Well, my third Xbox 360 has fallen victim to the "Red Ring of Death" and I went out to replace it over the weekend. I am now the owner of one of the new 250GB Xbox 360 "slim" models. I'm not going to go into how much of a sucker I feel like for continuing to shell out money to this giant, faceless corporation that has gotten me hooked on these games. Just leave it that I have a problem. I'm an addict, and I realize it. There's worse things I could be addicted to and I have the full support of my family who loves me anyway ;)
I am super, ridiculously P.O.'d because I accidently lost all my saved games during the transfer process. All those hours spent in Skyrim? Gone. I am most angry about my two Mass Effect saves. I was really looking forward to Mass Effect 3 using my same character. Can't believe that's not going to happen now. So upset...
Joby, this may be a silly question, but how did you lose everything? Aren't the hard drives interchangeable? I really don't know as I dont' have one of the new XBox's. But I can empathize...I've had two go bad on me, not the red-ring but for some reason, the read-eye won't always work. Have to tap on the top while the game is loading in order to get it to read the game.
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 18, 2012, 09:32:35 AM
Well, my third Xbox 360 has fallen victim to the "Red Ring of Death" and I went out to replace it over the weekend. I am now the owner of one of the new 250GB Xbox 360 "slim" models. I'm not going to go into how much of a sucker I feel like for continuing to shell out money to this giant, faceless corporation that has gotten me hooked on these games. Just leave it that I have a problem. I'm an addict, and I realize it. There's worse things I could be addicted to and I have the full support of my family who loves me anyway ;)
I am super, ridiculously P.O.'d because I accidently lost all my saved games during the transfer process. All those hours spent in Skyrim? Gone. I am most angry about my two Mass Effect saves. I was really looking forward to Mass Effect 3 using my same character. Can't believe that's not going to happen now. So upset...
I put all of my good saves on my cloud saves. I don't know why, but I still haven't had any problems with my xbox.
The hard drives between the 'old' and 'new' hard drives are not easily interchangeable, no.
Quote from: billybob476 on January 18, 2012, 09:44:12 AM
The hard drives between the 'old' and 'new' hard drives are not easily interchangeable, no.
Really? Dang, I thought they were. o_O. That's kinda lame.
King
Quote from: KingIsaacLinksr on January 18, 2012, 09:48:08 AM
Quote from: billybob476 on January 18, 2012, 09:44:12 AM
The hard drives between the 'old' and 'new' hard drives are not easily interchangeable, no.
Really? Dang, I thought they were. o_O. That's kinda lame.
King
Guess they didn't want people with existing 20 or 120 GB models buying the low end 'new' 360 and putting in their old drives. They want you to buy the 250 GB model.
Quote from: billybob476 on January 18, 2012, 09:44:12 AM
The hard drives between the 'old' and 'new' hard drives are not easily interchangeable, no.
Thank you Mr. Gates! :) Figures doesn't it.
Quote from: QuadShot on January 18, 2012, 09:59:21 AM
Quote from: billybob476 on January 18, 2012, 09:44:12 AM
The hard drives between the 'old' and 'new' hard drives are not easily interchangeable, no.
Thank you Mr. Gates! :) Figures doesn't it.
lol no, its that new guy: Mr. Gates version 0.5. ;)
King
Quote from: QuadShot on January 18, 2012, 09:39:02 AM
Joby, this may be a silly question, but how did you lose everything? Aren't the hard drives interchangeable? I really don't know as I dont' have one of the new XBox's. But I can empathize...I've had two go bad on me, not the red-ring but for some reason, the read-eye won't always work. Have to tap on the top while the game is loading in order to get it to read the game.
It's kind of a long story, but this is what happened:
I first bought an official refurbished model from Microsoft. The above posts are right, you cannot use your old hard drive with the new systems. There's a proprietary transfer cable you have to use to transfer everything from the old drive to the new. So I bought the cable, did the transfer, and a few hours after using the refurbed model I heard a horrible scraping scratching sound coming from the disc drive whenever the Xbox was in horizontal orientation. If I stood it vertical it sounded fine, but with the kids around I like it flat and anyway I wasn't going to pay $200 bucks for a system that is malfunctioning out of the box. So I returned the refurb and paid the $50 more to just get a new one. What I didn't realize was that when I transferred my data, it wasn't a copy/paste, it was a cut/paste. My old drive was empty. I called the Gamestop to see if I could salvage my data but they had already wiped the unit. bye bye save games...:(
The design of the units is what creates the incompatibility. On the old units, they rested on the top of the xbox and in the new ones, they are internal in a different direction. It has everything to do with the slim design and not trying to trick you into a larger drive. Hell, they just gave away the cloud save storage so that you need less hard drive space.
Well the new "Slim" is far superior to the old model, for sure. It is whisper silent, while my old 360 sounded like a jet plane taking off even if I had a game installed. They've also supposedly fixed the seat for the motherboard and the issues that were causing the device to overheat and red ring. That remains to be seen. I'm a bit annoyed that I had to pay pretty much full price for a device at the very near end of its life cycle. I do like having 250GB of storage, rather than the 20GB I had before (and paid 100 bucks for in 2007.)
What really annoys me is before, I was able to get a very low priced model to replace the broken one with no memory, no wifi, and use my accessories that I had already purchased in the new system. Now that is not an option. My Wifi adapter is useless, (the device has internal wifi built in now) as is my memory unit.
Quote from: X on January 18, 2012, 11:25:42 AM
The design of the units is what creates the incompatibility. On the old units, they rested on the top of the xbox and in the new ones, they are internal in a different direction. It has everything to do with the slim design and not trying to trick you into a larger drive. Hell, they just gave away the cloud save storage so that you need less hard drive space.
X, I've been using the cloud too now and it's been ok.
I'm on my 4th X-Box, and after 3 "repairs", this one has been better than the others, no freezing or anything. I think I've had it for 2 years. It's crazy how this sort of hardware failure on a high ticket item (I bought mine in the1st wave for 400) is so common. I hope they are being more careful with the next version.
They're only offering cloud saves to Gold members...$50.00 a year if you pay all at once. They aren't "giving it away."
Quote from: Chris-El on January 18, 2012, 12:19:03 PM
I'm on my 4th X-Box, and after 3 "repairs", this one has been better than the others, no freezing or anything. I think I've had it for 2 years. It's crazy how this sort of hardware failure on a high ticket item (I bought mine in the1st wave for 400) is so common. I hope they are being more careful with the next version.
Agreed, it's totally ridiculous. Also that they charge $100 for out of warranty repairs even though this is a known hardware defect. In any case, I could have repaired it and instead chose to get a new one. My choice, not forced. Of course, my experience with their repair process back when my first Xbox failed, and having them send me three broken units under the guise of "refurbed models" soured me on their repair program. Now I see from my experience with my latest refurbished Xbox described above that they have not changed their policy of poor quality control and testing for their refurbished hardware. Pretty pathetic really, for such a rich company to have such low quality standards.
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 18, 2012, 12:22:54 PM
They're only offering cloud saves to Gold members...$50.00 a year if you pay all at once. They aren't "giving it away."
Wow, I didn't know that. Crap.
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 18, 2012, 12:27:59 PM
Quote from: Chris-El on January 18, 2012, 12:19:03 PM
I'm on my 4th X-Box, and after 3 "repairs", this one has been better than the others, no freezing or anything. I think I've had it for 2 years. It's crazy how this sort of hardware failure on a high ticket item (I bought mine in the1st wave for 400) is so common. I hope they are being more careful with the next version.
Agreed, it's totally ridiculous. Also that they charge $100 for out of warranty repairs even though this is a known hardware defect. In any case, I could have repaired it and instead chose to get a new one. My choice, not forced. Of course, my experience with their repair process back when my first Xbox failed, and having them send me three broken units under the guise of "refurbed models" soured me on their repair program. Now I see from my experience with my latest refurbished Xbox described above that they have not changed their policy of poor quality control and testing for their refurbished hardware. Pretty pathetic really, for such a rich company to have such low quality standards.
It is quite abTurd. When I sent my second one in for repairs, they did send me a free Gold membership...good for 24 hours! 24 HOURS!! Big spenders!! :)
Quote from: QuadShot on January 18, 2012, 12:34:32 PM
It is quite abTurd. When I sent my second one in for repairs, they did send me a free Gold membership...good for 24 hours! 24 HOURS!! Big spenders!! :)
Lol @ AbTurd. That's what they make me feel like whenever I have to deal with Microsoft customer service...a Turd.
I've had to pay a couple times, but by ranting I got it down to 50 bucks. I won't do it again, though. I'm sure MS knows that eventually people will buy the newer model system instead of going on this merry-go-round of crap. I'll buy a new one just so I don't have to deal with the customer service phone number ever again.
I paid for the out of warranty repair when my first box red ringed, then later they offered a full reimbursement for everyone that did that due to the widespread epidemic proportions of the red ring issue. Of course when I called to arrange for my refund, they had no record of my ever having paid for a repair. Such BS! Never did get that money back.
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 18, 2012, 12:22:54 PM
They're only offering cloud saves to Gold members...$50.00 a year if you pay all at once. They aren't "giving it away."
Well, I pay 100.00 a year for 4 people to have accounts and that's pretty much a steal compared to other services that I pay for. Also, since it wasn't something you hard before, they are giving it away. I have done nothing new and it was given to me. Sure if you aren't paying for live, you wouldn't have it, but if you aren't paying for live, you really aren't using the internet features of the xbox anyway.
Again, I know some people have had issues with their xboxes, but I own 3 of them, about to be four. I had to replace a drive on one of them, but I have a 0% Red Ring failure. I also push my machines hard. several hours each day. At the same time, I make sure to clean my vents and other preventatives that I haven't had issues with them.
Joby, they only charge 100 bucks after the warranty expires. For Original 360s, there is a three year warranty on red ring failures. Three years is a pretty good warranty. Anything after that and it's a wear and tear failure more than it is a hardware defect.
Every single one of my friends have gone through at least 2 X-Boxes. I had red ring twice and disc drive failure once. I think that since they don't actually fix your X-Box, but send you a different one, it should be a new warranty. Just my opinion.
Chris...totally agree.
Quote from: X on January 21, 2012, 01:27:39 PM
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 18, 2012, 12:22:54 PM
They're only offering cloud saves to Gold members...$50.00 a year if you pay all at once. They aren't "giving it away."
Well, I pay 100.00 a year for 4 people to have accounts and that's pretty much a steal compared to other services that I pay for. Also, since it wasn't something you hard before, they are giving it away. I have done nothing new and it was given to me. Sure if you aren't paying for live, you wouldn't have it, but if you aren't paying for live, you really aren't using the internet features of the xbox anyway.
Again, I know some people have had issues with their xboxes, but I own 3 of them, about to be four. I had to replace a drive on one of them, but I have a 0% Red Ring failure. I also push my machines hard. several hours each day. At the same time, I make sure to clean my vents and other preventatives that I haven't had issues with them.
Joby, they only charge 100 bucks after the warranty expires. For Original 360s, there is a three year warranty on red ring failures. Three years is a pretty good warranty. Anything after that and it's a wear and tear failure more than it is a hardware defect.
The place where I get my lunch just started putting pickles on the plate if you buy a sandwich there. They never used to do that before. If a homeless guy goes in there and asks for free pickles he ain't getting them, I wouldn't say they are giving away pickles.
It's fine, you can call it as you see it, Chris. For me the features they keep adding to Xbox Live Gold don't make it worth it to me to pay for that service. I rarely play online multiplayer games, and the Netflix, new TV apps, You Tube, etc etc are all things I get included with my internet subscription and/or for free on the Playstation 3 with PS Network. There's no benefit for me to pay that money, and I never will. It would have been nice to not lose my saves if I had access to their cloud, but they are trying to entice people to subscribe and pay them more money with that feature so "oh well."
As for your other point, with a total of four Xboxes failing on me, the hours of time I've wasted on the phone with their customer "support" getting nowhere, a small fortune paid in repairs and replacements, and Microsoft's failure to honor agreements they have made publicly on reimbursing repair costs, there is nothing you can say to me that will convince me what a great job Microsoft is doing with support for their 360. I'm glad you have lucked out with the ones you bought, (or at least 75% of them) but that hasn't been my experience.
Quote from: Chris-El on January 22, 2012, 01:36:26 PM
Every single one of my friends have gone through at least 2 X-Boxes. I had red ring twice and disc drive failure once. I think that since they don't actually fix your X-Box, but send you a different one, it should be a new warranty. Just my opinion.
That's interesting, when I returned mine in the UK for repair out of warranty, I had to pay ~100 then they *did* extend the warranty on the one I got back for a year. After it failed out of warranty again I had a friend look at it and try and fix it, he failed so I did end up buying a slim when it failed out of warranty and that has been fine thus far. If a car catastrophically fails I may give it one chance, but a second time? I've had Playstation 2 and Sony receiver die on me too without much help from Sony and at expense, plus a shoulder button break on my DS soon after I purchased it - consumer electronics at the end of the day are fallible sadly. And stories are always anecdotal.
I've had mixed experience with the xbox support. I brought my region 2 xbox from the UK, phoned up and they sent me a US power supply for <$30, so I can play all my dvds here without having to buy a new one - they didn't have to do that. Way more legit than the ones you see on ebay. XBox Live works too on it, so was nice not to have to buy a US 360.
It is a terrible shame the transfer process failed for you - I've used it to migrate from 20 > 120 > slim with no data loss :( I've also been keeping saves on USB flash drives since they let me do that, and just kept games and content on the HDs.
If I were you Jobydrone I would also be pretty negative about MS. My advice is that if you get the wrong answer than phone and try again. If you manage to get through the main call center and talk instead to a tech guy then they are helpful.
The first time I called up for the US PSU I gave the frontline customer service person *too much* information and they didn't think that the power block would work or fry my 360. Second time I called I just said "I need a replacement psu" and they put me through to the tech guy in Redmond who I then explained my situation too and he sorted it out.
I don't know... in the UK I tended to go with companies with UK call centres. In the US I think I'm going to try and use companies with US call centres where I can.
Quote from: PaulECoyote on January 23, 2012, 08:12:05 AM
Quote from: Chris-El on January 22, 2012, 01:36:26 PM
Every single one of my friends have gone through at least 2 X-Boxes. I had red ring twice and disc drive failure once. I think that since they don't actually fix your X-Box, but send you a different one, it should be a new warranty. Just my opinion.
That's interesting, when I returned mine in the UK for repair out of warranty, I had to pay ~100 then they *did* extend the warranty on the one I got back for a year. After it failed out of warranty again I had a friend look at it and try and fix it, he failed so I did end up buying a slim when it failed out of warranty and that has been fine thus far. If a car catastrophically fails I may give it one chance, but a second time? I've had Playstation 2 and Sony receiver die on me too without much help from Sony and at expense, plus a shoulder button break on my DS soon after I purchased it - consumer electronics at the end of the day are fallible sadly. And stories are always anecdotal.
I've had mixed experience with the xbox support. I brought my region 2 xbox from the UK, phoned up and they sent me a US power supply for <$30, so I can play all my dvds here without having to buy a new one - they didn't have to do that. Way more legit than the ones you see on ebay. XBox Live works too on it, so was nice not to have to buy a US 360.
It is a terrible shame the transfer process failed for you - I've used it to migrate from 20 > 120 > slim with no data loss :( I've also been keeping saves on USB flash drives since they let me do that, and just kept games and content on the HDs.
If I were you Jobydrone I would also be pretty negative about MS. My advice is that if you get the wrong answer than phone and try again. If you manage to get through the main call center and talk instead to a tech guy then they are helpful.
The first time I called up for the US PSU I gave the frontline customer service person *too much* information and they didn't think that the power block would work or fry my 360. Second time I called I just said "I need a replacement psu" and they put me through to the tech guy in Redmond who I then explained my situation too and he sorted it out.
I don't know... in the UK I tended to go with companies with UK call centres. In the US I think I'm going to try and use companies with US call centres where I can.
Hey Paul, what did you work on for Lionhead?
Quote from: PaulECoyote on January 23, 2012, 08:12:05 AM
That's interesting, when I returned mine in the UK for repair out of warranty, I had to pay ~100 then they *did* extend the warranty on the one I got back for a year. After it failed out of warranty again I had a friend look at it and try and fix it, he failed so I did end up buying a slim when it failed out of warranty and that has been fine thus far. If a car catastrophically fails I may give it one chance, but a second time? I've had Playstation 2 and Sony receiver die on me too without much help from Sony and at expense, plus a shoulder button break on my DS soon after I purchased it - consumer electronics at the end of the day are fallible sadly. And stories are always anecdotal.
I've had mixed experience with the xbox support. I brought my region 2 xbox from the UK, phoned up and they sent me a US power supply for <$30, so I can play all my dvds here without having to buy a new one - they didn't have to do that. Way more legit than the ones you see on ebay. XBox Live works too on it, so was nice not to have to buy a US 360.
It is a terrible shame the transfer process failed for you - I've used it to migrate from 20 > 120 > slim with no data loss :( I've also been keeping saves on USB flash drives since they let me do that, and just kept games and content on the HDs.
If I were you Jobydrone I would also be pretty negative about MS. My advice is that if you get the wrong answer than phone and try again. If you manage to get through the main call center and talk instead to a tech guy then they are helpful.
The first time I called up for the US PSU I gave the frontline customer service person *too much* information and they didn't think that the power block would work or fry my 360. Second time I called I just said "I need a replacement psu" and they put me through to the tech guy in Redmond who I then explained my situation too and he sorted it out.
I don't know... in the UK I tended to go with companies with UK call centres. In the US I think I'm going to try and use companies with US call centres where I can.
Yeah with the millions of consumers they serve I imagine they've got to get it right some of the time. Kind of like a monkey throwing darts at a board, eventually they're going to hit the bullseye. Don't get me wrong, I think that the Xbox Slim is a fantastic machine. I've been totally enamored with it since the first time I turned it on. I think Microsoft was in an untenable position with the original 360. They released a faulty piece of hardware, but couldn't possibly afford to admit it without taking a gigantic loss monetarily and to their public image. Even after a couple of iterations they still were not able to fix the overheating motherboard that was causing the red rings. The Slim is hyped as "guaranteed not to red-ring" but I think that's only because they didn't put the color red in the circle of lights that surrounds the power button ;)
When I got my new Slim it came packed in with Fable III, did you work on that game Paul E?
Microsoft Customer Support Center
For the announced stuff, I worked on Fable II, Fable III and Milo doing central technology stuff. My gravestone in Fable II was being eaten by coyotes (Wile E Coyote reference) and in III my stone was about working for the people upstairs (the Milo team).
I hope you enjoyed them! Lots of long hours went into them. :)
Quote from: PaulECoyote on January 30, 2012, 08:51:09 PM
For the announced stuff, I worked on Fable II, Fable III and Milo doing central technology stuff. My gravestone in Fable II was being eaten by coyotes (Wile E Coyote reference) and in III my stone was about working for the people upstairs (the Milo team).
I hope you enjoyed them! Lots of long hours went into them. :)
That's very very cool, Paul. I was a huge fan of the original Fable and really liked Fable 2 as well. Did you ever work closely with Peter Molyneux or was he more of the public face of the company? He is always very interesting to listen to when he is out promoting his games. Do you know if Milo is ever going to see the light of day in any form or is the poor kid relegated to life as a tech demo? Looking forward to starting Fable 3, if I can ever get out of Skyrim.
I had to start that game over since I lost my save and I am now focusing mostly on one handed melee, block, archery, and sneak, with a dab of Restoration magic, Blacksmithing and Enchanting. I'm actually enjoying it more as a stealth/melee character than the almost pure magic I did on my first play.
Quote from: Jobydrone on January 31, 2012, 06:19:09 AM
Quote from: PaulECoyote on January 30, 2012, 08:51:09 PM
For the announced stuff, I worked on Fable II, Fable III and Milo doing central technology stuff. My gravestone in Fable II was being eaten by coyotes (Wile E Coyote reference) and in III my stone was about working for the people upstairs (the Milo team).
I hope you enjoyed them! Lots of long hours went into them. :)
That's very very cool, Paul. I was a huge fan of the original Fable and really liked Fable 2 as well. Did you ever work closely with Peter Molyneux or was he more of the public face of the company? He is always very interesting to listen to when he is out promoting his games. Do you know if Milo is ever going to see the light of day in any form or is the poor kid relegated to life as a tech demo? Looking forward to starting Fable 3, if I can ever get out of Skyrim.
I had to start that game over since I lost my save and I am now focusing mostly on one handed melee, block, archery, and sneak, with a dab of Restoration magic, Blacksmithing and Enchanting. I'm actually enjoying it more as a stealth/melee character than the almost pure magic I did on my first play.
Kind'a thread jacking here I guess, but I'll go with it if no one else minds :)
NDAs prevent me from talking much about Milo or anything that Lionhead hasn't said. The project exists in a source repository somewhere and some of the innovations and work fed back in to the Kinect sdk developers use. The videos shown of Milo were using the actual Milo game engine. There were things scripted especially for demonstration etc of course but yeah... that raw technology exists... that engine really is that beautiful. Was totally from scratch too, not related to the Fable engine or any other. It is the most beautiful game engine I have ever seen and I'm proud to have helped out in the little ways I did for that project. Screen shots + vid: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26563830 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26563830)
I've not got Skyrim yet, been working on a side game project at home and not been gaming so much :(
If and when you get to Fable III take time to do the side missions... it won't force you and you can churn though the main quest pretty quick. Inviting another hero in or visiting them can provide huge benefits for leveling you up. I think the end of the game is a bit of a mistake... when you start making ruling decisions go do as much as possible.
I'd say Fable II is harder than III - but the Fable II engine went through some major work so it looks a lot prettier for III. If you've ever played a space trading game like Elite, Frontier, Privateer, X-Beyond the Frontier etc - you can effect the economy of towns by putting prices up, down, killing shop keepers etc. So you can make gold that way if so inclined, though in Fable III being a landlord is def the way to earn some big bucks.
The simulation is pretty detailed, heck when you aren't very well known (before people flock around you adoring you or running away) you can follow NPCs picking up crates from stores, going home after working, cooking a meal etc. There are all kinds of details in the games I don't think most players notice... because you know hacking away at things and casting spells is fun.
I hear that Sky Rim has interesting simulation too. Sounds like a game I could easily sink a lot of time in to... so avoiding it until I'm further on with my own little thing.
Sweet, you should keep us posted with the progress on your personal game, I'd love to hear more when you're ready to talk about it! There's very exciting opportunities for independent game developers these days, especially ones with talent and smarts! Seems like Jonathan Blow could write his own ticket at this point if he wanted to, for example.
What you said about Fable 3 is pretty much what kept me away from it when it first came out...the end where it turnes into a city building sim was really panned and I didn't have alot of interest in it even as much as I enjoyed the more traditional hack and slash and spell slinging of the second game. I got it now though, and I'm looking forward to playing it. The thing I loved most about Fable 1 and 2 was the gorgeous color palate. Similar to the World of Warcraft engine, everything is so bright and beautiful, especially compared to other RPGs of the era like Oblivion, Fallout, Skyrim, etc. It makes playing and spending long periods of time in those imaginary worlds so much mroe pleasant end enjoyable. The upcoming Kingdoms of Amalur strikes me the same way, really looking forward to that game too.
Not sure what you heard about Skyrim but there's not really any sim elements that I've run into yet. Pretty straight up RPG, questing, leveling, and looting going on. But so addictive!