It took longer than I expected, but last night my Xbox 360 died in spectacular fashion. That brings the failure rate to 100% in my circle of friends. Last night, I played the Burnout Paradise demo for about an hour before I decided to switch to The Orange Box and take Team Fortress 2 for a spin. I got as far as the loading screen and then it happened. A loud screech came out of my TV and the onscreen image changed from the Team Fortress loading screen to a green and white checkerboard, and the Xbox was hung. I immediately felt this was the end, stick a fork in it, it's done. But I was still in denial. Reboot, Red Ring of Death. Immediately went to Xbox Support and was instructed to call customer service. I even followed all the automated prompts to pull the hard drive and unplug and plugin the cables, holding out hope it would just "reset", but of course nothing worked. I ordered my coffin, and I was told the whole process would take around a month. A month! This is when I reach anger. I skipped bargaining, there is nothing the call center rep is going to be able to do for me. The Xbox is my DVD player, so I immediately start ripping some DVDs we had got for my son, on two different Macs using Handbrake. I go to bed depressed, this whole episode ruins my nights sleep. I have I think 5 uncompleted games for the 360 I got for Christmas. Thinking over the good to great games I have completed, BioShock and Halo 3, and some in just the last 3 days, Portal and Mass Effect, helps me, along with finishing this post, reach acceptance. Time to go back to Metroid for the Wii.
Update
One of my friends informed me that I am wrong, his Xbox 360 has not died yet. I thought he had told me his had died months ago, but I was wrong. So among my circle of friends, the failure rate is not 100%, but its pretty damn close.
Update x2
I got the coffin yesterday, exactly 5 business days after I called Microsoft for it, as promised.
