BurntPhotons

So I received the box to ship the Xbox 360 back to Microsoft on Thursday. I called about the Xbox last Wednesday so it took 8 days for a box to get to me which really isn't that bad considering that last Thursday was Thanksgiving.

I wasn't surprised by how long it took to get the packaging to me. Thanksgiving in the US usually means a four day weekend. I was more surprised by what was inside the box.

Besides the packaging and mailer was a long piece of three inch wide tape to reseal the box, a short questionnaire and instructions on how to prepare the box. The tape was unexpected. The instructions were expected but are printed on some really heavy paper and therefore was probably more expensive to print than the cheaper paper used for the questionnaire. And I wasn't expecting the instructions to be so detailed or in color.

The survey was a little unexpected espesically since it asked me to describe what the problem was with the Xbox 360 as well as fill in the serial number, both of which should have be known already since I made the call, but maybe it is a standard box for repairs and helps out in the process.

I went to the UPS store on Friday morning and waited in line behind an older woman who remarked how cheap it would be to send her package overnight via UPS instead of the post office. I don't know about you but I don't consider the 60 dollar quote cheap. She decided to just ship it by ground though because, "Good Heavens the gift inside doesn't even cost that much."

The funny thing was as soon as the UPS guy turned to help me out he remarked, "Returning an Xbox 360, huh?" I realized then that maybe Microsoft really does have a severe problem with the machine when the UPS guy recognizes the plain looking box. Maybe he saw the prepaid address, but I don't think so.

I asked for a receipt as the packaging instructions say, but was told that even though Microsoft puts that on their instructions UPS doesn't give out receipts. He asked if I had written down the tracking number which I had.

Before my red ring of death experience I wondered if all the press I've heard about the Xbox 360 having problems was being blown out of proportion as I've heard many people who haven't had problems and others who had. Having a machine die within the first year and having numerous problems with games just stopping in the middle of play because it can't read the disk.

Hey Microsoft, a game should die gracefully if that is the problem. You shouldn't lose all of of you game time up to that point. In addition, when I pull out the disc there isn't a scratch or smudge on them when I see this problem. I wonder if the machine was just getting too hot and the disc warping too much at high spin speeds to be readable. But I'm rambling now.