The mournful ballad of 11 Broken Xbox 360s

We’re all very, very familiar about the Red Ring of Death. It’s cruel, it’s sick, it’s absolute torture on those of us who saved and scrimped on our very first next-gen console that lets us enjoy true classics such as Forza 2, Gears of War, and the occasional Pac-Man Championship Edition round on Xbox Live Arcade.

While there are some of us lucky enough not to get the three red light (total hardware failure) in our first consoles, and the somewhat less-luckier few who did get the red ring, but was immediately taken care of by Microsoft‘s customer service and replaced with a new one, there exists a gamer who’s had to have his Xbox 360 replaced not once, not twice, but eleven times.

His name is Justin Lowe, and this is his story.

His very first Xbox 360 was purchased a month after the console’s launch. At first, everything was peachy keen, with our young Justin enjoying some quality time with Microsoft’s latest console. Unfortunately, the red ring struck soon after, causing him no small amount of distress. A quick call to Microsoft’s support hotline got him a prompt response and replacement, and Justin was able to play once more, thinking the incident is behind him, and the red ring would never return to haunt him again.

After his first Xbox 360, Justin Lowe had not had a Microsoft console work for him for longer than a month, each one breaking down. The list is large, almost funny, but nevertheless cringe-inducing: three red rings, two disc read errors, two broken on arrival, several with random video and audio issues, and one that actually went and blew up. Seriously.

It got to the point that when Justin Lowe had a Microsoft Customer Service Representative read off his support/repair request numbers, the rep actually laughed – stating that Lowe had quite a large amount of numbers in his account.

What’s wrong with this picture, then? With Justin on his twelfth Xbox 360 now, that’s eleven failures all in all. It doesn’t help much that the customer support representatives are continuously asking Justin to check if the wiring in his house is doing all the Xbox 360-bricking – all his other consoles (not to mention computers) are working fine, he had it checked by a contractor, and his father is in fact an electrician.

Despite all of this, however, Justin still likes to play with Microsoft’s console. He says that while it may be unbelievable, he doesn’t have any hate toward Microsoft. Cool and level-headed gamer? Definitely.

Well, how about you readers? Is it merely bad luck on Justin’s part, or something else? Let us know by your comments.

We’re all very, very familiar about the Red Ring of Death. It’s cruel, it’s sick, it’s absolute torture on those of us who saved and scrimped on our very first next-gen console that lets us enjoy true classics such as Forza 2, Gears of War, and the occasional Pac-Man Championship Edition round on Xbox Live Arcade.

While there are some of us lucky enough not to get the three red light (total hardware failure) in our first consoles, and the somewhat less-luckier few who did get the red ring, but was immediately taken care of by Microsoft‘s customer service and replaced with a new one, there exists a gamer who’s had to have his Xbox 360 replaced not once, not twice, but eleven times.

His name is Justin Lowe, and this is his story.

His very first Xbox 360 was purchased a month after the console’s launch. At first, everything was peachy keen, with our young Justin enjoying some quality time with Microsoft’s latest console. Unfortunately, the red ring struck soon after, causing him no small amount of distress. A quick call to Microsoft’s support hotline got him a prompt response and replacement, and Justin was able to play once more, thinking the incident is behind him, and the red ring would never return to haunt him again.

After his first Xbox 360, Justin Lowe had not had a Microsoft console work for him for longer than a month, each one breaking down. The list is large, almost funny, but nevertheless cringe-inducing: three red rings, two disc read errors, two broken on arrival, several with random video and audio issues, and one that actually went and blew up. Seriously.

It got to the point that when Justin Lowe had a Microsoft Customer Service Representative read off his support/repair request numbers, the rep actually laughed – stating that Lowe had quite a large amount of numbers in his account.

What’s wrong with this picture, then? With Justin on his twelfth Xbox 360 now, that’s eleven failures all in all. It doesn’t help much that the customer support representatives are continuously asking Justin to check if the wiring in his house is doing all the Xbox 360-bricking – all his other consoles (not to mention computers) are working fine, he had it checked by a contractor, and his father is in fact an electrician.

Despite all of this, however, Justin still likes to play with Microsoft’s console. He says that while it may be unbelievable, he doesn’t have any hate toward Microsoft. Cool and level-headed gamer? Definitely.

Well, how about you readers? Is it merely bad luck on Justin’s part, or something else? Let us know by your comments.