Xbox DRM and the Red Ring of Death

manekineko2 writes "In the latest case warning of the perils of investing in DRM'd media, an owner of an Xbox 360 reports that after his Xbox suffered the infamous Red Ring of Death, it was replaced by a new system with a different serial number. Upon receiving his replacement, he found that he could only access the media he had purchased from a specific account. He also received the run-around for months from customer service before his case was escalated, only to be informed that there is no ETA for a resolution, there is no way to receive status updates on the process, and there is no compensation that will be granted. Given claims that the Xbox 360 defect rate is as high as 1 in 3, has anyone on Slashdot gone through this as well after getting their system exchanged?" Update: 02/14 17:11 GMT by Z : An emailing user noted that the original summary was not very accurate; rephrased to be more in-line with the situation.

Comments

Ummm

[tgd]

You call them. They give you the points you've spent on a temporary XBox Live account, you redownload the software.

After that they'll run fine not logged in on the 360, or on other 360s logged in with the original account.

Its a pain in the ass -- I've had to do it twice, but its not nearly how the story makes it sound.

Re:Ummm

[MyDixieWrecked]

You call them. They give you the points you've spent on a temporary XBox Live account, you redownload the software.

They didn't do that for us. When we got our 360 back from repairs and the content wouldn't play on the other accounts, I called and was told that the purchased content was meant for the account that purchased it and not the others, and the fact that it worked to start doesn't mean that it will always work that way into the future. I was mostly peeved because I was trying to see how many achievements I could unlock in a single round on XBLA games.

I get the feeling that depending on who you happen to talk to at support, you get different stories of how things work. When our 360 originally red-ring'd, we were told that it wouldn't be covered under warranty (we got a Rev-B 360, about a month or two after it was first released), but the unit still worked on and off... it would just occasionally not start up. After MS extended the warranty to a year, we were able to send it in and get it replaced. Although a friend of mine's unit red-ringed a couple days after ours and his got replaced, no questions asked. His also came back in about 8 days, where ours took 3 weeks.

Re:Ummm

[nickj6282]

Yeah, they didn't do this for me. I called this weekend because my son couldn't play the games I downloaded from my gamertag on the 360 before it was replaced. I spent an hour on the phone and the final resolution was for them to transfer the content license from the old console to the new one. This required me to fax them the exchange receipt from Best Buy and now I'm on day 3 of the 30 day wait for them to do this.

I'm not confident that this will ever get done, but luckily I have some recourse. Firstly I do have an Xbox Live Gold account, and from personal experience I know that the reps will bend over backward to keep you on the gold account if you call and cancel. I'm thinking that if needed, I can call to cancel and get them to give me enough freebie points to redownload all my stuff (not that I should have to, mind you).

Barring that, all my MS points were purchased on a debit MasterCard issued by a small community credit union that actually cares about it's clients. All I need to do is sit down and fill out a form saying that I didn't get what I paid for when I bought those points, and 24 hours later the cash is back in my account and MS gets hit with the chargeback. It's ugly, but it might be necessary. Mind you, I won't do this unless I've exhausted all other options and made Microsoft well aware of my intent before actually doing it.

Personally, I think that the games should work as long as the account in question is present on the Xbox they are to be played on. That way if I log in to my friend's Xbox and re-download Geometry Wars, he can play it as long as my account is resident on his system. Once I remove the memory card holding my account or recover the account to a different Xbox, the game is rendered unplayable. If MS doesn't want to do that, then how about the option to self-transfer the license a-la the iTunes method of invalidating the license on the old console. Let users do this once every 6 months to a year. That way if someone upgrades from an Arcade to a Pro or Elite or whatever, they can know that their games will work.

Moral of the story:

[king-manic]

Don't buy restrictive DRM. Wii shopping and Xbox live content will only survive as long as your warranty and current machine. Otherwise you will be shelling out to have the manufacturer fix the machine, in some corner cases even if you followed their rules you lose content.

Re:OR, just keep your silver account.

[provigilman]

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed this in the TFA.

This new replacement console has a different serial number and as a result all of my downloaded content only works now when the purchasing profile is signed into Xbox live. Additional profiles on the system can no longer access the content. I can no longer access the content when I'm not signed into Xbox Live. So any internet issues with my system or Xbox Live (which experienced serious problems for most of last month) means I can no longer use the items I have purchased. As far as I'm concerned since the functionality I had before is now crippled my console has not been repaired.

So he didn't lose his content at all. He access it using the original purchasing profile while signed into XBox Live. I do realize that this is not perfect, but it's also far from inaccessible.

Personally, I only use one profile that automatically signs into XBL, so the only time this would affect would be when my internet is out. Granted, that's not how it works for every user, but I would guess that this is how it works for most of them. It could use some fixing, but in the meantime it's usable.

All MS really needs to do is come up with some way to import the console specific settings during the replacement process. They'be been pretty good about releasing updates to the console as well as the games, and if this is a widespread problem I'm sure it will get addressed. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

The good news though is that maybe this will spur them to create an import process for the next console. Afterall, they'll probably have a torch carrying mob storming Redmond if you can't play the content you downloaded onto your 360 on the next-gen MS console.

This didn't happen to me

[SilentChris]

What happened to me:

1.) Red ring of death (fuck you, Microsoft).
2.) TAKE HARD DRIVE OFF CONSOLE. Send in console for repair.
3.) Get different console with different serial number back. Place hard drive on it.
4.) Console wants to verify my Live account online. Go for it.
5.) All content accessible.

So I'm not really sure what happened to this guy.

My experience differs

[Xest]

I've been through 2 360s and each time MS have turned it round into a positive experience for me, as the first time they told me to make a new free silver account and they'd credit the points to that account so I could rebuy and they did this within 3 days which is fine, whilst some may argue the console shouldn't die in the first place I got a there and then swap out from the retailer, furthermore I was given £30 worth of MS points for my troubles.

The second time it happened I got one of the new Falcon chipset 360s with HDMI which is a great thing for me in the first place as my monitor wont do 1080p over analog VGA so I finally got the option to run at 1080p with this new console. They also now have a set procedure for porting ownership of content to a new console and have done for a fair while whereby you merely submit your new console ID and a scan/fax of the replacement receipt from the retailer and they'll port the content ownership to the new system. Again, I was given a free 2100 points, not as much as last time but still something.

So the second time I got a sweet new V2 console and both times I got nice fresh new controllers and headsets which is a bonus as those type of things get a bit worn and tatty after a while anyway.

Should the system fail? Well of course not, but to suggest the process with dealing with faulty consoles is a big deal I think is a bit silly, having known 2 other people with RROD'd 360s who have also had similar experiences to me in that it's been quick and easy. Of course people have bad support experiences, personally I'd never purchase from Dell ever again as the result of such an experience but with bad support experiences on the net it's very easy to bend the truth a little, as I say what strikes me as odd is my last console was dealt with about 3 months ago and when I called support they were well aware of the issue and also the set procedure I mentioned they now have for dealing with DRM moves (rather than the previous aformentioned method of granting you points to rebuy on a new account to re-tie the games to a new console).

Besides, I'm not sure why this is news, the V2 consoles have been out ages now so the RROD whine is rather obsolete and I'm rather suprised to see last years whine making headlines again, aren't we supposed to be laughing at MS about how HD-DVD failed or something instead now?

Don't get me wrong, no DRM at all would be the best solution but let's face it, how many people would just copy games onto memory cards and pass round to their mates? Hell, you can even get memory card/360 hard drive to USB adapters so likely people would just grab them off bittorrent! I'm against DRM on a PC because it's a failed concept but on a console I see it as part of the package and in a way, one of the main tools consoles have for defeating cheating that is a major issue in online PC gaming.

Re:Ummm, not quite

[gorbachev]

Actually, they don't do this any more.

It's no longer "policy" by Microsoft to give you MS points to cover the DLC you can't use any more.

Apparently, according to comments on the Consumerist article, they stopped doing that sometime in October or November last year.

I think that's reprehensible.

Re:OR, just keep your silver account.

[C0rinthian]

Personally, I only use one profile that automatically signs into XBL, so the only time this would affect would be when my internet is out. Granted, that's not how it works for every user, but I would guess that this is how it works for most of them. It could use some fixing, but in the meantime it's usable. But it's not usable. (Not as it originally was)

Say you have Rock Band, and you buy a bunch of DLC tracks. If you get 3 friends over, you can play those tracks in a band. Cool.

Then your Xbox dies and you get it replaced. If I'm reading this stuff correctly, then when you try to do the above, it won't work. Because now, only the purchasing profile (yours) has the rights to use the DLC. No more DLC for your band unless your three friends have bought the tracks on their own live accounts. This goes for anything that is multiplayer, including Live Arcade games. You'll only be able to play trial versions if you have friends over.

Obviously, this is not acceptable.

Absolutely true!

[spideyct]

I can absolutely confirm I've experienced the same run around.
I received a replacement console after the red rings of death. I immediately called support regarding my content that no longer worked (without being logged in), went through a bunch of steps to confirm I couldn't get it to work (which was ridiculous - they MUST know that it wasn't going to work) and was then told I would be called back within a few days.
They never called, so I called them back. The same routine happened for about a month, with me calling back once a week. I had to start berating the support personnel and their powerless "supervisors" as they all continued to respond "be assured we are working on this and will have it resolved as soon as possible". No - you are NOT working on it - please stop the lies.
I finally talked to one support person that said "oh yeah, I don't know what those other guys were thinking, they logged your case completely wrong, I'll get this taken care of immediately, you shouldnt have had to wait this long. I schedule a call back with you on Monday to confirm". He went so far as to set up a specific 3 hour time period when I would receive the call back. Which of course never happened.
After going through these weekly calls of yelling at their useless "support" for a few months, I wrote to Major Nelson pleading my case (I don't know him personally, it was a desperation attempt). He sent my case number to someone in "escalations" who actually DID call me back. I thought I was finally getting somewhere. Within a week I got a call from someone in engineering confirming my console ID and serial number. Things looked promising.
That was 2 months ago.
My content has STILL not been unlocked.
And no, nobody was willing to give me points to re-buy the content. If they used to do that, they sure don't anymore.

I WAS a fanboy. The 360 and XBox Live were a great product. However, this is the absolute WORST customer experience I have ever had with any company, hands down. Because of their complete incompetence and unwillingness to resolve my issue, they have destroyed their image, and made me want to tell everyone I know about how bad their support is. Please spread the word.