Breaking news: Microsoft extends XBox 360 warranty to 3 years

Amazing. Pigs do fly after all.

In a stunning admission of XBox 360 hardware problems Microsoft has announced that they’re extending warranty on all XBox 360s to three years. Microsoft is also reimbursing any costs paid by customers for earlier repairs.

This comes after months of ducking the question about XBox 360 failure rates. It seems Microsoft grew tired of not answering the same question and instead decided to address their quality issues the way they should’ve done it in the first place.

I’m looking forward to my check from Microsoft. I am going to frame it.

Big MegaCorp vs. Customers 0 – 1

Also read Peter Moore’s Open Letter to XBox 360 customers. Quite the change of tune from before.

-TPP

Apparently playing a District Attorney doesn’t make one respect the rule of law

I am very happy for Scooter Libby. I know that this is a great relief to him, his wife and children. While for a long time I have urged a pardon for Scooter, I respect the President’s decision. This will allow a good American, who has done a lot for his country, to resume his life.

Those are the words of Fred Thompson, a would-be presidential candidate for the Republican Party, and an actor who plays a New York City District Attorney in TV series Law and Order. Apparently his role as the guardian of the rule of law in the TV series doesn’t extend to his real life.

There are plenty of “good Americans” sentenced to prison terms each and every day in this country. Most of them don’t have personal friends in the White House, so they actually end up serving their sentences.

-TPP

Dick Cheney, President of the Pave The Earth Society

The Washington Post has an interesting article about Dick Cheney’s work to systematically destroy the environment in favor of giving handouts to businesses affected by environmental regulations.

His track record is abysmal, though. The article has two examples where his meddling into environmental policy came at pretty high costs, and ultimately was not successful, quite the opposite actually.

Klamath River is one of the habitats of endangered fish. It’s also a source of irrigation water for local farmers, who have been suffering from lack of water ever since the rain levels dropped and the Endangered Species Act prohibited taking adequate amounts of water from the Klamath River. Dick Cheney maneuvered around the Endangered Species Act and made sure the farmers got their water. The fish died, and a federal court ruled against Dick Cheney’s new “environmental policy” a few years later and prohibited the Federal Government from diverting water from the Klamath River. Meanwhile the fishermen in the area had their livelihood completely decimated and US Congress authorized $60M in disaster aid to keep the fishing industry from completely disappearing. What an astounding victory for Dick Cheney!

The other example the article states is the relaxing of air pollution regulations by the Environment Protection Agency. It turns out Dick Cheney ram the new “pro-business” regulations down the throat of EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman. She refused to sign the new air pollution regulations because she knew they weren’t scientifically sound. She resigned. The new regulations went into affect only to be overturned by federal appeals court. The federal appeals court judges stated in their decision to struck down the new regulations that:

…administration had redefined the law in a way that could be valid “only in a Humpty-Dumpty world.”

Humpty-Dumpty sounds about right.

-TPP

Microsoft continues to deny quality problems with the XBox 360

The XBox 360 video game console is built by Microsoft. It was launched November 2005 in the United States and it cost $400.

The early manufacturing run(s) have widely been reported as having pretty serious quality issues. Those early units are failing at alarming frequency, in fact at such alarming frequency Microsoft offered to repair any 2005 manufactured XBox 360s for free, but only until the end of 2006. If you didn’t get a free repair, it’ll cost you $140 plus shipping to get it repaired by Microsoft.

I belong to a large online gaming community called Seasoned Gamers. We’ve got close to 1,000 active members. A lot of us own XBox 360s. The failure rates among the members are nowhere near the 2 – 3 percent range Microsoft wants us to believe, that is when they actually do talk about numbers. Four months ago the SG members had reported over 50 dead XBox 360s. There were several who had had more than one die on them.

If you round the SG members’ numbers up generously (for Microsoft) assuming there are 1,000 active members (there are less), and that everyone owns an XBox 360 (they don’t), you end up with a 5% failure rate within our community. During the past four months more XBox 360 units have died, so the failure rate among the members of SG is much closer to 10% than 5%, and it is probably higher than 10% by now. What Microsoft is saying and what SG members are seeing is statistically significantly different. Microsoft is basically full of shit when they claim the failure rates are not significant and are within “normal boundaries” or failure rates in electronic devices.

Yet Microsoft continues to publicly deny a problem, as is evident in an interview by Dean Takahashi, a well known journalist who has written books about the video gaming industry and the XBox in particular. In his interview of Todd Homdahl, Vice President of Gaming and Xbox Products Group at Microsoft directly responsible for the quality of the XBox 360 product, Dean tries to get a straight answer from Mr. Homdahl regarding the XBox 360 failure rates. The interview is a bizarre game of hide and seek with Dean trying his best to get an answer. Mr. Homdahl isn’t budging though and keeps evading the question with platitudes, half-truths and marketing bullshit.

Mr. Homdahl sums up Microsoft’s position with this wonderful statement:

We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.

Way to go Todd! That’s exactly the message people with 100% failure rates need to hear. We know you really care, you’re just one of those shy silent types that aren’t really comfortable in saying you care. We know.

-TPP

Republicans playing politics with people’s lives

The Washington Post has uncovered a blatant effort by Bushies to stack the immigration courts with Republican (and presumably anti-immigration) judges, who often have no other qualifications than being loyal to Emperor Bush. These judges reside over deportation proceedings and other serious immigration matters. They literally can decide the faith of immigrants’ lives…with little or no experience in immigration law. It’s kinda like putting a an international horse show judge in charge of FEMA.

One third of all immigration judges appointed by the Attorney General since 2004 have close ties to the Republican Party. It’s illegal, btw, to appoint civil service employees such as immigration judges based on political factors. But what’s illegally appointing party loyalists compared to illegally wiretapping the entire country.

You know, if the Republicans really want that bad to keep the brown people out of the country, why don’t they just make a law that says that, rather than try all these behind closed doors tricks to do the same.

-TPP

New York State anti-video game bills getting more opposition

GamePolitics.com is reporting two separate news about the New York State anti-video game bills are getting some heat from people concerned about them.

The CEO of Vicarious Visions, a video game developer from Albany, NY, writes a rather excellent editorial in Times Union, a newspaper in Albany. The editorial mentions the failed attempts of legislating video games in other states, and how the court battles there have cost tax payers almost $2M USD. He’s warning the New York State legislators from going the same path given the sorry state of New York State finances. He’s recommending the legislators concentrate their legislative efforts in encouraging the use of the ESRB ratings and educating parents of the ratings and parental controls already used by the video gaming industry and retailers.

More importantly, it seems the legislators themselves are waking up to the realities of the two bills. Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson recently challenged Andrew “Virginia Tech in every sentence” Lanza in the New York State Senate about the constitutional concerns of his bill. Lanza remained clueless, as always. I’m very encouraged by the fact that he’s, in fact, finally getting challenged by someone over this issue. If the bills don’t get struck down before Eliot Spitzer signs them, the legal fees will come down on us New York State tax payers.

-TPP

New York State Senator Lanza continues to milk the Virginia Tech tragedy for political gain

The anti-video game bill championed by New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and New York State Senator Andrew Lanza has been passed by the New York State Senate in four days after getting introduced. Looks like the debate over the bill was thorough and comprehensive. Not.

Andrew Lanza continues his blatant exploitation of the Virginia Tech tragedy to promote his misguided attempts to save the kids from these awful video games. His press release about the passing of the bill says:

“The recent release of ‘V-Tech Massacre,’ a sick game which exploits the Virginia Tech University tragedy, is a painful reminder of the culture of violence which has severe consequences on our youth and society”

Wow. That’s wrong in so many levels it boggles the mind and begs questions as to Andrew Lanza’s ability to effectively legislate the video gaming industry since is blatantly obvious he knows nothing about it.

First of all, the game was created by an Australian, so it’s rather interesting why it has any bearing on “our” society. He could’ve pulled out all the guns and dug up some Islamist game as well, but that would require him to actually have some knowledge of video games. Instead, he clings onto a sensationalist, headline gathering soundbyte to camouflage his bill as something that could’ve prevented the Virginia Tech tragedy. That’s kinda interesting as well, because the shooter did not play video games. Instead he wrote poems and plays. Let’s ban those next, eh?

Secondly, the game was created by a hobbyist and is not commercially available, so it wouldn’t be subjected by the very bill Lanza is marketing for…even if the game was made by an US citizen. Again, Lanza demonstrates shocking lack of knowledge about the subject matter he’s drafting bills for. Or he knows this and is blatantly exploiting the fact other people know even less about video games than he does. Either way, he’s unfit to legislate the video game industry either as a clueless dumbass or an unscrupulous manipulative liar.

That being said, his bill does have some redeeming qualities. It contains some elements that would increase consumer awareness and accuracy of the video game ratings present in every commercially available video game in the country. The number one problem with the video game rating system in the United States is that parents are either unaware of them or completely ignore them. The bill is doing something to address that, which is good

However, as GamePolitics.com reports, since the bill also goes on to criminalize the sale of mature rated video games to minors, it will be struck down as unconstitutional by the courts. Lanza and Spitzer must’ve been aware of this before the bill was introduced, I have absolutely no doubt about it. As such, they would’ve known it would be fruitless to introduce and pass the bill as far as making it a law goes. Therefore they must’ve had other reasons for introducing the bill. I wonder when Lanza is up for re-election again…

Anyway, as a New York State resident, I will foot the legal bills, and indirectly fund Senator Lanza’s re-election campaign. Make no mistake about it, that’s what this bill is all about. Hugging babies and saving the children have always been a popular campaigning tricks. I’m just hoping Senator Lanza would use his own money to campaign for office, instead of mine. I consider what he’s doing to be fraud.

-TPP