Rue the day, my friends! Rue it! If you ever find yourself without one of those devices you have grown so used to, it becomes painful to go about your business. The 360 has become that for us (my wife, son and I), but not for the reasons you might expect. I can’t say I saw it coming, but here it is, we need our 360.
Back when I first loaded XBMC on my original xbox, I knew the sweetness of streaming. It was fantastic. Then, when I first read about them requiring a purchase AND a mediacenter pc, I knew that the potential was being squandered in place of the desire for wealth. That practically forced me to mod my xbox. With the 360, I haven’t payed attention to the mod scene, and with the ability to stream being patched in, I haven’t needed to. Bravo Microsoft for making that excellent decision.
So how did this come about? Well, it really came down to them deciding to allow streaming from a PC on a network. We have a sizeable library of movies that my son watches, and he knows how to open the dvd player. This leads to scratched discs, which are very annoying. Well, as soon as I learned that I could now stream from a WMP11 pc, I knew that life could be better. I started getting copies of our library of movies so I could host them, and within a short amount of time, life became simple again. No more scratches, no more hassles.
Well, the streaming went well for a few months on the 360, and we were rather enjoying the simplicity of it all. I had bought a Harmony (the 360 version) in anticipation of the day that we would use it, and it had finally come. Well, it all came to a screeching halt when the 360 started freezing, and finally gave me the, now infamous, “red ring of death.” I was at work when it happened, so my wife IM’d me and told me that something was wrong. She had scared me one other time saying the 360 was doing funny things. I told her back then to watch out for a red ring, but didn’t go into great detail. This time, she wanted to put my mind at ease, thinking that I would be worried about the RROD. So she proceeded to tell me “but don’t worry, it’s only 3 of the for lights that are red; its not a complete circle.” Well, unfortunately, that didn’t put my mind at ease, as the RROD is really 3 of the 4 lights going red. The nail was in the coffin.
The good news is that it is still under warranty, and won’t cost me anything. The repair could take anywhere from 2-4 weeks I’m told, so I am trying to figure out what we are going to do in the mean time. I considered the idea of buying another 360, since they are at a great price right now. Then, when we get the other one back, we will have one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Needless to say, that idea got veto’d.
Regarding the quality issues of the 360, I have only ever owned this one, and have only read online about issues. I have never seen them firsthand until now. I have had this one over 2 years without issues, so I would say that they seem fine. I can say that the 3 years of warranty I am getting from the 360 sounds much better than someone else’s offering.
On a semi-related topic, I had a friend get a PS3 recently, and I pondered if the day would come when I would get one. With my 360 going down, the answer came to me: I would rather have 2 x 360′s than one of each. Financially, it makes more sense and I would get more use out of two 360′s than having a 360 and a PS3. I realize I could stream with the PS3 as well, and watch blueray, but that is just the dumbest financial decision ever. For half the price, I could stream movies to both TV’s in HD, and not have to pay the absurd prices for bluerays. Cost to benefit analysis and a brain says I am correct. I will try to refrain from going off on a rant about Sony, so I’ll end the post now.
Anyone think I’m off my rocker? Anyone agree that they can’t live without their 360, or even their PS3? I’m willing to hear other opinions on the matter. Tradgedy
