Another XBox dies, yet again.
A little while back, I posted about my only slightly older than 1 year old XBox dying. I was a bit peeved, but I had faith in MS and the XBox, given I make my living from MSFT technology. So I bought a new XBox, and its been good.... until today.
Last night I was happily playing it. Turned it off. No dramas. Turned it on today. Service screen pops up showing error code 21, and the green eject button flashes red. Is it in warranty? Ofcourse not, not long out actually. The error code 21, as far as I can tell, means its in a bad way, I suspect the hard disk is somehow dead.
Now I love playing the games on the XBox, but I'll be stuffed if I am going to buy a 3rd XBox in as many years. I will try to fix it by combining my 2 dead XBox units, but I shouldn't have to (Note: Its not modded or anything like that. Its a plain vanilla XBox). I now feel embarassed that I have recommended these units to a number of friends and family. I have a large stockpile of games I am ready to now sell off. I have no doubt that the XBox 360 will contain a great number of technical advances, but I can't remain confident of its reliability, nor of the current Xbox's reliability. Unfortunately, I could no longer recommend them as a worthy purchase and even though I am a firm supporter of Microsoft in general, I could not remain condifent that the XBox is currently a good purchase due to reliability concerns, and that the XBox 360 will be any different. I would certainly not want to pay the larger XBox 360 price, to also have it die after a year.
Unfortunately, this previously staunch XBox supporter has left the building....
Ah well, such is life.
Note: I have a very old PS1 unit still happily playing games after being dropped, drooled on, discs scratched, hit and generally treated very badly. They dont make em like they used to...