I'm Just Inconsolable

My Xbox 360 console has the Red Ring of Death. ..Again.

And people wonder what causes some deranged lunatic to go on a shooting rampage from the top of a water tower. Well, I can tell you. She was perfectly normal yesterday. But she's been on hold with MS tech support for 2 hours at a stretch, several times over, repeating the same litany of "yes, it's plugged in. yes, there's a disk in it. yes, it's connected over wifi. no, it's showing 4 red rings on the front, around the power button, where green rings should be. yes, it's plugged in. No, there's nothing blocking the vent holes - i've got it suspended in a climate-controlled space at the middle of the room using an elaborate anti-gravity field with... yes, it's plugged in. yes, there's power in my house; listen, hear that? I'm popping popcorn as we speak... yes, i have turned it off, waited 20 seconds and turned it back on... yes, I've tried sacrificing a chicken... no, not a polish chicken; hold on... [chicken noises...] ... no, that didn't work either... no, i didn't try it while standing on my head... oh, on the chicken's head?

...and has finally sent her Xbox back to them. They returned it "repaired," and it worked for a few months, but then it started to tease her. It started employing what can only be seen as quite sadistic torture patterns of working, then freezing, then working, then shutting down at random, then refusing to shut down at random... then, to climax, first one red bar, then two... then three... then... ...

After waiting several hours to talk to someone at tech support, finally "Rijad" explains that we can send the box in again, and they'll fix it again. The box will be gone from 2 to 3 months. Note: Months. And this is right around the Xmas holiday, during which I've already gleaned that my main gifts will be two 360 games that I've wanted. Irony galore there...

Especially note that, the last time, I was fairly sure that I hadn't gotten my own box back. This seemed strange to me, so I mentioned it. "Oh, no, of course you won't get your same machine back," I am informed, as though it should be obvious and I should feel the fool for even suggesting otherwise.
"We take machines in for refurbish and send them back out. It's more of an assembly line, like first-in-first-out, and the boxes aren't tracked that far. But you will receive a working console."
I clean my console regularly. I know the air blows some undesirable matter into the vents, and I routinely wipe the console down and blow it out. Plus, you know, it's been marked with my scent - the aura of my home; something sort of jasminey and rosey and with a hint of feminine musk. You're telling me that I'm sending you a nice, clean box that's "mine!" and you'll send me back some "fixed" but potentially janky machine that smells faintly of underage testosterone and Doritos, that who knows who's kid has sneezed into or pried open the disk tray with peanut-butter fingers, after wiping their nose, or god knows what. Yeah, thank you for that. Shall I just go ahead and wrap it in plastic right now so that when the FBI comes looking for DNA from "secretions" I haven't compromised any evidence? The last time I "got it back" i spent the whole first day cleaning the "use" out of the grain of the case - this was a major tipoff that you hadn't sent me my original box. That really hurt my opinion of you, any fantasy I'd had about your capacity to care about me, your customer, and any credibility I'd been harbouring for you in my mind.
Wouldn't have been nearly so bad if I wasn't completely aware that I'd surely had this to look forward to again, since the reports showed that... hold on, I get pretty angry and emotional at this point...
Let's breathe slowly a few times here...

The @$#*(*$% Microsoft Fiasco
Microsoft knew *before the first unit was relesaed* that up to 1 in 3 of the XBoxes coming off the assembly line were defective. The heat sinks on the motherboard were inadequate and would fail under normal operating conditions most of the time, leading to warped motherboards. Inferior welding and contacts, used because they were cheaper. And you *knew* this, even before production. Did you think I (*the public) was that stupid?
Let's pause to fully absorb this point, because it is very important. **Microsoft knew that up to 30% - one in three customers - were paying $200 to $300 for a product that was highly likely to fail catastrophically due to a known defect in production. This wasn't a calculated risk based on marginal results of "something *might* go wrong." There was the *clear and irrefutable evidence* that 1 out of every 3 machines coming off the line were catastrophically defective, and could be expected to last at most a few months each. Product for which users were going to pay upward of $300 and which MS knew was worth exactly dick. What would an ethical company do upon learning of such a bad defect? An ethical company would halt production, find the cause of the problem, and solve it in the production chain before resuming business activities. Of course, Microsoft did not do that.
Microsoft took the gamble that most of the world's gamers are non-confrontational enough to let it slide. That people will discover the flaw, but will be too logical and pragmatic to think it could have been intentional, and MS would be forgiven for this transgression. That most people would swallow the "oops" statements as fact and allow this bit of a controversy to be swept under the rug by their ample PR firm, until the quality of games on the platform made up for it. And that happened, to some degree.
Meanwhile, I sit as one of 6 people who can't even make the damned console work. Looks like I'm back to my Intellivision for the holidays. At least that's never failed me.