Wow, i'd probably have given up along the way.... 8 times...
Never had that kind of problem with a console or handheld. (knocking on wood)

I'll probably hold off for a couple of years (depending on income) and will end up buying a ps4, or quite possibly VitaTV if it ever reaches europe. Still considering the wii for my (j)rpg fix that's currently being given to me by FFXIV-ARR.

Dem failure rate, my man!

Dang man, that is some seriously bad luck...I don't blame you for not wanting another MS product after so much trouble.

I personally haven't had much trouble at all. Had both my 360's break once on me but my time with MS on the phone was not troublesome at all. Aside from that I haven't had a single problem with anything aside from that. My cousins however are both having tons of problems with their Gold accounts because of all the security features MS now requires (but that's more of their fault for not remembering their various passwords and whatnot).

I've been trying to redeem some points now for weeks and MS still haven't contacted me back, also the 360 I sent in for repairs has come back and is sooo loud.

Other than that I've not had any other issues, sorry to hear you have, it's definitely enough to put you off future purchases.

I would say that makes you lucky.

Actually this only happens with MS for me. I own every Nintendo console, even the Virtual Boy, and I have never had any problems (except a chewed NES power cable which I replaced with a Gamecube cable).

Typical.

Also my system only broke 3 times, I just sent it in for repairs 8 or 9 times. Most of the time MS just told me the same thing I bolded.

As for Sony, I've had my PS1, PS2, and PS3 all break on me, but to be fair my PS1 lasted 6 years, my PS2 lasted 8, and my PS3 I bought used off a friend, but it only made 4 years. 1st gen Sony consoles aren't perfect either, that's why I'm getting a second gen Sony console next time around.

Ouch, mine wasn't as bad

$400 in January 2007 + $80 Warrenty + $70 Rechargable Controller Pack
$140 XBLG
RRoD1 - Free
Other Malfunction - Free
RRoD2 - Best Buy saved me
RRoD3 - When it happens (which is soon, it's starting to freeze ocassionally now) I won't replace.

Total $690 + tax + games

I have a feeling MS is going to slowly re-introduce those DRM policies. They never admited it to it being a service most gamers didn't want, they just claimed "gamers aren't ready for digital games yet" and at the same time they repeatedly state that they believe their model is right..... Just another reason why I don't like MS, they didn't admit to the high fail rate, and they won't admit to messing up the One Launch.

P.S. When Best Buy saved me, I forgot to return the controller, so I got a free 3rd controller out of it However my first controller broke at this time, lol!

Only time I talked to Sony customer service was when my PS1/PS3 broke. They offered to fix it both times, but I turned them down. My PS1 broke when PS2 released, so I thought I'd just save the money and get a PS2, and I bought my first PS3 off a friend for dirt cheap, and just didn't want to fix it because I beat all the PS3 exclusives at that time, and had a 360.

However they were nice with me.

Nintendo CS is great from what I hear, a friend of mine had a NES Zapper break on him back in 1995, and apparently he just had to pay for shipping, it was a free repair.

One has bigger vents, but apparently 40% of 360 fails weren't RRoD, and One is having a lot of manufacturing issues which weren't present when 360 was produced (like Processors unbinding). I'm not convinced the One will be that much more reliable, it's still an X-Box brand product, made in the same factory, with the same standards of quality.

You think it's unreasonable for MS not to supply replacement parts for an accessory which was discontinued for 2 months? Most companies provide supplies for accessories for at least a year, often 5 or more years, and they rarely pull of products off shelves. If they plan on discontinuing products prematurely, they shouldn't design accessories not to accept 3rd party power supplies. I don't think I'm being unreasonable since this was also a $150 wheel, which was only 2 years old. I expect some quality servicing.

X-Box wouldn't redeem code - Nope, Can't redeem a code for 31 days if you've taken more then 5 attemps logging in at once. I have a few different passwords, and I don't use this account much. A 31 day ban to add XBLG service? Makes no sense, It was a pre-paid card....

I should be angry at PayPal because Windows doesn't allow me to use Paypal on Windows phone apps? Sure you can argue it's paypals fault for not making an interface compatible on windows phones, but I've used paypal on other apps on the phone. Only XBL has issues, so XBL is to blame. Also if Microsoft wanted us to use Paypal, all they would have to do is allow us to buy the game on the PC like we can with XB 360 Arcade games. Add in an hour and a half and they hang up on me, and I see 3 faults for Microsoft here.

MS Customer service won't suddenly go from 1-2 hour calls to 10-15 minute calls with XB One. XBLG won't have any reasonably priced 3 month term options (3 months PSN is $13, half the price of XBLG), Bigger vents won't fix half the repair issues 360 faced, or the new manufactering issues, and won't solve MS's ignorance ($0.50 repair to fix all original model 360's, but MS wouldn't even admit they were breaking). MS still won't send me a power supply for my wheel, and never will service accessories they can't profit off, MS controllers and accessories will still have high fail rates (How is it that I've had more 360 controllers break in 5 years then Nintendo controllers over 20 years?), and MS still cares very little for their gamers. Nothing will change.

----

I'll still get a One, just way way later. Sony and Nintendo have yet to let me down, if they let me down as hard as MS did and I hear MS has improved, I might switch back, but like I said CS and reliability go a long way with me, and until I see MS reliability improve, I can't invest in them.

It's the same as American cars, until they finally catch up with Japanese and German Reliability (according to Lemon-Aid, Comsuber Reports, Blue Book, and my own personal experience they are far far behind) I won't buy one.

I'm never rude to people on customer service, for exactly the reasons you said. It's a stressful job, these people are trying to help you, and they are paid minimum wage.

Well Actually once I was rude to the Victoria Secret CS because it was a woman from Kentucky, with the Kentucky accent, and I wasn't sure if she was making fun of me for being Canadian, or being completely oblivious and dumb. She didn't know where Toronto was (4th biggest city in North America), thought that I lived on a rural street which doesn't have a mailman, and insulted Canada as a whole for having "confusing" Postal codes instead of Zip codes.....

The only moving parts in consoles are hard-drives and CD drives. Sony has always used CD drives, and Nintendo Gamecube/Wii are also CD drive based, yet we don't hear about issues from them. I've never heard of a 360/PS3 hard drive issue

We weren't spoiled by Nintendo, MS is just not meeting the standard set by Nintendo. In this thread, many argue that MS is okay, but no one dares say they are as good as Nintendo. IMO, I expect Nintendo-like service, and MS just doesn't measure up. Sony is pretty close.

Well for me the manufactures achievement wasn't a pain I actually enjoyed the 30 hours it took to gain it, mostly did it with the Peugeout 908 and Peugeout 207.  Its kind of a grind to get to level 25 but once you get there it gets easier since from that point it the amount of XP to get to the next level stays constant.  Having to upgrade the cars isn't too much of pain either especially since you only got to get your manufacturer to level 4 to get free parts.   Most races can be won without upgrading the cars if you play on a lower difficult level.  PGR4 is pretty good I like that it has cars and motorcyles on top of that it has a very good soundtrack the only racing game this gen that I thought had a better soundtrack was Forza Horizon.  At this point I doubt there will be another PGR game if Horizon would have bombed then maybe we would have seen another one but it did pretty good and I'm looking forward to Horizon 2 its a pretty good replacement for PGR I actually had more fun with Horizon then with PGR 4.

It's suppose to take over 100 hours to get Factory Driver. Turn 10 designed it so only 1% of gamers would get it within 24 months.

Oh I'm at lvl 20 with the factory affinity, but still. I just want to play with other manufacturers and have fun. I got 1,000/1,000 in Forza 3, and 970 in Forza 2. Plus buying the 10 most expensive cars? Kinda annoying cause I want to buy a lot of A class cars and race them. 2 years between games is just too fast for me, I'm not going to force myself to play this to get everything. So I stopped caring about achievements in this game, and actually most MS branded games.

As for upgrades, I like to play on Professional difficulty, and you need to tune then. I hate tuning cars for free because it takes away any advantages various cars have and makes the race feel like everyone is driving the same thing. I think the races in FM3 were better designed because they restricted the cars you could use, and put you up against similar cars. Not everyone will be pissed at Forza because free upgrades, but for me it kills the game. One of the reasons I switched from GT to Forza was because I get to race so many cars stock, remember the ad "Drive your Dream?". GT forces you to tune too, but it's expensive, and you only really need to do it for 3 cars (GTR, Z06, Formula car).

Aw man PGR 4 is my favorite Arcade racer. Horizon was okay, but PGR4 just felt so suited for me (I loved the music, motorcycles, and car selection, still no Ariel Atoms in other racers). Horizon is more of a replacement for Test Drive Unlimited (Open World Racer).

I'm not sure if anyone has addressed this or not, but I'll take a stab.

Does the problem happen with disc-based, or downloaded games (games installed to the HDD to not count), or both?

Does the problem happen if you remove the HDD and use a USB thumb drive or a memory card?

If the problem happens with both types of games, and doesn't happen if you remove the HDD, then you have a bad HDD.  If you don't have the means to test if the HDD is a problem you may want to pick up a 4-16GB USB memory stick and test it.  With the HDD installed, format the USB thumb drive, copy your profile to it, then copy a game to it.  It's possible you may need to download the game directly to the USB thumb drive.  Next, remove the HDD while the console is powered off.  Restart the console with the USB thumb drive in, and test it.

If the problem is not exibited when running a game via the DVD only or from the USB thumb drive with the HDD removed, then the HDD is the problem.  You'll need to replace it.  Microsoft won't.

The reason why Microsoft may not be able to duplicate your problem is possibly because you typically don't sent in your HDD with a console repair.  Not to mention, they don't repair HDDs. 

I've only ever had Microsoft send me back a console once saying they couldn't duplicate the problem, but oddly enough the console I got back had a different serial number on it and the problem was fixed.