Kudos, Microsoft!

Now, I'm not some raving fanboy who wontonly raves about Microsoft, but for this post? Yeah. I will. This is about sending a big "Kudos!" over to Microsoft.

"Why?" you ask? Well, the sad news is that my Xbox 360 horked up on me a few weeks ago. I came back from a trip over Memorial Day weekend, and it wouldn't turn back on. Yeah. Bad news. The previous week, I had a lockup and a scary moment trying to get it restarted (and when it did finally come back on, I copied all the "critical" save games off to a memory card!).

So. As I said: full-on wedge. Not good. Some perusing on the web showed how to get an error code out of the thing, and some things to do to try and get it working. No luck. Hunk o' unusable circuitry. Sent an email to Xbox Support describing the problem. Got one back saying "do this", which I had already done. Called them, and here is where it gets good.

The guy on the phone was quite apologetic for the problem. I wasn't being a pain, yet he was being very nice and solicitous. He got my details and had an empty box sent to me. It arrived the next week, and I packed up the Xbox and sent it off to repair.

"Oh, woe is me!" thinking it wouldn't come back for several weeks. But no... I got back from a trip today, and sitting there is a replacement Xbox. Just like that. No muss, no fuss, and even while out of warranty. How frickin' cool is that?

Very

Thanks, Microsoft.

(yeah, it shouldn't have broke in the first place, but I work with computers all the time, and the Xbox is even more finely-tuned than those... it doesn't really surprise me to see a failure. what makes it all nice is their response to the problem)

Patch Luvin' Continues

Woot! The Oblivion patch was just released.

I had one quest that jammed up my game. Thankfully, with games like Oblivion, I've learned to keep a rotation of about 10 save games. I skipped back about five saves before I found the critical juncture that bugged up the game. I replayed about 30 minute of game to catch up (minus that one action). I'm not sure if this patch fixes the problem, but I'm always happy for patches!

Oblivion Fun

If you haven't guessed, I've been playing a ton of Oblivion rather than keeping this blog up to date :-) (well, also some travel, but that's not as interesting)

Just had a hilarious moment, felt like reporting...

I'm in a tomb, and along comes a Skeleton Champion. Wants to get all in my face. Fine fine. Well, he also has his summoned Guardian with him (woo! monsters that can conjure!). In this case, the idea is to ignore the guardian and just kill off the spellcaster. Once you do that, then the conjured monster disappears.

No problem. I'm beating him down. Wham wham, and all. Almost got him... he's down to just a little bit of health. Then he gets a lucky hit and knocks me clean off my feet. As I'm flying backwards, I see the Guardian come in for a swing. His blade cuts right into his master. Down goes master. Guardian disappears.

Heh.

Xbox Live Update

The new Xbox Live update just arrived on my Xbox 360.

The new background downloads are spiffy. Perfect for downloading those multi-hundred meg demos. Not so sure yet on the additional subdivisions of the marketplace menus. Kind of implies "more places to hunt for stuff", but it does appear there are more "New" sections which may make it easier.

Personally, I really want previews of the gamerpics and themes. I'm never gonna buy one of those things. Without a preview, it's a total crap shoot.