Sordid: Our Affair with the Xbox 360 (Part V)

Either Microsoft didn’t receive my final communique or they chose to ignore it (and my snippy remark at the end), which brings our sordid affair with the Xbox 360 to an anticlimactic close hiatus. I wish it were coming to a close but after four separate machines in under three years I am forced to assume that even the Elite will crap out before we move onto the next-gen Xbox.

We’re now about a month from our initial problem when I first started this unintentionally long feature; down $25 for that useless memory unit and loaded with data migration kits. The hard drive transferred without losing our save files but we remain locked out of several Xbox Live Arcade titles with not even a flippant suggestion to “just buy the games all over again” from Microsoft. As I’ve done over the years I’m sure I’ll pounce on some Microsoft Point cards on sale and wind up rebuying at least a few games, but it’ll be one hell of an internal struggle to hit that final ‘Buy’ button.

It’s just so terribly depressing. We love the Xbox 360, the mostly-smooth Live service, and all the great stuff on the Marketplace but no one should suffer such horrendous hardware and unhelpful tech support for it. Like all dysfunctional relationships, ours will probably linger on for years to come, culminating in a gloriously liberating final battle, but right now we’re in a pretty ok place.