Xbox repair process leaves gamers in a fix

Microsoft's announcement that it will spend $1 billion to fix problematic Xbox 360s seemed like a step that would assuage disenchanted customers. Nearly a month later, however, some console owners are still less than pleased.

Complaints regarding Xbox repairs and service aren't hard to find. Visit, for instance, Microsoft's official Xbox Live forums. Customers have a range of gripes: customer service reps failing to follow up as promised, receiving broken consoles from the repair center, losing money on prepaid Xbox Live subscriptions and longer-than-expected fix times.

Microsoft, for its part, said the raft of service requests since the announcement of the new three-year warranty has increased the turnaround time for repairs. "We have been and continue to build out our repair teams to help reduce turnaround times," the company said in an e-mailed statement.

Reports of problems with the popular game console surfaced almost immediately after its 2005 launch. The complaints didn't seem to deter buyers, however. Since the product came out, Microsoft has sold 5.8 million next-generation game consoles in the U.S. alone through June, according to the NPD Group. The Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3, both launched last November, have moved 3.2 million and 1.5 million units in the U.S. through June, respectively.

If you ask me what's worse--my box going dead or the experience getting it fixed--it's the experience getting it fixed.

--Jessie Lawrence,
Xbox 360 owner

The warranty extension hasn't satisfied everyone for other reasons as well. That's because the extension is limited to consoles that display three blinking lights, or the "Red Ring of Death," as it is known to the gaming community. The three red lights indicate a "general hardware failure," according to Microsoft.

Of all the complaints from Xbox warranty repair customers, the most common one is excessive wait times of four weeks to eight weeks, in some cases.

"My Xbox took almost two months to come back," Greg Mcullen, 21, of New York, wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com, "which was very aggravating since I was told I'd have it back in 10 days."

The return process goes something like this: an Xbox owner calls customer service and describes the problem. If the console can be serviced, a box is sent to the customer with prepaid shipping. The customer then uses the box to send the console to the repair center. The console is then either fixed or replaced and sent to the customer.

Microsoft said the standard repair time runs from two weeks to four weeks. "As we are rolling the new policy out, we expect an increased number of calls and repairs so turnaround times may be longer in the interim," the company said in an e-mail.

Some Xbox 360 customers acknowledge more despair than anger at separation from their prized device.

"I really miss my Xbox 360," one person using the handle "mbmstein" wrote in a thread titled "How Long Was Your 360 Away for Repair?" on the Xbox Live Forums. "I hope the service center sends it back someday. Or sends me a (refurbished console) someday. Or maybe even a new one someday...I don't like doing without my next-gen console for months on end."

Being without one's Xbox can also cost people money. Many Xbox 360 users subscribe to Xbox Live, a service that lets players connect with other Xbox users online via their game consoles and play against one other. The service is often paid for in advance, so an unusable console means an unused subscription.

Microsoft has apparently recognized the problem and is compensating some of its customers with a free month of Xbox Live with the repaired or replaced console. But a number of customers have been without their console for longer, thus missing more Xbox Live time. Microsoft declined to say how those customers are being compensated and would only say that it "will take care of customers as appropriate should they experience problems with their consoles."

Other complaints revolve around cases in which the consoles are not actually fixed, just replaced with older, refurbished consoles.

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