Xbox 360 fan loses faith as machines fail one by one

Some corporate sins are unforgivable. Like turning your back on your most loyal customers to the point that they feel like giving up on you.

Rob and Mindy Cassingham wanted to prove they were the most loyal Xbox 360 fans. I met them at Zero Hour, the event in which Microsoft debuted the Xbox 360 in November 2005 to 3,000 of its most enthusiastic fans.

The Cassinghams drove halfway across the country from Moab, Utah, where they operated a video-game center.

They showed up at the event, at an aircraft hangar in the Mojave Desert, with license plates hanging around their necks that read "Xbox."

"I was clearly a fan boy," said Rob Cassingham, 42.

These days, Cassingham isn't so sure about that. He loves playing games on the Xbox 360, but he has gone through seven defective machines in 18 months.

Four consoles

The Cassinghams had a ball at Zero Hour and bought four Xbox 360s there.

They also bought two more machines from the local game store, spending more than $2,600 on hardware alone.

They put the machines in their gaming center and had a virtual monopoly on the Xbox 360 in their town of 5,000 people. They stood to make a lot of money renting the machines for kids to play.

They also helped others order machines and were responsible for a couple of dozen sales of Xbox 360s. In January 2006, Rob Cassingham registered to get the "Xbox360" license plate in the state of Utah.

Little did the Cassinghams know that their machines would start failing. The first one gave out the same month Rob ordered his license plate.

"All of the four that we got at Zero Hour croaked on us," Cassingham said.

He sent the first machine to fail back to Microsoft and got a refurbished unit as a replacement some weeks later; Xbox 360s were in short supply at that time.

Voice-mail ordeal

But even as the shortage eased, Cassingham still had to get on the phone, wade through the voice-mail tree, and talk for about 20 minutes to tech-support representatives before they would agree to send him a replacement as each subsequent machine failed.

They would ask him to unplug it, plug it back in, tell them about the three flashing red lights of death, and try other things. He had to wait two weeks each time, and he always got a refurbished unit back.

But he kept playing. He loved games like "Condemned" and "Dead Rising."

Tina Conley, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, said failure rates for Xbox 360 are "within the consumer-electronics industry average." The company declined to say exactly what the failure rates are.

When Cassingham contacted me Feb. 1 by e-mail, he said he had had it. His seventh unit was on its way.

Of the seven failed machines, three were ones he used personally and four were in the game center.

Even one of the replacements failed.

He said all of the machines were within sight of the counter and that no one ever spilled anything on them.

The Cassinghams shut down their game center in November. Demand had fallen, since a lot of people by then had their home machines.

Now they do various jobs, such as giving tours of the local scenery.

Rob makes a travel and tourism brochure and distributes books.

Rob said he'll focus on PC gaming.

"Microsoft will get some of our money but not as much of it," he said.

Another response

After our conversation, I directed him to Peter Moore, head of the games business at Microsoft.

After 10 months of complaints, Microsoft acknowledged the quality wasn't as high as it had hoped on machines purchased in 2005. But it still maintains that the failures are within industry averages.

It offered free replacement if any Xbox 360 purchased in 2005 failed, and it has extended its warranty on new machines — offering free replacement for failures for up to a year after purchase.

Moore put Cassingham's complaint on the front burner. An Xbox 360 representative contacted Cassingham and agreed to give him a brand new machine.

(The company notes that Moore isn't the proper person to go to for customers who "escalate" their complaints; they prefer that those with problems deal with Xbox Customer Support.)

Cassingham has received the new machine but remains sore about the experience and is mulling over what to do.

Different result

In an e-mail, he wrote, "A new 360 was all I really wanted in the first place, but after two failed attempts dealing with Microsoft's overseas call centers, I am very annoyed that it took an e-mail directly to P. Moore to get results — assuming that they do, in fact, ship me a new 360."

He added, "How do I feel it is turning out? Frankly, I'm conflicted. I am just so gun-shy about the reliability issue. One part of me wishes, when my 360 arrives(?), to immediately sell it and all of my 360-related schwag and put the money into a gaming PC.

"Another part of me wants to keep the 360 (and absolutely get the extended warranty) and I don't want to turn my back on my LIVE arcade titles I've purchased. I still feel like a chump."

Cassingham says he will keep the new Xbox 360, but he is paying extra for a two-year warranty.

Dean Takahashi is a columnist with the San Jose Mercury News.