Reader Mac’s XBOX 360 was out of warranty when it broke, so he decided to buy a new one thinking he could just transfer his old hard drive to the new XBOX. Sadly, no matter what he tries he can’t get his content to work properly on the new machine. He called Microsoft to see if they could help him out (after all they do this sort of transfer all the time for people whose boxes are replaced under warranty), but Microsoft’s only answer was “buy all your content a second time.”
Hi guys, not sure if you’re interested in putting this sort of thing on your site anymore, but I’ve had my own problems with Microsoft, the 360 and their support.
In a sentence, I called their support after replacing my busted 360, and their response to my question as to why I can’t access most of my content either online or offline from my old hard drive anymore was “Can’t help you, sorry. Buy all of the content a second time.”
Now here’s the long version:
I was kindly greeted by Alex, the automated system guy (I’ve never seen any company give theirs a name), then transferred over to a man who I believe went by the name “Jeeves” (at least that’s what it sounded like to me through the accent). After a bit of friendly banter and him asking me for a whole bunch of different information, I explained to him the following situation of which I will attempt to detail here in as few words as possible:
- My launch 360 broke about a year and a half ago, but it wasn’t under warranty, so I cracked it open and fixed it, making the new extended 3-year “three red ring” warranty void.- My launch 360 red ringed just a little while ago.
- I decide to purchase a new console, figuring I’d like the fresh warranty and the new (instead of refurbished) console, and I’d just put my old hard drive in the new console and things should work alright.
- Even after logging into Live, I can’t access the full games that I’d purchased over Live, so I call Microsoft’s Xbox support line, expecting someone to be friendly and help me with my problem. While they were friendly, the only solution I was offered was to buy all of my content a second time. Yes, they instructed me to buy the content AGAIN.
I promptly explained to them that they’ll transfer licenses between the broken and refurb consoles they send out, so I wondered why they couldn’t help me. I could prove that the consoles were both mine in whatever way they wanted, verify hard drive serial numbers, give them receipts, Xbox Live account information, etc… And I got nothing other than the exact same line about not being allowed by publishers to transfer licenses, and that they have to contact them about transferring licenses and get the publisher’s approval for each game.
Then I asked to be elevated, and “Jeeves” politely transferred me to his supervisor, Ian. I spoke with Ian briefly and he gave me the same response: “Buy the content again.” To his credit, he did get me to attempt some other things to at least get my content working when I’m online, but he ultimately said it’s not up to him.
It’s very frustrating, seeing as I’ve gifted consoles to friends, bought a launch 360, and even replaced my 360 when it broke, and now this is the sort of awesome customer service I get for being a dedicated 360 user.I’ll probably end up selling my two 360s and accessories, and buying something else with the money I get from it. This experience with Microsoft’s DRM has absolutely put me off of any of their products in the future, game-related or not.
- Mac
Any XBOX 360 experts have better advice for Mac than Microsoft did? Or does he really have to buy his content a second time?
(Photo: Milkham )
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@DoktorGoku: I’ve bashed every console there is. You expect me to count every single one? I’m not even going to bother replying the two page long comment I have. Here’s a quote for you. “You’re not worth it”.
@Buran: I apologize for the confusion in gender. I’ve never before known a female to engage in this level of fan-person-ish behavior.
What makes me reference you a fan(girl) is that you are in here repeatedly putting down the one console in favor of another. Look at how many anti-Microsoft/360 posts you have… in this very thread. Seriously- count them, then see if anybody else comes close. That’s enough on its own, but…
…what really makes me say it is that you have the unmitigated gall to tell other people to “learn to like” what the competition offers. This shows absolutely zero respect for the concept of people getting what they like most in the first place. Further, it shows an implied disdain for their tastes in entertainment. On top of that, it shows an incredible arrogance, showing an assumption that YOU know what entertainment is so much better than others. If you genuinely can’t see that, I don’t know how further to help.
Aside from my gender assumption, which I’ve now apologized for, my facts are very straight. I can respect other people’s choices, even if I disagree with them. I can also apologize when I’ve made an assumption. Can you?
@Papa Midnight: Congratulations on proving me correct. You not only cannot actually debate your points, but you feel that it is perfectly valid to tell other people to “shut up” in a discussion. Further, upon realizing that you can’t actually debate said points, you have to make personal attacks (“You’re not worth it”, you said) to cover up your utter lack of understanding of the subject.
Like I’ve said before, trolling behavior like that usually isn’t welcome here. Maybe you’ll learn to debate with maturity and self-control in the future.
Send an email to major@xbox.com stating your problem and with a link to this consumerist post. That’s the email for Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb). An email to him is probably more effective at getting XBOX issues solved than one to Billy.
Oh, in the Major’s last blogcast, he did say that user directed transferring of licenses from an old console (or multiple consoles) to one new one will be added to the xbox live system some time in June. It won’t be available from the console itself, but will be from xbox.com… it’s supposed to be similar to the refurb transfer of licenses that MS has been doing for a while now.
[majornelson.com]
@DoktorGoku: Actually, now that I’ve considered it, I will respond to your post.
One: Yes, It is an excellent example of maturity and critical thinking. I thank you for your brilliant observation, John Madden! Hats off to you, indeed! Okay, now that the sarcasm is past. Yes, I told him to “shut up”. Why? Because unfortunately, that seems to be the only way to get through to people these days. A reasonable debate cannot be held. Obviously posting an opinionated comment cannot stave off the diatribe of some users (as evidenced in the very comment sections of the entire Gawker network) so therefore, yes, I indeed did declare for him, or her (as we cannot assume), to “Shut Up”.
Two: Do not attack me for posting comments which may display a lack of maturity and then go around and do the same. It’s called being hypocritical. Yes, I do use the term fanboy, though quite sparingly. If I dare declare someone a fanboy, typically it is not without merit. If someone wishes to target me and attempt to flame me for posting my opinion, while themselves posting comments in which they call others, and quote: “Second Rate Citizens”, then chances are more than naught that the individual is a fanboy and therefore will be declared such.
Three: Yes, I do agree with Buran on many issues in regards to consoles. Is that wrong for me to cite a console with a reported 30% and higher failure rate as having a problem with both competing platforms are reported as having less than a 1% failure rate (PS3 | Wii)? Now I’d consider that good empowerment of a consumer to know what risk they may be engaging in by choosing to purchase a 360, a PS3, or a Wii.
Now I want to make things perfectly clear. From a business relationship standpoint, I loathe Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Perhaps I should be a little more specific. As a journalist who writes for and operates two seperate small media outlets, both in the field of new media and both with a focus on electronics (See: Game Politics, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, and Kotaku), I hate dealing with Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Microsoft, and Nintendo of America. Even more specifically, their Public Relations departments. Not pointing any names, but a certain individual who we will call “J” at Sony failed to render various units (I say “units” broadly). Microsoft and Nintendo never bothered to return one inquiry email or phone call. Funny how the world’s largest Publisher / Developer (Yes I am referring to Electronic Arts) is willing to help out a small media outlet but Microsoft nor Nintendo isn’t even willing to return a phone call or email. Even a copy and paste response would be reasonable. Hell, I’ve gotten tons of them from Sony. So from a business standpoint, I hate these companies.
Now from the other standpoint, the consumer standpoint. As a consumer, I’ve been dissapointed with Nintendo over the past decade. While I loved my N64, I was not happy with the GameCube. That has a whole reason in itself and this is not the forum for me to render my opinion on why. Then comes the Wii, which as someone once stated, had the power equivalent of “Two GameCubes duct taped toghether”. Now lets think longevity. The Wii as it stands has roughly the power equivalent to the original Xbox (Except that it can only output a max of 480p but thats not even a relative point right now). This may work for casual, Role Playing, and party games, but won’t get very far with action and extended adventure games – and even a role playing game will be limited in it’s total capabilities. Therefore, from a consumer standpoint, this can only last so long. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will have a much longer life expectancy than the Wii. I do not own one.
As for Sony… Sony had me sold with the PlayStation. I can find nothing wrong with it (though I wonder if they intentionally limited the size of memory card storage – and yes that includes the PS2 memory card). Now for the PlayStation 2: I liked this unit… For a while. Then something happened in 2003… Something that would make me weary of Sony products since: Disc Read Error. Of course, Sony would not repair it but I fixed it myself. I still cannot play some games and others work with shoddy performance. But it’s playable; though Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is somewhat difficult to play considering at times, sections fail to load and I have to stop driving while waiting for textures to appear. I like what I’m able to play so I have no true complaints. The unit still works. Now as for the PlayStation 3, I do not own one. I will get one when my college student budget allows for me to do so. As a unit, it appears to have a similar life time expectancy (barring any unit failures) to the Xbox 360. The appeal of expandable storage for reasonable prices in conjuction with native support for Linux and a drive supporting the next-generation optical disc format is an attraction as well. Forgive me if as a consumer, I see something that looks to be cost effective. From my observations of the unit, a larger library is needed as is a more proactive corporation. Though some of the first party games and subsequent third party games have proven to be quite fun.
Microsoft… I have mixed opinions for. I must admit that I preferred my PlayStation 2 to the Xbox though there were some games on the Xbox that drew my attention. However, most of these made their way to the PlayStation 2 so I did not complain. The Fatboy didn’t do much to attract my hands either. Having to pay to play online was also an extreme turn off causing me to once more redirect my attention to the PlayStation 2. The Xbox 360 has done nothing so far to change my mixed feelings for the console. I like some games on it. To be honest, if we’re comaparing controllers, I have no problem with either the PlayStation controller (If the design works, don’t change it… drastically) or Xbox 360 controller (Extremely well designed in terms of ergonomics and easability to reach controls). However, I still do not like the fact that one, Microsoft finds some justification in charging $179.99 USD for a 120GB HDD (Somehow, I can get nearly 1TB for the same cost), $100 for an 802.11g USB Adapter, nor do I like having to pay to play online. Perhaps this is why I cannot get into MMORPG’s. However, I have paid for approximately 3 months worth of Xbox Live as I have borrowed a friends Xbox 360 since December. Yes that does indeed mean I went 2 months without online play (One month of gold is granted free). I have other reasons for my dislike of the Xbox 360 unit (such as constant freezing during gameplay, etc.) and I have witnessed problems occuring with others units like shotty drives (which they were told by CSR’s didn’t apply under the Microsoft Extended Warranty). A friend of mine from college owned a 360, a PS3, and a Wii. He sold all his 360 games and started buying games for the PS3 instead. When I asked him why, his response was “Because I know my 360 is bound to fail one of these days”. Guess what occured in no more than 72 hours… RRoD.
So yes, I have bashed the Xbox 360, with merit. I have bashed the Nintendo Wii. I have also bashed the PlayStation 3. Add this post itself as a ticket to the counter. So to respond to you, let us recall what a fanboy is: Someone who blindly follows a company and raucosly defends that company even though said company couldn’t give a crap about him and is frankly only interested in how much $$$ he produces for them. For the closure of this post, please see my previous one directered at the other person whom you so readily and blindly defended. Who’s the true fanboy?
@DoktorGoku: What does it mean to assume?
Side note, sorry Jimbo, I fed it.
@Papa Midnight: Bad link. Here we go. How about that edit button?
It’s been WIDELY reported on gaming sites (including by MS themselves in the latest Major Nelson podcast) that a “DRM transfer tool” is being released in June. This tool will allow you to fix exactly the situation detailed here and is designed for people who have changed consoles but still have the same xbox live account.
While it’s annoying that the CSR didn’t know this, a simple google for “xbox 360 DRM update” shows tons of info on it.
@Papa Midnight: Thank you for typing out a well-thought out post. Unfortunately, despite all of that, you’re still missing the point.
I didn’t defend the other person- I described how your responses were inappropriate. Show me where I said that what he said/did/whatever was good or defendable. Go ahead.
Oh, you can’t.
“What does it mean to assume?” You should probably ask yourself that question- assuming that I am hypocritical, eh? Show me where I told another user to “shut up”. Go ahead. Show me where I told another user that they “weren’t worth it”. Go ahead.
Oh, you can’t.
You talked (typed) a lot- but you didn’t say anything. The point is, you’ve made an inordinate amount of posts here trying to bash something. Show me somebody else in this thread who’s made as many angry videogame posts. You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that it’s ok to tell others to “shut up” in a debate. You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that it’s ok to personally insult others, saying that they’re “not worth it”.
This brings us back to your question. Who’s the true fanboy here?
Looking at all the evidence above… it’s you.
It was a nice try, but you should really learn to address the points that others make, instead of regressing to personal insults and “shut up”s. Like I said before- maybe you’ll learn to debate with maturity and self-control in the future.
By the way, you should probably learn to use the “Preview Comment” function there, champ- helps prevent triple posts and all that, y’know.
I’ve made my point. No need in continuing to feed the trolls. Such is how you’ve already proven it. Thank you, and as I said, Have a nice day.
@satoru: Wii DRM is actually worse than 360 DRM. If my 360 breaks out of warranty and I buy a new one I can use my gamertag (and future online tool) to recover all my downloaded content. However if I buy a new Wii, the games are tied to the console you bought them on, moving them over to the new system on a SD card won’t help. Maybe you can call Nintendo and they can transfer the license, but they’d have to have a way to prevent abuse.
@Papa Midnight: Uh-huh.
The guy who tells others to “shut up” and then personally insults others (because he can’t answer them), telling them that they are “not worth” a response is calling others trolls when they ask him to actually provide evidence for what he’s claiming, or to at least debate in a mature manner.
Yeah, that’s the ticket! Obviously everybody will believe you now!
The only point you’ve made in discussion here is that you’ve yet to grasp the subtleties of an intelligent debate. Have a good one.
@DoktorGoku: And yet he consistently proves my point. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
@BBF_BBF: The fact that you used the term “blogcast” makes it obvious that you are a plant for Microsoft. Get over it, the accepted term is “podcast”.
@DoktorGoku: You misunderstand, entirely, apparently (as far as I can tell) assuming that I’m some kind of fan of a particular game or platform or something.
I’m not.
I’m “putting down” a product that repeatedly breaks and is “supported” by a company that has shown a repeated failure to take care of people who have experienced issues and has shown a repeated failure to actually fix the issue in the hardware to prevent future errors.
I’m supporting the idea of not supporting such companies and supporting, instead, those that do their job right, make reliable products, and take care of customers when problems DO happen.
Somehow, this very simple piece of very straightforward logic that seems to reign elsewhere on a site named CONSUMERist, not “support the failing idiotic company that can’t get its shit together”-ist, makes me a fangirl.
That doesn’t compute. If I, in a story about how bad Home Depot is (to draw on a recent example) started talking about how I’d patronize Lowe’s, and tell others that they should do the same and that both Home Depot and Lowe’s serve the same purpose, because they have a reputation for better service and don’t spawn horror stories, would you call me a Lowe’s fangirl?
If I suggested that people wanting to register for gift lists for special events do so with, say, Nordstrom’s rather than Target, due to Target’s consistent behavior of refusing refunds even when it’s clear that the items were purchased from Target, demanding ridiculous and rude behavior from gift recipients, and due to Target’s total lack of any sign that they will fix these repeated horror stories in the future, would you call me a Lowe’s fangirl?
Sounds rather logical to me, in all three cases. And yet, mud gets flung at me for being LOGICAL? Like I said, sure looks to me like the irrational fanpeople are the ones slinging mud to look up and use the logical part of their brains.
(and I wasn’t actually angry about the gender mix-up. Don’t worry about it).
@Buran: second should say “Nordstrom’s fangirl”.
And I’d like to take this “edit” to again say that I have no idea why I’m being bashed all of a sudden for sensible advice to go with more worthy companies. It really doesn’t make one whit of sense to me.
Why is it that people (not pointing fingers at anyone in particular) are suddenly reacting to this sensible advice with namecalling, when that doesn’t happen in the Lowe’s or Target threads and no one gets called fanboy/fangirl, accused of being biased in favor of (or against) a company no matter how many times the person being accused states that that’s not what’s going on at all and that the whole thing is based on logic and not any bias for one company over another beyond one sucking and one not?
And why is it that having to repeat the truth multiple times doesn’t stop the false accusations and insults? It’s like the truth goes in one ear and out the other.
Like I said, I’m not the fan(boy|girl) around here from the looks of things.
Take off the blinders, people, and THINK about why people might be saying that it’s a good idea to drop the bad ones like a hot potato and get to like the competition that can serve the same function as the idiots!
Small claims court. You paid money for the content, they won’t let you have it. The state Attorney General’s office ought to be a good option too.
Out of Warranty? I got my Xbox 360 at launch and I was still in warranty when I asked them for repairs. Did he know about their 3 year warranty extension? In any case, I got a replacement 360. I haven’t checked my downloaded content. I’ll have to get back to you on that. I just want to say this dude wasted his time and money getting a new 360 when it broke down. The system came out in Nov 2005 and the warranty is still good until Nov 2008.
@adamsummers: No, I’m not a microsquid plant. I hate them as much as I hate any company that applies overly restrictive DRM all over their products. That applies to Sony, Apple, etc, etc, as well.
I just don’t like using a term which implies the recorded audio broadcast has anything to do with the iPod or any drm infested device… I’d rather be brand agnostic and hence “blog”cast rather than “pod”cast.
Sheesh… conspiracy geeks are so paranoid. So by your own logic, *you* must be an Apple plant then.
You should be able to play your games that you purchase if you’re logged into Live.
If not, hang tight, Microsoft announced a “DRM TOOL” that will fix all the DRM issues with buying a new system/transferring hard drives, etc.. It’s coming out within 1-2 months.
@Asvetic:
If you are switching to Sony because you are expecting less DRM and more customer support, you are about to get a brutal awakening. I don’t have either console, but Sony’s track record speaks for itself. It includes proprietary formats for things that should be universal (ie- the memory stick), DRM to the hilt (ie – the sony rootkit fiasco), membership in RIAA, and more.
You *really* expect a company that puts a *rootkit* on customer hard drives to save you from DRM?
Unlikely.
Wasn’t part of the terms on the extended RRoD warranty that they would replaced an RRoD console EVEN IF you had repaired it yourself, including paying for the initial repair cost?
@MonkeyMonk:
Same here. I don’t have much sympathy for anyone who gives a coporation this much power over them.
This smells like BS. I have used my same hard drive on 3 seperate 360′s and the content is always accessible when logged into Live.
@kabes: That’s right, because you were logged in, and so you could use the online method of authentication to unlock the content.
Take your hard drive, put it on another 360, any 360 other than the one where you purchased the content, and then sign in to your gamertag without internet access. Your Xbox Live Arcade games will revert to demos, and game content DLC will disappear.
What’s being complained about here is the offline mode.
@BBF_BBF: I do agree that the “do you work for (x)” comments can be a bit much (though I’ve done them occasionally, I admit). However, “blogcast” is, as pointed out, not the accepted term for what you are talking about. I doubt you’ll get far trying to get people to change — about as far as Hormel has gotten in trying to get people to change how they talk about junk email. (read: not one bit). People/entities who try to change language after it’s that established are basically tilting at windmills — but best of luck all the same…
I also think “podcast” sounds better, personally.
This is why Microsoft’s DRM sucks. Apple and Real have it right.
@Buran: I agree “blogcast” not the accepted term. Did anybody *not* get what I was tTalking about, though?
I certainly don’t correct others when they use “podcast”, so I expect others to respect my choice as well.
Anyways, when specifically referring to Major Nelson’s blogcast/podcast, both terms are appropriate because that’s what he refers to them as.
@Buran: Let me just say that I and a few friends have had launch 360′s and have experienced no problems at all with them. True it has a higher then acceptable failure rate but the fact is angry people speak louder then happy people. This makes the severity of the problem appear magnified. It also didn’t hurt when MS extended the warranty for 3 more years when a console experiences hardware failure. People continue to buy because the 360 has a truly awesome library of games and I think that developers are just now tapping the true power of the system. So for me, I have no regrets in my 360 purchase. Also I feel it’s worth saying that I believe my opinion is unbiased as I also own and enjoy 2 Sony systems. Just my thoughts…
@lestat730: Oh, for those who have them and haven’t had problems, I hope you never do. My issue is with the reaction I’m getting… you’d think people are actually TRYING to get screwed over/bent over by big business — which makes no sense on a site named “consumerist”. If you want big business to change, which this site is all about, don’t patronize the bad ones. It’s not like people don’t have choices.
@microbefox: If you read, it stated that he voided his own warranty because he was out of the warranty when it broke the first time so he fixed it himeself. Thus when it RRoD’d and the new 3 year warranty was instated, he was not applicable for it due to already voiding his own.
I understand the plight the guy who sent this in is going through, but I’ve recently had my licenses transferred from a launch box to a replacement system that I got using the Best Buy PRP. It was a pretty simple process and took about a week. Basically I gave them the info for my second box and a receipt that showed I had it exchanged at Best Buy. There was never a warranty question, nothing whatsoever.
I think the bigger question is why transferring the hard drive didn’t work. Even if your system is different you should at least have been able to play while online. And even if they didn’t work while online you could have deleted the games and redownloaded them while logged into live. It just makes no sense that you wouldn’t have been able to.
Anyway, yeah MS screwed the pooch tying your content to a specific console. At the very least each company should adopt an apple style authorization policy, where you have like 2 or 3 consoles your content is able to work on, but hindsight is 20/20.
This isn’t fair. You pay for stuff and the XBOX 360 breaks, and you’re expected to pony up for the things again?
Hey all, i just signed up today to give you my experience.
1. Brought a launch 360, got xbox live gold, sold it after 8 months.
2. Brought another 360 about 6 months ago, used the SAME nickname and account details.
3. Remembered the xbox live games i had brought before (they had a tick next to them) and just downloaded them again, and it worked fine..no licence transfer stuff, this was a clean xbox 360 “falcon” and all i did was download the games again, and they were the full versions, as purchased on xbox live.
So i haven’t had this problem, but just thought i’d share a positive experience.
Thanks, Rob C (Australia)
this is annoying, i was actually searching to see if I could call up microsoft and replace my xbox 360 for a new one because my old one is just saying ‘to play this disc put it in an xbox 360 console’ and then when i put it on it bottom so upwards it wont let me open the disc thing.
any ideas?