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By now you’ve all heard of the freezing issues with the Xbox 360.  As the issues surfaced, so did the legions of Microsoft haters determined to thwart the company’s foray into the console gaming industry. 

I was one of the many dedicated nerds waiting in line for about 12 hours to get one, outside a target in my case.  I got mine, eagerly brought it home (er, to the dorm), and hooked up my brand new $400 Xbox 360 Premium.  And it worked.  Perfectly.  Sort of.  Read on if you have any interest in 360s and Microsoft’s tech support.

Intermittently, randomly, and without too much explanation, the screen shook in the middle of a game.  Nothing too bad, but I noticed it.  Madden 06 did it, COD2 did it, Need for Speed did it.  I saw reports of freezing all over the internet and figured my issue was related, but I’m not one to freak out and decided to wait for a software update or until there was some better grasp of what was going on to pitch my fit.  I played that thing hard for nearly 3 months without too much trouble, but the issues got more and more frequent and the console’s optical audio output began to randomly cut out.  I figured that was enough and I’d better call for service.  I called on a friday evening and had my call promptly answered.  The service person spoke English very well, with no accent, and was both very friendly and helpful.  I was asked a couple of basic, legitimate questions (overheating issues would be expected if I had my 360 in a small space with no airflow), then given a couple simple troubleshooting steps like removing the harddrive.  When these didn’t work, I was told they would repair/replace the unit and that I would receive a box in the mail in which to return my unit.  Everything would be at no cost to me.  Sweet.  Regardless of what others say, I know of MANY manufacturers who have decided that it is entirely up to you to get the product to them, meaning about $20 worth of shipping.  But luckily, Microsoft had me covered.

The next business day, a box showed up at my front door (well, my parent’s, I met up with them on tuesday afternoon to get the box) and I shipped it out via UPS, pickup time about 9pm.  Microsoft received the unit the next morning (overnight shipping again, this time on a 10lb package).  The Xbox support team had the unit Wednesday and Thursday, overnighted it back, and it’s here Monday.   Whoah.  6 business days from call to unit returned?  I’d call that pretty good service.  I’ll test the unit for a few days before I give my final seal of approval, but I’d definitely like to put all the Microsoft-haters in their place on this one.  Awesome job and great service, I couldn’t expect any better.

Chris Leckness (3531 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.