Ah, yes, the RRoD

You know, I ask for so little in life. I want to be able to say my job is successful. I want our budget to work so we can buy a house. I want us to weather the economy at least well enough. I want the CPSIA to be seen for the stupidity it is and scrapped as a national embarrassment. I want makers of gaming consoles to at least put an effort into making sure the system doesn't brick if we look at it cross-eyed so that we don't have to live in paranoia every time we hit the power button!

Okay, so maybe I do ask a lot, and all of those I am working on heavily and we can only wait and see. The last one, though, I don't think is asking too much, and honestly, I think each head of the corporations who create the consoles should be forced to have a very large man with no hair or sense of humor following them around, and every time they are told of consoles bricking, that humorless man is obligated to beat the snot out of them with a rubber hose until they promise to never let it happen again.

Of course, that's just personal opinion.

So, yeah, if you haven't guessed, our 360 Elite finally bricked the other night. We pretty much figured it was coming since a) we had it since it debuted without trouble which only means it was on its way and b) we were starting to get single red rings and had at least two triple rings that Todd managed to chase away with determination and a can of air. (Seeprevious post about it.)

Now, I admit, having it for a couple of years without trouble is definitely better than all those other people who have turned their 360s in several times for being nothing but a glorified doorstop. However, it doesn't excuse the paranoia we lived under waiting for the thing to brick because, well, It's What They Do. And, I'm sorry, no one should have to expect a system to brick. Every time there was a major update, like the recent Fall Update, we would refuse to turn it on until we checked all the major gaming sites to see if it was bricking systems. That's kind of ridiculous.

I was pretty resistant to getting a 360 in the first place because I was a diehard Sony Girl. Unfortunately, when the PS3s came out with that amazing price tag and Sony started crippling the backwards compatibility, losing their major exclusives, and being all around assholes, I was willing to give the 360 a chance. I hate to admit that it's a good system, but they've got the online gaming thing down, there are a lot of good games out for it, and it's a pretty nifty media center. I like it. A lot.

So, when it finally did brick, I was emotionally torn between a sense of relief that it finally happened and a definite urge to find someone to maim.

We had an extended warranty to it from Best Buy because we aren't stupid, so it was just a matter of exchanging it for a new one...after Todd had to stand there and wait for them to figure out why the hell someone put our warranty under a PS3. (Which worked out because we got a new 360, another extended warranty because they had to take it as a return, and a few extra bucks because the Elites have come down in price, so my rage was calmed some.) But, we shouldn't even have to be going through that. I mean, my PS1 never had a problem. Ever. I bought a second generation, and until I bought the PS2, it chugged along happily without any issues. Before that, we had a Genesis and a Super Nintendo, both of which were tanks that would not quit even after my brother broke the front of the SNES by kicking it. (Also, had a Sega CD and later a Saturn, but you know, we forget those dark days.) What happened to systems you could count on?

Okay, the husband always brings up how much more complicated the systems are. He's got a point, but call me old fashioned, I still think that regardless of how complicated something is, they should at least guarantee the fucking thing will work!

The Wii is the only system we didn't even worry about. We still don't. Neither one of us have ever had a Nintendo anything that would just randomly go belly up. Unfortunately, as much as we love that comfort, the Wii doesn't have shit for games right now because the programmers can't figure the thing out. So, take the good with the bad, I guess.

Husband assures me that the new Elite will less likely go belly up because they have new motherboards that don't overheat as much. I hope he's right.

I'm not going to say that I still won't have paranoia in the back of my mind about the thing. My trust in the NextGen systems were compromised long ago, so it will take a lot for me to just accept that all is well.

At least, though, it's quieter.

________________________
We won't talk about the husband forgetting to take the Rock Band 2 disk out of the drive before returning the 360 dooming him to play Guitar Hero 3 until he can afford to replace it. I don't play it, so I just think it's funny. Had it been Fallout 3 or Lost Odyssey there would have been serious domestic violence...possibly involving a large bald man and a rubber hose...