The Xbox 2008 fall update is now available and provides a number of new features including the New Xbox Experience (NXE) which is a complete redesign of the blade. I was glad to see it didn’t include some nonsensical virtual world that didn’t add anything worthwhile to the experience.

After the update which only takes a few short minutes to patch, you start by creating your own avatar, mine pictured below:

The process of creating an avatar involves choosing a model to begin with from a group and then customizing. It’s all point and click and a snap to do. This avatar is used in only three arcade games and doesn’t seem as central to the interface as Miis are on the Nintendo Wii.

After creating your avatar, you will immediately notice that windows for items now scroll from the right to left. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but seems to work alright. I need more time playing around with and getting used to it before I say if I like it better than the old dashboard.

Netflix streaming from thousands of titles

I briefly checked out the Netflix option. Since I don’t have an active Netflix subscription, I’m not on board with this yet, but likely will be trying this out very soon. We’re still wading our way through the $200 worth of movies that came with our Vudu. You can subscribe to Netflix through the Xbox, so no need to go to your computer. Handy.

obessable points out there are a couple gotchas making not all of the reported 12,000+ titles available:

Sony owned Columbia Pictures movies studio won’t license movies for playback on Xbox, and other movies face similar licensing restrictions.

Sony not on board with the Xbox? Makes sense. I wonder if/when this will change should the PS3 get similar functionality someday?

More descriptions of game features including resolution

Like that you can now tell what games are in 1080p (answer: not many). Wolf of the Battlefield Commando 3, Feeding Frenzy 2 and Portal are all 1080p and have been added to the Hmm Xbox 360 1080p games list.

 

Also, not every game has complete information. I went through 178 Xbox Arcade titles and found a dozen or so that didn’t have resolution information.

Xbox Live Parties

You can connect with other Xbox Live users in a party and then play games together without having to go through the old invite one at a time route.

Access to XNA Community created peer reviewed games

Games that pass peer review created with the XNA Developer studio can publish their games to the Xbox Live world at large. This is an immediate audience of millions of gamers.  A barrier still exists for you to be able to share something you created with me and vice versa regardless of peer review results, but hey, maybe we’ll get that in a future update.

Hey Dorothy, er Sony, when will we ever be able to see Home?

As a PS3 owner, I continue to wait, somewhat impatiently at this point, to see Home. I’d love to write about how cool this is — or isn’t, but I’m not worthy yet. And neither is anybody I know on the PS3. I fear that Home is going to go down like Spore did earlier this year: one gigantic disappointment.

But I’m holding out hope that Sony does something cool. If they add some of the goodies that Microsoft added in this update, I’ll be stoked.

For as long as Microsoft has charged $49.99 a year for Xbox Live Gold subscription, we’ve seen people saying it should be free.

I’ve had a few discussions with non-Xbox Live gaming friends who think Microsoft is being greedy by charging. Don Reisinger at CNET news is among the latest to complain:

So what does Microsoft need to do to right the ship and really turn things around? Announce that all Xbox Live memberships will be free and all gamers can play online without a hitch. It’s radical, for sure, but it’s the best move Microsoft can make right now.

The "best move Microsoft can make" … really?

And turn what things around anyway? Sales results in relation to Xbox Live tell a mixed story at best. The link Mr. Reisinger provides to Gamespot as evidence of sales slumps offers the following quote: "While Microsoft roundly thumped Sony in software sales." Huh?

Just recently the Xbox 360 bested the PS3 in Japan in weekly sales for the first time ever. Again, looking at the Gamespot link, the system sales for the PS3 and Xbox 360 are about the same with the Nintendo DS and Wii way ahead of both systems.

What about hot games like Soul Calibur IV? The Xbox 360 sold 218,900 while the PS3 sold 155,800. What was the #1 selling game? Not Wii Fit, surprisingly, which clocked in at #2 with 369,600, it was NCAA Football 09 for, you guessed it Don, Xbox 360. The PS3 version sold 242,500.

These numbers between the PS3 and Xbox 360 from an Xbox Live standpoint would mean more if there were an equal number of systems in circulation. As it stands, one can’t say that more of the same game was sold on the PS3 because gamers could use network play for free. I don’t know if/when the PS3 sales will catch up as they are still sluggish for a system that offers something the Xbox 360 doesn’t: built-in Blu-ray player and better hardware durability.

No, they aren’t "basically the same" online gaming experience
Mr. Reisinger needs to go back and spend more time comparing and evaluating the game libraries with networked gameplay for each of the three systems and revisit what he wrote. He couldn’t be any more wrong about them being "basically the same."

We own all three game systems (3 working Xbox 360s 1 working Xbox 360 Elite, 1 Wii, 1 PS3) and the Wii from a networked gaming experience is easily the worst, very little in the way of being able to play networked games with your friends. The Mii system, although typical Nintendo cutesy comes up short. I am puzzled why Nintendo hasn’t stepped up their network play games strategy. They could kick both Sony and Microsoft’s butts — if only they’d try harder.

The Wii needs more game titles with network play. They are slowly adding more networked game titles, but if you follow the history they didn’t see online network gameplay as that important, and their lackluster networked game library shows this weakness. The Wii didn’t get the hit game Rock Band until recently and last time I checked you couldn’t buy individual Rock Band songs through the Wii network. You can do that on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Basically the same as the Xbox 360 and PS3? No way.

The Playstation Network, also free, is definitely gaining ground on Xbox Live, but there are still too few games that offer networked gameplay and they need more classic arcade ports. My favorite shooter on the PS3 is the gorgeous game, Super Stardust HD. If you have a PS3 and don’t have this game, stop reading and go buy it now. Sony released a $4.99 upgrade for the game recently, but we still can’t play co-op over the network. Major bummer.

At the same time, the PS3 does have some really fun games that are network playable. Their network strategy is a lot better than the Wii. I also like the fact that they built in a web browser and use it effectively throughout their system. My biggest complaints with the Playstation Store are inventory and to a lesser degree organization. I’m hopeful when HOME hits this will creatively solve the organization part, but games are still coming a little too slowly. More great games = more players = stronger network.

And where are all the cool old school arcade titles? In the Xbox Live Arcade. It’s one of the major differences for Xbox Live over the other two. The Wii store allows buying old NES, SNES, N-64, NEO-GEO, Sega, etc games and you can get a few arcade titles like Q-bert, Sprint and Joust in the Playstation store, but one only has to surf the Xbox Live Arcade library for 30 seconds to realize how much deeper and broader the Xbox Live Arcade titles are comparatively. No competition.

On the Xbox 360, although I don’t have an accurate count, there seems to be hundreds of games, including the aforementioned diverse lineup of arcade games that allow networked play with voice chat. It’s more the exception, than the rule, that an Xbox 360 version of a game does not come with some sort of networked play or at the least an active leaderboard. And the Xbox Live blade is a much better UI than the Wii and I like it better than the Playstation Store which sends me through too many submenus. I don’t want to click forever to find out what games I don’t already own.

Some of the comparisons I made between the networks are admittedly subjective, but the body of evidence suggests that there is no way these three networks are basically the same. I didn’t follow

How Microsoft could make Xbox Gold more valuable
In our household of five we currently have *4* Xbox Live Gold subscriptions and sure, I’d love to have that extra $200 a year, but I’d rather see the Gold membership give us more perks for the paid memberships than going completely free with heavier ad saturation.

Give Gold Members added perks like the following:

• one free arcade game a month or quarter as part of my Gold subscription and/or a certain number of free Microsoft points so I can spend them on songs from Zune Marketplace, arcade games, whatever
• free Creators Club, none of that $99 a year extra garbage
• HD video rentals at the same price as standard definition. And offer a 1080p option, I can get those through DISH, why can’t I get them through Xbox Live?
• the ability to turn off and/or customize blade advertisements. The Xbox Live blade has gotten increasingly worse with ads. Sure, they are targeted mostly to promoting content available in Xbox Live and I can understand the need for ads with the free Silver membership, but I’m getting more annoyed by them as a Gold subscriber
• let us have a freaking web browser! This should be free to both silver and gold level, but if they want to give additional perks to Gold, then maybe it could be a more powerful web browser that is integrated with special features for some games.

The Xbox Live Silver subscription has always been free, but gamers quickly learn that for online networked play you need a Gold subscription.

Silver should have free networked gameplay
Being able to play with as many friends as you can, the global arcade if you will, is the best part of online gaming. Comparing scores is alright, but being able to play co-op with a friend across the globe and kick butt on the videogame bad guys is where the real fun is at.

In that spirit, I actually agree with Don and Alfred at Zune Max that Microsoft should make online networked play free for Silver members. I still very much disagree that they should completely do away with the paid Gold subscriptions. It’s not a bad model to charge for subscriptions. Just make sure the paid subscription has worthwhile features. I think Microsoft could stand tweaking the Gold subscription a bit and would definitely deal a blow to the PS3 if they made online networked play free for Silver members. Will they? Time will tell.

Five months. That’s the average amount of time each Xbox 360 system has lasted before dying in our home. Yes, we use surge protection. No, we don’t beat up the hardware.

Now 2 of 6 our Xbox 360s have crapped out in the time since we’ve bought the PS3 and Wii.

The word ridiculous, maybe even astounding, comes to mind when describing how poorly the Xbox 360 hardware has performed for our family since April 15, 2006. I can think of only one other piece of gaming hardware — the Rock Band drum pedal — that has failed more than twice per year. We’re on drum set #3 since our first purchase November 2007, and I’m hoping Rock Band 2 drum kit which comes out soon will be more durable and have a longer lifespan.

At least two times per year our family is reminded of the lousy workmanship of the Xbox 360 hardware. Two times or more a year to say: “this sucks” or using today’s hot buzzword: FAIL.

You’ve probably guessed what the picture above means by now. Around dinner time last night we came home with Soul Calibur 4 and tried to fire up in my seldom used Xbox 360 Elite.

Three red rings. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

And here I was thinking the Elite would be different. This is a machine that had maybe an average of two plays per week over the course of 16 months. Still it holds the record in our home for the longest lasting Xbox 360, but that’s not anything to brag about. A discouraging 16 months before lighting up the three red middle finger salute. Thankfully we were smart enough to purchase the Best Buy warranty plan for 80 bones. We took it back and above you see me holding Xbox 360 #7 and Xbox Elite #2.

An now the history of our Xbox 360 carnage.

Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#6: Saturday August 18, 2008. Three red rings of death. We used Best Buy replacement plan to swap out with brand new Xbox Elite.
#5: January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, Microsoft replaced within a month.
#4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced this system by buying a new Xbox 360 Arcade package (and yes, bought 2-year warranty).
#3: April 2007. Status: red rings of death, replaced three weeks later on April 23, 2007
#2: September 22, 2006. Status: red rings of death, replaced on October 20, 2006
#1: June 14, 2006. Our first Xbox 360 dies. Didn’t even make it two months.

Moral of Xbox 360 story: always, always, ALWAYS buy an extended warranty
I can’t recommend more strongly based on our own customer experience that not buying an extended warranty for an Xbox 360 is like having an orgy with a bunch of streetwalkers without wearing a condom.

The Xbox 360 still has the best live gaming experience out there, including the best selection of games to play online, and we will continue to replace the systems as they fail within warranty. But based on our experience to date, it’s reasonable to assume that out of warranty breakage heretofore could result in there being less Xbox 360 systems in play in our home. I love gaming and would replace dozens of game systems to play games that I enjoy, but having more than one of the same system constitutes a luxury and the Xbox 360 luxury tax has become very high.

Calculating an average of $300 per system and average Xbox 360 death rate of 5 months equals $60/month for the hardware cost only, not counting Xbox Live or the cost of buying games. Talk about an expensive hobby!

We still have 4 Xbox Live Gold accounts, although we’ve setup one of those to non-renew. Our oldest son doesn’t play Xbox enough to warrant having a Gold ($49.99/year) account. He’s 18 now, he can pay for it himself if he wants. If he looks at extending the life of his Xbox 360 he might be wise to play it only a couple times per year and maybe, maybe it will make it to his 21st birthday.

How long until Xbox 360 death #7 is recorded? Early 2009 if you play the averages, but wouldn’t bet against that happening by the end of the year. Double digits by 2010? Only the Xbox afterlife knows.

With Toshiba dropping support for the HD-DVD format, the PS3 is picking up sales steam as a Blu-ray player.

via Bloomberg:

The PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 in the U.S. in the first five months of 2008 after trailing Microsoft’s console in 2007. New exclusive games, such as “Metal Gear Solid 4,” and the rise of Sony’s Blu-ray as the dominant high-definition DVD player may enable PlayStation 3 to hold onto its lead.

One has to wonder just how much of an impact that has had on beating the Xbox 360 sales numbers at the start of 2008?

I’ve never seen the logic in purchasing a standalone Blu-ray player versus buying a PS3. The prices are about the same and with the ability to update firmware in the PS3 it’s a no brainer. What kind of ruthless salesperson tells an uninformed customer to buy a standalone Blu-ray player?

The PS3 improved sales are not all about Blu-ray of course, noticeable improvements have been made on the Sony gaming front. HOME still isn’t here, but several high quality games have been released plus PS3 customers received token achievement system support in the form of trophies with 2.41 for free last week. I still haven’t bagged any trophies yet, but hope to be able to change that soon.

Microsoft isn’t standing around completely flat-footed though, they are dumping the Xbox with 20GB hard drive at $299 and introducing a new standard 60GB version at $349. The Xbox Elite with 120GB sells for $449 and if you’ve got the dough, that’s the one to get. There hundreds of Xbox Arcade games, not to mention movies and TV shows; you’ll want the extra hard drive space. Sony’s Playstation Network still doesn’t hold up to Xbox Live. I realize it’s pay vs. free, which is a debate in itself, but why can’t I play great PS3 games like Super Stardust Co-op across the network with another player? When Sony answers this call, the real gamer competition will be on.

I wrote last year that I felt this coming holiday season would be the first time we’d have a true competition between the game systems. In speaking of who will be in second place that makes sense (I don’t see Microsoft or Sony unseating the Wii this coming holiday season). That comment assumed that the PS3 would have HOME which is due out (in beta, finally) this Fall. Microsoft will release their Fall update to the dashboard.

Meanwhile, the Nintendo Wii continues to kick both systems in the hiney sales-wise. Nintendo’s network is still a joke compared to Xbox Live and less so to the Playstation Store, but nobody seems to care. The Wii has catapulted Nintendo back into the game console manufacturer driver’s seat. So much for the one year lead Microsoft had with the Xbox 360. And I have yet to see Wii Fit in any store in stock locally. Step up the production already, Nintendo!

I’m not into ‘why I haven’t blogged’ posts and try to spare you the exercise. For future reference, I write when:

1. I have the time
2. Something external (another blog post, news story, new site/service, etc) moves me and/or
3. I have something (fresh, preferably) to say or share

With #3 I’m being more challenged lately. This blog has well over 1.5 million published words and has covered a lot of different web terrain. Fortunately it isn’t niche, so finding something to make us both go hmm for the rest of my lifetime shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s not as easy any more, though because I keep getting literary deja vus. I’ve got to get back to more deeper web exploration.

You don’t care, I get it, just publish mon, publish!

I’ve found the editor in me getting much more picky about what gets published though. That’s really the problem. I just looked in the draft queue and see I’ve written around a dozen posts since April 2. Blame the editor, that’s it.

I digress. Recommendation: use the Hmm search or click the archive links from the home page to revisit the keyword(s) of your liking. There’s a lot of gold in them thar hills. I’ve been thinking about creating a couple pages with links to heavily trafficked past posts. Maybe one for the highest rated ones too, as that function is getting used more than expected. We tried a rating post feature here before and it bombed. I wouldn’t say the second time is a huge improvement, but more readers and visitors are using it. That helps determine what you like and dislike, so please take the time and rate every post that you read all the way through.

Providing fresh material should be every writer’s goal and I’m seeing — right or wrong — this blog as more like a book than a place to repeat something said days, months or [gasp] years ago. The five year anniversary for this site is fast approaching (July 4, 2008) and then I’ll need to make the call what to do the next five years, health willing of course. A few ideas are percolating. I might bring in some hired guns, what do you think of that?

Missing you
I do miss reading some of my friends when they don’t update their blog for awhile and wonder what they’ve been up to. I’ve been asked: hey, why no Hmm? Is everything ok? What’s going on? Those are questions that a 21 day off period don’t answer. I remember giving blog buddy Kent a friendly stick shake when he went AWOL and he’s been kind enough not to return the favor during my blackjack period.

The picture at the top of this post should answer where I’ve been — at least in part. Yes, I’ve been practicing playing my guitar instead of publishing blog posts. I have been writing a little bit here and there, but time where I’d normally be doing the blog exercise, I’ve been practicing so I can jam with the boys on Sunday nights offline. I’m hoping we get good or bad enough to shoot some compelling video because the Hmmcast is starting to grow some nasty looking cobwebs. It’s not much fun watching video, even in HD, of an average garage band, so that footage might never come to fruition.

The calluses on my left (playing) hand haven’t been there and needed to practice time to build up. This has turned me into one of those guys you see carrying around their guitar everywhere. I’ve always thought that was neat when I see people doing that. Every musician knows that practice is the only way to get better. Heck, any skill takes lots of practice. I’m stealing my writing practice time for guitar practice.

Oh, and couldn’t stand for playing live my 20+ year old electric guitar any more, so threw down for some Gibson Les Paul studio action at one of my new guilty pleasure stores: Guitar Center.

I’m a sucker for red guitars and this red wine style is a beauty. Oh, and it comes with a sweet case too.

What do you think? How many Hmm readers play guitar? I must admit with some embarrassment that despite buying this new guitar a couple weeks ago, it is still unplayed. I brought it home, told my kids they’d be cursed for life if they touched it, set the lock on the case and stored it away in a safe, dry place.

Now before you get on me too much, I bought it to only play live, not for practice. Maybe I’ll feel differently later on, but I’ve never owned a pro quality guitar. All my gear has been fairly low budget. I’ve wanted a really good guitar since I was 14 years old and the timing was right.

I also had a pickup installed in my Washburn acoustic guitar and it sounds great. I’m planning on bringing both of these guitars to our next jam session this coming Sunday night. I’m hoping to become regularly invited to the group which involves three other guys (two are younger, one is older). They asked me to play back after the first session so that’s a good sign. Much too premature to speculate on if we’ll ever get out of the garage. Last time I played in a band was back in high school, so lots of rust to knock off for me.

I’m compiling a list of songs I can play either in part or all the way through. Here’s the current list as of this writing:

Electric
AC DC - Back in Black, Dirty Deeds, Walk All Over You
America - Horse with No Name
Ben E. King (on bass) - Stand By Me
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult - Don’t Fear The Reaper
Dokken - Alone Again
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Judas Priest - The Hellion, Livin’ After Midnight
Metallica - Fade To Black, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train, I Don’t Know
Styx - Suite Madam Blue
Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

Acoustic
John Mellancamp - Pink Houses
Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
Ritchie Valens - Donna

Have you got some good guitar song suggestions to add? There are a bunch of songs I’d like to learn how to play and, in some cases, learn how to play again. The song list shrinks if you don’t keep practicing.

Bought a bass for son
You might have noticed in the list that I snuck a song on bass in there by Ben E. King. Stand By Me is a great bass riff and fairly easy to play. My son was having trouble learning the guitar so I bough him an Ibanez bass. He’s learned a few songs on there and seems to find it easier to play with his smaller fingers.

Our third Guitar Center purchase was a set of Simmons electronic drums and drum amplifier. They sound great and we’ve been jamming a bit with bass, drums and guitar. My son who plays bass is also working on playing the drums too. We got a double bass pedal for it.

Rock Band full albums
I think what has gotten me started back into this was the game Rock Band which I’ve given high marks in the past. And speaking of Rock Band, Harmonix which makes the game yesterday started offering the first complete album: Judas Priest most excellent Screaming For Vengeance available for 1,200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live. We bought this and played last night for a little while. Great stuff, this could give the music industry something to cheer for as I can see fans buying their album multiple times.

Worked for Judas Priest. Last night we took our youngest to dinner for his birthday and then we went and bough a CD. Which one? Screaming for Vengeance, of course.

Not sure I mentioned it, but we’re on our third set of Rock Band drums now. The newest one seems more heavily reinforced and maybe (hopefully) will last more than a month or two.

Time for me to jump back into my reading list which shows 1,000+ in Google Reader and 1,446 in reBlog and grows by the hour. Before the day is done, I might cheat and mark all as read, but we’ll see how things go.

Please share in the comments below what you’ve been up to, especially if you’re a blogger. Are you publishing less blog posts these days? Playing music or some other hobby offline? It’s good to have some variety in your life.

This morning’s news that Toshiba is officially ceasing support of HD DVD and will shut down production in March signals a (small) victory for Blu-ray as many publications are touting, but also means the price of existing HD DVD inventory will plummet soon:

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation

The writing was already on the wall with Wal-mart and Netflix saying they would only carry Blu-ray following the CES 2008 bombshell that Warner Bros. was going only Blu-ray. Now watch those PS3 sales soar even further.

Where does this leave the Xbox 360 which has the HD DVD as an add-on drive? Making a standalone Blu-ray Xbox 360 drive, possibly available in a few months, if you believe what alleged insiders told SmartHouse:

Insiders at Microsoft in the USA have told SmartHouse that Microsoft has already configured a standalone Blu-ray player that can be connected into an Xbox 360 and that subject to internal marketing and sales approvals the model could be on sale within 3 months

There is further speculation that Microsoft is working on a newer version of an Xbox 360 with a built-in Blu-ray drive, but I don’t think that will happen, at least in 2008. Microsoft would be wiser to continue to promote their Xbox Live Marketplace as a viable next generation movie download platform. They have the best online gaming and video area but Sony has HOME up its sleeve.

One big problem that Microsoft has is that their downloads are all wrapped in a DRM scheme on a proprietary drive while the PS3 supports using any hard drive. You can easily copy downloaded content on the PS3 to an external drive and can even run Linux. The Xbox 360 even with their 120GB hard drive is outclassed by the PS3 storage architecture.

Back to HD DVD, set your bargain bin sensor on high alert. In particular, watch for goodies like the Star Trek Original Series HD DVD sets. Star Trek Original Series Season One HD DVD (affiliate) I’ve seen the first season at the local Fred Meyer and hope the other two will be released. It’s possible all three will be available on Blu-ray.

More TV Seasons, please
I’ve been saying for some time that one major weakness in both nextgen HD formats is the lack of TV seasons.  A few TV seasons are trickling in on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but not nearly the amount that are available in DVD. When/if this changes, Blu-ray might have a fighting chance for a little while staving off downloads.

It remains important when looking at the future of movies to remember collectors. People like buying and owning physical media. You can touch, display, there’s artwork and inserts and creative packaging. You can’t do any of that with downloadable media.

Smart marketing: in issue #80 of the official Xbox Magazine a disc contains three exclusive Rock Band songs.

Songs by Bang Camaro, Count Zero and Freezepop. We picked up issue #80 with disc at the local Safeway today ($9.99+tax), so if you hurry you might find it out there.

Wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bunch more exclusive Rock Band song deals. Bands should look to releasing their newest albums with a bonus exclusive Rock Band songs or codes for a redeemable new downloadable song inside Xbox Live.

We exchanged our broken Rock Band package at the local Best Buy today. Hoping this one makes it more than a month before breaking down. Rock Band still has major replay value, especially with the addition of new songs you can buy each week or find through deals like the magazine above.

Seen any other good Rock Band exclusive song deals? Share them below or trackback in from your blog with the info.

I captured some HD video of our sons completing the hardest and longest set of songs on Rock Band for the Xbox 360 on the expert difficulty setting.

The Endless Setlist which contains 58 songs took them 3+ hours to complete and out of a possible 290 stars (5 stars possible on each song) they had 275. A few songs they achieved gold star status on. Our youngest teen played bass and our middle teen played guitar.

Click To Play

Hmmcast #180 downloads
Windows .wmv (1480×1080 HD) PSP .mp4 (480×272) iPod .mp4 (640×480)

Dear Microsoft,

Our family of five loves the Xbox 360, but we’re starting to think it, and you, don’t even like us in return.

Sure, you like the fact that we keep reaching into our wallets to buy new systems and pay for the hottest, newest games like Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect. Halo? We’ve bought at least two copies of each: Halo (2) for the Xbox, Halo 2 (3 copies, one was played out) and Halo 3 (2 copies, one the collector’s edition). My current favorite game of 2007 is Rock Band. Many Xbox 360 games we buy on launch day like Madden 2008.

And let’s not forget Xbox Live where we have four active ($49.95 x 4) one year live accounts and one Creators Club ($99) account, not to mention purchasing almost 100 arcade titles to date across the four accounts.

We rent movies from Xbox Live too. Haven’t kept track of the numbers there, but it’s probably over a dozen movies and TV shows rented. And yes, we bought the HD DVD player too (haven’t received the promised 6 ‘free’ HD DVD movies either).

Does this qualify our household as a good customer? In our possession right now, we own five Xbox 360s. The last one broke (#4) less than 60 days ago and you won’t fix because it’s a few months past the one year warranty and not the red rings of death; we don’t have an extended warranty on that one either. The disc tray won’t load any games or DVDs. Xbox Live still works though. If we want that fixed you’re going to charge us $140. We decided in light of the hardware reliability history we would buy the Xbox 360 arcade edition with extended warranty instead for Christmas. You can see it along the right.

Tonight my son was playing Halo 3 and #6 Xbox 360 console went into red rings of death mode (picture top of post). Amazing. This is the fifth Xbox 360 we’ve had go bad since April 15, 2006. Let me list the complete dates and history of Xbox 360 consoles in our household because it’s starting to be unbelievable.

Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#5: today, January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, we’ll call for replacement tomorrow.
#4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced system with Xbox 360 Arcade System.
#3: April 2007. Status: red rings of death, replaced three weeks later on April 23, 2007
#2: September 22, 2006. Status: red rings of death, replaced on October 20, 2006
#1: June 14, 2006.

Status: red rings of death. Replaced July 1, 2006.

We try to place the Xbox 360 so they won’t overheat, see the current placement of the most recent system to die:

We can place the Xbox 360 horizontal or vertical, but death is inevitable. I pity other customers who buy an Xbox 360 and do not buy an extended warranty. These systems are the lousiest design of any home videogame system ever.

Should customers have to face these kind of issues? Just how bad is it? Susan Getgood contacted me after the last Xbox 360 breakdown to get my feelings on this negative customer experience. When writing about how many have gone bad the last time, I wrongly thought that was our fifth Xbox 360 to go bad. Actually, nope, this one is our fifth to go bad. How crazy is that when your own customer can’t even recall how many of the systems have gone bad? At least now I can point to this post. I’m thinking about adding a broken Xbox 360 counter to the homepage, as well.

Our next one to go bad, probably within the next 90-180 days based on history will be #6. The most durable Xbox 360 we’ve bought so far is the Xbox 360 Elite which is on life support at 8+ months. We’ve been having random audio out problems and screen blackouts at inopportune times. I would classify the Elite’s condition as “hopelessly diseased.” Odds are that one goes next. We have the Best Buy warranty there and will just return to them for exchange instead of messing around with Texas.

Microsoft, I know you’ve promised customers that you’ll fix these broken systems for three years and that came at great expense to your company. I implore you to extend the scope of that three year warranty to cover any non customer abuse situation. We didn’t do anything to have the disc tray not load any games and yet we have one that’s no good. The other four systems all died from red rings of death in less than two years including today’s.

Shameful.

If this were likely any other niche than videogames, I would never do business with your company again. I wonder how many customers you’ve already lost because of these problems. With each Xbox 360 that dies, my loyalty in your platform wanes and any fun from when it does work is reduced immeasurably. It’s like walking into the greatest arcade in the world and getting punched in the face at the door.

At some point, and I’m not sure when, I’m not going to enter any more.

Sincerely,

A little less loyal Xbox 360 customer

P.S. Dear readers, feel free to forward this to somebody, anybody at Microsoft that actually might give a damn.

Yesterday you could start downloading the new Xbox Live dashboard update.

We had to update three different Xboxes and the process was smooth across all accounts, taking only a couple minutes. I noticed a lot of lag and problems actually using the service yesterday, but the download part went smoothly.

The first thing I thought when seeing the menu in the new dashboard menu was that it was a bit like the PS3 blade menu. I’m not sure the whole hover over dropdown menu thing is all that great a UI to copy emulate, but now it’s available on both the PS3 and Xbox 360.

I’ve always disliked how when you move down on the controller to cycle through choices in the dashboard it’s too easy to move left or right and thus reset the menu. They should fix that.

Now onto the best news relating to this update: the Black Sabbath Rock Band song pack is now available under the Game Content menu.

440 Microsoft Points to jam on “Sweet Leaf” “War Pigs” and “N.I.B.” This adds to “Paranoid” which comes with the Rock Band game. This is the second song pack we’ve purchased for Rock Band. We also purchased the Police pack (three songs) and one standalone song: “Juke Box Hero” by Foreigner. Harmonix that makes Rock Band promised to release new songs every week and so far has stayed with that cycle.

Xbox games as downloads
Among the biggest news in the dashboard update is that some original Xbox games can now be purchased for 1,200 Microsoft Points as downloads under a new category called Xbox Originals. More are planned to be coming soon with seven games available as of yesterday: Crimson Skies, Fable, Fuzion Frenzy, Halo, Indigo Prophecy, Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortext and Psychonauts.

This reminds me of what the Wii is doing with the Virtual Console and the PS3 with the PS1 titles. It’s kind of a sad way to try and double dip for games you might already own. We already have two Xbox systems, I’m not sure how many Xbox games we’ll be buying as downloads, especially if these games aren’t enhanced in any significant way over the original titles. I’d buy NBA Jam either the original arcade game if it was made available or the Xbox.

Other new dashboard features
Xbox.com has a complete list of new features which include some increased parental features like a game timer. Although our teens are getting a bit old for these type features, parents will be in favor of having the ability to lock down the machine so it can only be played X number of hours per day or per week.

Also full screen movie previews and “enhanced video codec” are nice additions. We’ve rented several movies through Xbox Live and from what I’ve read the service is doing better than many movie rental services online. Would be nice to see them offer higher quality HD movies at no additional cost. We’ve never paid more for the HD movies they currently offer, they are already fairly spendy comparatively.

Xbox Live has two major free updates a year, one in the Spring and another in the Fall. Overall, this update adds a few nice things, but nothing that puts them any further ahead of the pack. Xbox Live is still the best online gaming service and could finally see some serious competition next year when Sony releases their 3D HOME interface. If Sony does a good job with HOME, we might see Microsoft move, but they are in the pole position.

And then there’s the Wii which is still selling a ton of new systems but has the worst online experience of the three players to date. I don’t get where they are coming from at all.