I'm personally on my second 'box (first one was f'ed within the first 3 hours of owning it), and even that one is slowly on it's way out. It made me sad for awhile now how regardless of it's poor reliablility, people still defend their xboxes as the best thing ever. Of everyone I personally know with an xbox 360, only ONE person is still on their first (and that's only because he barely ever plays it). As an engineer in a manufacturing environment, I find the failure rate of the 360 completely appaulling. Yet because people are still buying xbox 360s and getting replacement units over and over, Microsoft could really care less about fixing the problem because in their view their customers are willing to accept a flawed designed console anyway.

I recall very well the moment Xbox 360 launched and how majority of my friends including myself started saving to afford one. Being a ten years old PlayStation veteran I asked myself: "Where is PS3?".

At that time there were plenty of PS2 games (JRPG's for my tastes) and I simple didn't see any need to buy the console as of yet. I figured I'll give it few months which will be enough time to save up.

I spend most of the time with my friends countless nights and weekends enjoying the new console but barely few months in, hardware issues started. At that time, console price was very high and the time spend to receive or fix the problem took weeks. I do like Xbox360, the problem that I have is with Microsoft's poor hardware care. It is no secret that they are software company, but the article is pretty much "bulls eye" honest.
Every single one of my friends is on their second or third Xbox360, I see no reason why gamers shouldn't be upset.

Microsoft needs to take care of their customers..

I lost my MANY MANY hours of progress in Oblivion when my first 360 died... I feel your pain. I'm still pissed too, and partly because I love my 360, and now I don't play a game without redundant saves on a memory card... that is just NOT how you make a console. That said, I also feel a bit like a hostage... all this investment of time and games into a console means that if it dies, you're pretty much bound to get it fixed. The PS3 has issues too, but at least they don't lead to an ignominious death as a doorstop. As for why MS gets away with such blatantly poor hardware quality control, well, I have both consoles and as pissed as I still am, I still do love that 360 and wouldn't give up either console's exclusives. It would have been nice however, if MS had just sucked it up and made a console that holds up the way the Wii and PS3 do, instead of getting out earlier, cheaper, and then making it everything short of an absolute necessity to buy that balence in peripherals (HDD upgrade, etc) or replacement. What worries me most is that MS, for all that the business model they used was criminal (1 billion in warrenty backstopping says "don't sue us more") they are doing just fine on the books. So... when the next generation comes out will we have a bunch of consoles that sacrificed reliablity and out-of-the-box power for early sales? Probably we'll see that from both MS and Sony next time. Truly, it's a s**te state of affairs (to quote trainspotting), but I suppose it IS a testament to what gamers (myself included) will take if it gets them the games they love. *sigh*