One of our two Xbox 360 that arrived with problems previously reported died tonight. Turn it on and it’s only a red flashing light and a screen similar to the one below (switches between error 71 and error 79). We were able to squeeze a couple months of use out of it before it crapped out completely but I knew this day was coming.

The good news is that it will be replaced by Microsoft without additional charge. Just finished the phone call with Xbox support at 1-800-469-9269 (press #1). Curiously, they recommend that you not ship the Xbox 360 in its original box as it could be stolen. Hmm, haven’t their support people heard of insurance? Doesn’t matter as the process is they will mail you a box for it in “2-3 days” and then once we return it they will fix and return “within 9 business days.” I’ll add a couple more business days to make 14 business days total from now. That means we should be without the 360 until the second week in July.

While the 360 is shipped away for repair and summer break coming up my chances of playing will be further diminished. I do like how you can easily swap out the hard drives so access to the live arcade games and live accounts on other consoles are available.

Congratulations Nathan and here’s a few Xbox 360 game suggestions
Just noticed that BlogNewsChannel main dude, Nathan Weinberg is tying the knot. Congratulations to him and Raquel. Also noticed that a new baby has already arrived — an Xbox 360 baby, that is — and they’re looking for game ideas. I like the Xbox Live Arcade and can recommend at least one cool game: Geometry Wars. Yeah, I’m sure Nathan has heard how great this shooter is already, so he probably already has that one. Dead or Alive is good if you like fighters. I haven’t played Oblivion but our sons like that one. We just got MLB 2006. Graphics look pretty good on that one.

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