I don't want to jinx mine so I'll say nothing... except that GTA IV is the greatest game since Sliced Toast: This Time It's Personal.

Had mines since launch. Works fine. GTA IV is a greatest overrated rehash you mean.

@Earthslide:
Get out.

@IndustrialJones:
Agreed 100%

GTA IV is a great game, but Saints Row controls better. The targeting and cover system still needs a lot of work.

Am I missing something? This just seems random as hell.

- PR-0927

Mine just died yesterday. Thx for the other phone number. It was freezing up on me the last week or so now I've got the Three red lights of doom.

@PR-0927:

Agrred, anyway does this really need to be pointed out at this point? I am sure current owners have already done it and perspective buyers already know what they are in for............

@PR-0927

They printed this because GTA IV has been locking up 360s... lol

I say BURN ALL THE XBOX's BURN BURN BURN, nintendo 64 is where its at.

Oh, I see. I guess I'm ignorant of the matter because I don't have GTA IV and have no intention of getting it yet.

Yes, blasphemy indeed.

*Runs from angry mob.*

- PR-0927

Ah-hem. How about a lifetime warranty?..on every system I've ever owned for the shelf life of the system. 3 easy steps.
1. Buy another 360.
2. Swap.
3. Return.

It's alot easier to pull off at a K-Mart than a Wal-Mart. Even easier at a Zellers. Plus there's no wait!

@Kareem King: you return broken systems, although clever, thats horrible, imagine a child getting a 360 opening it, and then realizing that its dead, its a pretty mean thing to do

@Kareem King: There's a code on the box matching the serial on your Xbox so you can't just swap/return... unless you want to get caught.

@Kareem King:

Although you can get caught and escorted out of the store or worse (it's happened), that's still a horrible thing to do. That's just screwing other people over for your own advantage.

@takemetoyourtoaster: It's happened to me as child. I got a broken Sega Genesis for Christmas from Toys-R-Us 4 levels deep. Somebody even got me while doing a 360 swap. System came with a wired controller as well as RROD. It just goes to show you what people are doing. At some Wal-Marts it was hard to find a working 360 if one at all.

@Kobe_No_Means_No: For modern systems you might have to swap the internal parts. Like with the first Xbox, all you had to switch was the power supply. Chances are you end up with a little old lady when returning it. That's why you return to the customer service instead of the electronics desk.

"We're closed, customer service hours are from 6am to 4pm, Pacific time, Monday through Friday."

DAMMIT!

First mistake is buying an Xbox.

Should I call escalated support? The customer rep I spoke with last time seemed to have been making a mockery of me and his supervisor said he'd get back to me concerning some type of compensation, yet didn't return the call even after I received my repaired 360.

Xbox support sucks! thats all there is to it. I have had two issues and both times I called I got a girl who would simply re read her script over and over and refused to transfer me to anyone else. When I called back they didn't care and wouldn't help until I registered my box.

I just got the RROD a couple days ago after having the console since January 2006. Actually died trying to start up GTAIV for the first time. Anyway, I had already voided my warranty by putting new "silent" fans in about a year ago. So, I fixed the RROD myself. Inspired by the towel trick and the hot air gun method, I removed the motherboard and placed it in the oven, gradually increasing the temperature up to 350 F over about 20 minutes. The key is to melt the solder on the board, but I wanted to make sure I didn't smell any burning plastic. After it cooled down, I put it back together, and my 360 is working beautifully again. It's still noisy though, damnit.

@Trowble (XBL/PSN): You're not going to get any compensation. I asked them to replace my 360 with a new one instead of refurbished... the customer rep said he'll put in the request but of course I got a refurbished one back.

Basically they will go with a set of procedures to replace your 360, and no matter what you say it's not going to help... unless maybe you raise hell and create an anti-360 website or something... but most people just don't have time for that.

I regret getting the 360... it's been repaired twice for red ring and GTA4 just froze on me this weekend. PS3 is definitely the better deal right now especially since Blue-Ray is now the dominant format.

I don't like this idea because it will probably make escalated service less useful. You should try to use regular customer service first, then if that doesn't work, you should go higher. From what I've noticed, the more a high tier cs number gets published, the worse the service there gets.

Haha I actually had to do this back in October after I sent mine in for repair the first time and they sent me back another brick! They upgraded me to 3 Day shipping both ways and gave me a free game for it :-D

A 360 can't break if you don't have one!

:-(

@Kobe_No_Means_No: I own both, but I have no PS3 games, just Talladega Nights. I prefer multiplayer games on my 360, since most of my friends have it and I like the controller better too. I don't have the time to bitch and whine about it. It sucks that I'm just shit out of luck. Up the river without a paddle, ya know?

thats not gonna happen trust me.

@Amiash is dyslexic: i take that back, it did somehow worked

I used to work for the xbox call centre and all I can recommend is to call on a weekday, sometime in the morning. The reason is, people who've been working there the longest who know a few more tricks than the newbs, usually get the 9-5 mon-fri shifts.

In comparison, my PS3 died too, it took a week to receive the box, 2nd day air to send it back to Sony. 2 days in their repair facility, 2 days to get it back. And they sent me a new one.

Sweet.

GTA IV WAY OVER-RATED!

Same old lames ass slow play, drive around, dumb missions, I don't get it anyway.... COD4 will get all my playtime for sure....this is overrated IMHO too, but to each their own. I just don't see THAT much of difference over the previous versions really, 1)new storyline, they all have that, big deal.
2) Graphics maybe better,different for sure, actually much better in most scenes etc. but gameplay still same for me...PASS!

Th AI is even dumb as shit, you can run a red light or kill a pedestrian with your car (or even steal a car in front of a cop for that matter) and the cops in most cases just keep on walking around like a bunch or morons etc. I just don't get the hype ....I'm taking it back to Game Stop in a.m. and I've only played it for like 3 hours,
LAME, pass.

Faslane

Grammer check: COD4 RULES, It sounded like I was saying it was overrated too, it's not!!! RULES!!! Multi-player anyway, single player fun the first time but that's it.

Faslane

@geowrian: hello mr.Jobs..

mine died by while playing gta 4 as well. :(

@Joseph:

I don't regret buying my XBox, but I do regret buying my PS3. I wish I had just gotten a standalone blu-ray player instead. The PS3 is totally useless for gaming for me because I love all things multi-player, and multi-player on the PS3 MIGHT be a slim step above multi on the Wii. PS3 multi can only aspire to be as nice as XBox multi one day.

On the topic, I had a RRoD on my launch unit when it was two years old. I had gotten an Elite so I put the launch unit in the entertainment armoire in my bedroom. It didn't have enough air flow and it ringed out on me almost immediately. I used the usual support line and got prompt friendly service. I received a brand new unit back with the falcon chipset.

@faslane: "Th AI is even dumb as shit, you can run a red light or kill a pedestrian with your car (or even steal a car in front of a cop for that matter) and the cops in most cases just keep on walking around like a bunch or morons etc."

I'll admit they won't come after you for running a red light (which, to me, would be annoying as hell, but if a cop is around when you kill a pedestrian or steal a car, he'll be on your ass like white on something white. I guess you haven't played so you wouldn't know. Just giving you a heads up to how it's like bro. The police seem to be a bit more aggresive in this iteration.

Got GTA4 when it came out, but left it wrapped because last week was finals. Opened it Friday afternoon, played 20 hours and everything was great. Woke up Saturday, started it up, and it froze after I left the safehouse. Reboot, and I get the 3 rings. Called tech support but chose Live instead of hardware so I could speak to someone who speaks english as their first language. Coffin should be here tomorrow. Easy Peasy, just wish this happened a week ago when I didn't have time to play anyway. Oh well.

You should check out the chatter on the PS3 forums...GTA IV either is or is a strong correlation to the bricking of the PS3 BD players. Most of the comments there are along the lines of the 360 version being more stable and having fewer problems. I, for one, now have a dead PS3 which no longer reads games or movies.

step 5. get a ps3.

i just sold my 360 after it died 3 TIMES!!! couldn't be happier with the ps3.

I wish my PS3 played Halo. >:|

But whatever, I can just go and buy a 360 if ever I feel it needs to be collecting dust next to the PS3 ... which is awesome at collecting dust.

OK.. did the Giz guys just get the ring of death by any chance?

What's the big deal with the ring? I bought mine 2 weeks after launch, got the red ring once in the first week (turned off, back on... worked fine) and once after I moved it for the first time (this was a year later, it was my VGA cable that wasn't hooked up properly on my XBOX... plugged it in properly and it was fine).

I'd be interested to find out how many people sent back their XBOX 360s because of a silly problem they could have fixed themselves.

ummm the ring of death comes in two flavors...one like you had (the one in which you cause it 4 flashing lights) and the 3 ring which is the ring of death, and that's MSFT fault. I have sent my XBOX for the 3rd time this week and didn't even play GTA4 on it yet.

My virtually new PS3 has been freezing up during mission load at startup several times. GTAIV causing problems all around.

@faslane: You're either an idiot or lying your ass off...

The game's graphics are AMAZING...To think the whole world is all almost real to the touch...it's just mind boggling. And to say the gameplay is still the same...IDIOT...Damn, you need to play the game...Have you tried the cover system? The refined free aim...The way bullets spray a car realistically...Blood splatter up the windshield...Real-Time bulletholes in the windows, doors...I could go on and on...Seriously, you obviously have not played the game enough to have any vaild opinion.

Oh and the cops are frickin' relentless this time around. There's actually too many of them around at times it seems...but I love that they completely changed the way you loose your "wanted level" as well...Escaping the police radius...A lot harder or easier in some cases...It takes skill and is more realistic. COD4 is the one of the best games I've ever played...I'll give you that, but comparing it to GTA4 is just stupid. It's completely different experiences and games...

Bottom line...GTA4 is disturbingly realistic this time around and you can utterly loose yourself in it's world. BEST. GAME. EVER.

1-800-XBOX-LIVE.

the towel trick worked with me.

@ArielWollinger:

don't forget to bring a towel

is the support really that bad

my xbox rrod 3 weeks ago, I called the support at 1:00am on a saturday.
2mins on the phone and that was it.
took a total of a week repair time and I had a new working xbox back.

I live in Canada so I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but it was an extremely easy process,

the problem is they don't have a advanced rma. with palm, when i broke it, they took a credit card, sent me a new one, i put the broken one back in the box and sent it back, then they credited my card. I had a new one in 1-2 days. I just did an RMA for my xbox and they said 3-4 weeks! That's a fucking month!

Say what you want but the PS3 version is superior. Better load times means more play time. Also I have had no problems with my PS3 and it is a launch unit. I have heard of many more people bricking 360s with GTAIV than PS3s. Don't call me a fanboy because I go by facts.

@faslane: Wow, you played it for 3 whole hours?! You must have the difinitive opinion on the highest rated game ever! I'm not going to buy it based on your slur!

Let's hear it for Faslane!
Hip Hip... Screw you!

@MrSatan: Yeah, well my Wii's never broken and everything loads in the blink of an eye, but I play it less than my 360.

Where's your logic now, punk?