Friday, February 8, 2008

Oh Halo Where Art Thou?



The ongoing saga of my free Halo 3 game continues. To recap: For the holidays Microsoft ran this promotion: Switch an xbox live account from an original xbox to the 360 between Nov. 21 and Dec. 24th and get a free copy of Halo 3.

It's now Feb 8, 2008 and I've yet to recieve the game. I've called customer support 5 times and spent over two hours on the phone (mostly on hold). At first I believe there was a language barrier as I was unable to communicate clearly that I wasn't waiting for a "replacement disc" for a damaged disc I sent them. Over and over again I had to re-iterate that they, Microsoft, ran a promotion for which I was eligible. You can read my previous posts on this topic here at to find out more details on my previous attempts to correct the situation.

Here's the latest! Got a customer service rep named "Danielle" (which I don't believe was her real name due to the fact that she pronounced it two different ways). I give her a reference # for my previous call (with Jeff). She looks over what I childishly imagine is detailed information regarding my situation. She asks how she can help me; I tell her I still haven't recieved my copy of Halo 3 yet to which she replies "You haven't recieved your Halo 3 replacement disc?".

I slowly put the barrel of the gun in my mouth. I begin to pull the trigger...

I decide against the good 'ol U.S. of A's version of seppoku and continue my conversation with Danielle. I try my best to fill her in. She has no idea what I'm talking about. Promotion? She can barely pronounce the word let alone define it. I ask her if I can email her the link to the promotion's web page. She say's they cannot accept emails from customers. I spend the next several minutes trying to get her to this web site:


Don't let ANYONE tell you that something is impossible. Because, by gum, we finally got her there! Here's where it gets interesting. She looks over the page for a few seconds and is now a veritable treasure trove of information regarding this promotion. Here's the long and short of it:

They ran out of discs and had to get more. The latest shipment of discs went out on the first of February and will probably be arriving by February 5th but for sure no latter than February 15th. If, by some act of God, my disc doesn't arrive by the 15th, I should not hesitate to call again.

I asked her, out of curiosity why had I been told on several different occasions that my disc would be arriving on several different dates. Her response was a kind of speaking in tongues. Instead of trying to bridge our communication barrior I was struck with the profound need to end the call and put my head in a vice.

More to follow.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Xbox Originals for $15.00? Bah!


Backwards compatibility for a console is a cool thing and the fact that my 360 can play almost any original Xbox title is great. But as far as the three systems go, just the idea of being able to play virtually every Nintendo, Sega, N64, Neo Geo, TG-16 and SNES game throughout recorded time makes me drool like an alien about to chomp Ripley. That’s why I think it goes without saying that Nintendo wins the downloadable back catalog competition without even having to put up a fight.

With Xbox Live’s fall update, original Xbox games started making their way onto the 360 for download. Sounds great right? Not for what Microsoft is charging for them on XBL, $15.00 per title is way north of fair. You can go into most any major electronics store and find many of the titles you’d want to play for $9.99 new. You can find ‘em on eBay for even less. The question is this: Why would I pay $15.00 for a download that takes up more than a gig of space on my console’s hard drive when I can buy the game for 10 bucks or less and leave that hard drive space for other uses. Most of the Wii Virtual Console games go for between five and ten bucks. That essentially means that I can get Super Mario Bros. 3 for five to ten on the VC but I’ll spend $15.00 for Fusion Frenzy on the 360? That makes no sense to me. I think a varying price model like the Virtual Console’s makes sense. On principle alone I can’t buy any of the Xbox Originals. I would just feel like I downloaded an idiot bomb into my brain. If I want to play Halo or Burnout 3 I’ll get them online or in a store. Hopefully this foolish price scheme is just a “let’s take advantage of the first in line” ploy and is only a temporary misstep by Microsoft.

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