I'm not buying an Xbox 360 because my HD-DVD repair experience has been crap

I think I’ve decided that if I can avoid it, I’m going to skip the 360. Looking back over my posts about how thoroughly Sony has screwed up the PS3, and how I’d recommend the 360 in almost any case a consumer has a choice, this is a big change.

Why?

Because my experience with Xbox support has been so damned horrible. Horrible. Did I say horrible yet?

I’ve been treated like crap, and the people at the call center seem more interested in mispronouncing my name and “apologizing” than in getting anything accomplished.

Since I’ve been through this giganitc mess, I want a replacement drive shipped to me ASAP. But they won’t do it. The ONLY thing they claim they are capable of doing is shunting me back in to the “repair” process that took over a month to not work in the first place, not to mention they’re asking me to pay to ship it to them…AGAIN.

That is completely unacceptable.

Today I had a support service person tell me that he was the top of the pyramid for MS support. That’s bullshit. Nobody in India is in charge of US support at Microsoft. Not only that, but he told me he didn’t have the power to deviate from protocol.

If I call support, and they can’t help me, and they refuse to transfer me to someone who can, what’s the point?

It makes me mad, because I like the 360. I’m going to want one when I move to a new place (I’m using my roommate’s now). I’m going to want to play games on the 360. But I’m going to try very hard not to buy one, because the xbox division of MS does not deserve my money.

I’m not very good at being a bitchy customer, because normally I get good support. I don’t really know what else to do at this point. I guess I give up and I’m out $200 and I have a broken HD-DVD drive. What a shitty way to treat a customer, especially one who has enthusiastically recommended your products for about six years.