So it is about Xbox 360 and winning the next generation console race. EXCUSE ME but Xbox 360 is NOT next-gen and don’t get me wrong neither is PS3 or Nintendo Wii. They are CURRENT generation of consoles. Let us have a look:

Previous generation

• Nintendo: Game Cube
• Sony: PlayStation 2
• Microsoft: Xbox

Current generation

• Nintendo: Wii
• Sony: PLAYSTATION 3
• Microsoft: Xbox 360

Next generation

• Let us wait and see what they will announce in the future.

Sure there are also ‘older generations’ with Nintendo 64, PSone, SNES, Dreamcast and many more.

When PS3 and Xbox 360 was announced they became Next-Gen then they got released and therefore must be current generation of consoles.

Oh, and who is going to win the current generation race; who knows. My guess is that they will all 3 be winners, one way or another.

Anyway this is just my opinion on this. I’m sure not all will agree.

So all were happy, just until yesterday where Mario told me that he YET again had problems with his XBox. So he contacted them AGAIN and is now he is waiting for his fifth XBox 360 within ONE year.

They did mention they would give him a total new XBox 360, with the latest chips and cooling. But if you ask me, then they should give him a XBox 360 Elite, with 120GB HD and the HDMI port.

So what does Mario do while waiting for his new XBox, he buys Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii. Reminds me, I have had the game for close to two weeks now and I didn’t even try it.

Hope the new XBox will return soon to him and that he will no longer have problems with it.

All roads of Broken XBox’s leads to Teleplan Germany

My friend Mario from Germany had the same issue (again) with a broken XBox and also contacted Microsoft the same day as I did, his got picked up earlier than mine and arrived at the repair center pretty quickly after. It turned out that my XBox also got sent to the same place as his, so to Teleplan in Germany. It seems that Teleplan is the company handling XBox repairs for Europe (I did some searching and saw that people from none Germany speaking countries also got their sent to Teleplan in Germany), but this does not mean that the repair is handled there as some people wrote that their XBox got resend to Prague.

The Repair Race

So we both contacted Microsoft on the 23rd of October; he in the morning and I in the afternoon. He got his returned Thursday the 8th November and I got mine on the 13th of November. So with all the customs delays mine went through I find it went pretty quick after all; just 20 days including weekends. But Mario won the XBox repair time race.

Microsoft paying up

Microsoft once mentioned that extending the world wide guarantee to 3 years would cost them 1.5 billion USD; if I just think about all the costs for UPS then I get scared. I mean, they send an empty box; they pay for shipment of the broken XBox and of course the repaired XBox. The invoices I have here gives 52 EURO for the empty box and 60 EURO for the returned XBox, so all in all around 170 EURO just for shipment. Oh, they also gave a one month member ship to XBox Live Gold, guess that’s pretty fair as I did pay for the time the XBox was away.

Back to gaming

Never mind, I got it back and so far seems to work without problems. Just hope it will continue to do so; as I’m not in the mood to return it yet again.

So time to check the latest XBox games I got (Halo 3 & Sonic the Hedgehog) and see what else have appeared on XBox Live Arcade.

I finally got around calling Microsoft’s XBox 360 the other day. It went very smooth to explain the problem with ‘The Red Ring of Death’, guess it was not first time for them :-) Just had to mention the problems with the light and the girl at support took over, just one question from her (beyond identifying me) and that was about the light on the power supply. A good friend of mine had already mentioned this so I had the answer ready; he also called Microsoft the same day, to get this 4th XBox 360.

So now I’m waiting for UPS to show up with cardboard box so I can return it again with UPS. The repair time should be around 15 working days. So now the race is on with my friend, does it go faster in Germany or here in Switzerland.

Game ordering of the day

I don’t expect any problems with the repair/replacement so I went ahead today and ordered Halo 3 and Sonic Hedgehog for XBox 360. Sonic Hedgehog is more for my son than it is for me; I never liked the Sonic games after they went 3D. I remember getting the game for Dreamcast but only played it a few times. But my son plays the demo often and since the game dropped a good bit in I decided to get it also.

I also ordered Super Paper Mario for Nintendo Wii, one game I have been looking forward to for a good time. I never played the Paper Mario before so it will be rather interesting.

The final game I ordered was The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo NDS, first Zelda game I get for hand held. My only Zelda experience was on Nintendo Wii; I never completed it but was very fascinated by it.

So time to sit back and wait for the games to arrive and then it is gaming time.

I have to admit that I never played any version of Halo before but I’m actually considering it now. The main reason for it is to check out if the game is over hyped or if it really lives up to the hype. Recently you have not been able to go to any game web site without getting Halo 3 ads and the latest news about Halo 3, unless of course you went to some PlayStation or Nintendo web site.

The previous versions did arrive for Windows and one even for the Mac!!! So the question is will Halo 3 also come for Windows? I would expect to see it on PC during 2008; Halo 2 was released a few month go for Windows so it would be crazy to release Halo 3 too soon. I’m pretty sure that the Windows version will require Windows Vista, just as Halo 2 does.

So what does this leave me with…? I will be getting the Xbox 360 version as I don’t use Vista (Nor plan to). I didn’t buy the game get as I got a serious problem with my Xbox 360. It is broken :-( got The Red Ring of Death so I will need to check if I can get it replaced by Microsoft.

So when that is sorted the hype should have calmed down and it should be possible to get an English version here in Switzerland, currently they are sold out. And then I will yet again hear from my son: “Dad, can I play that new game… I’m only 8 but that is almost okay, right?” I feel sorry for him, it will go the same way as with Gears of War, you can look at the box and that’s all.

I hope that I during the next few month will be able to play the game and then I will of course report back right here about it. For now I suggest that you check what the news media had to say about the launch of Halo 3. Enjoy.