IGN,
Kotaku and a few other gaming related sites have begun fervently
covering a recent story from The Consumerist entitled Microsoft
Tells Broken Xbox Owners To Find Their Own Shipping Boxes, under
the popular consumer blog's Recession Watch section. The story
follows the news from one of their readers, Zach, whose Xbox 360 has
fallen victim to the Red Ring of Death, officially known as the Three
Lights Flashing
Red (not exactly as snappy as the Red Ring of Death,
now is it?). Zach reports to The Consumerist that he called Microsoft
to submit a replacement request and a shipping box for his now-broken
console. To his dismay, Zach was informed by the Microsoft support
representative that he would need to find his own box for shipping
the console to the repair and replacement centre.
Zach
writes to The Consumerist, “My Xbox red-ringed for the second time
this weekend.
Which is almost a relief after hearing how bad my disc
drive was sounding, but not so
much after hearing the new policy. I
was told that Xbox no longer ships out a box to you and you must find
a box to ship it out in. Yeah I guess its not a big deal, but I think
it gives them another thing to hold over your head; 'We are sorry,
Sir, but you didn't back it well enough and it appears the damage was
due to shipping, we cannot help you'.”
In
response to this, The Consumerist says, “This might not seem like a
big problem-it's just a box, right? Yes, but the problem that Zach
had, the Red Ring of Death, is such a notorious failure in the Xbox
360 that Microsoft extended its warranty three years for RROD
repairs. It's enough of an inconvenience that Zach's console broke
from a design flaw and will be inoperable for several weeks; now he
needs to track down a box and packing supplies for it?” And Kotaku,
playing off the assumption that this has something to do with the
recession, writes, “Sounds ominous. And, given these tough economic
times, somewhat plausible...”.
The
only issue with this entire story is that it's nothing new, and has
nothing to do with the recession! Microsoft was already making Xbox
360 owners send in their broken units in their own boxes since, at
the very least, last August, when we sent in our Elite to be
replaced.
Since it is highly unlikely that ours was the first case of Microsoft
doing this, we can assume that it had been the case for some before
that. With all this in mind, the insinuation that this has anything
to do with the recession is ridiculous. Maybe that was the point (I
guess I might not read The Consumerist enough to know if it's joking
or not). However, to say that Microsoft stopped sending out boxes
because of the recession is to say that Microsoft knew the recession
was coming well before it hit, and no offence to Microsoft, but it's
not exactly known for planning in advance for huge problems (ever
watched the unveiling of Windows operating systems?).
Finally,
so what if you have to send the system in your own box? Is it really
that difficult to pad it properly for shipping? We padded our box
with other boxes when we sent
our unit in, and Microsoft gave us no issues. If you're really
that worried about the job you did padding the box, you probably
didn't pad it well enough, or you could take a picture of the
properly padded box or film yourself padding it so you've got
evidence of what a good job you did. Can't find a box to ship your
system in? Go to a retail store and ask them if they've got any open
boxes that you can have. They usually will. If you go into a video
game store or retailer that sells video games asking for an empty box
for shipping your dead Xbox 360, they'll probably be even more
helpful.
In
other words, don't be so lazy!