just purchased Crackdown, barely snagging the final copy from the local EB (thanks a ton, guys at the Niagara Falls Boulevard store - I don't even mean that sarcastically). I was prepared to pop in the wonderful game and was ready to experience a wasted afternoon of mindless orb chasing. I pulled out the gaming chair (you know, the one with the speakers, for those of us who can't afford surround sound), popped upon a fresh can of off-brand soda, and the game booted up. I had to install a system update...a scary prospect, but I'd just done it with my Wii and I was feeling invincible.
First of all, can I say that the game has the least inspiring opening of all time? It's just...exposition. And not even GOOD exposition. I expect more from a next-gen game, but that's neither here nor there. I was almost to choosing my vehicle and...the game froze. A veteran of computer gaming, I decided simply to reboot.
And I did. So it froze again. And I rebooted again.
And then the ring appeared.
Now, I'd heard what to do in the situation. You unplug the X-Box, you take out your hard drive, and you try over again. No dice. Then, I contacted Microsoft's tech support, and then the story becomes just a little bit more annoying. You see, Microsoft's tech support is actually more impersonal than the company itself.
They give you one of those pleasantly voiced machines, just like UPS. They walk you through, bit by bit, those same steps you ought to have done already. No problem, really - most people are idiots. But there's no way to skip the process. So you waste another five minutes or so (in my case, being eaten from my cellphone bill) until you get the option to talk to a person. In this case, a rather pleasant lady walked me through the steps...again. Until she determined that Microsoft would, in fact, have to replace my X-Box. But it couldn't be that day, because THEIR system was screwy. So I'd call back.
The next day, I did so. And I had to go through all the steps, again. After giving the new person my relevant info, they decided to walk me through my steps...again. And re-register me. And pester me a bit to make sure I wasn't a liar who broke his machine. And then I was told...I'll be sending my X-Box down to Texas, to get it "fixed" (which I assume is tech support-ese for getting a refurbished model).
I'm responsible for shipping it, of course. And Microsoft reserves the right to ship it back to me if they decide it's in some way my fault (and since it's going through the mail, I greatly expect such a thing to happen). And, best case scenario...five days from the point where they receive it will be the return time. With all the necessary steps, I will have been without my X-Box for about a month, with a brand new copy of Crackdown sitting on my desk. But you know what burns me?
They won't send me a box to ship it in.
It's not that big of a deal, but the seem to do that for everyone else. Of course, it's sad that there's official policies for that sort of thing, but really...I feel a bit slighted. I want a spiffy Microsoft X-Box-Box. Is that too much to ask?
That's all for this week - I'm kicking my way through an appellate brief, but next week I'll be back with a much more relevant column. As always, feel free to drop me a line with your opinions.
