Reactions to story from The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back

• 

  Is Microsoft Fixing Their Broken Xbox Live DRM? [Gaming]

  http://gizmodo.com/372684/is-microsoft-fixing-their-broken-x...
  120 days ago in Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide · Authority: 22,733

  By now you have probably heard about or experienced the issue Microsoft has with its broken Xbox Live DRM. Basically, gamers who purchased content on Live found that the downloads ceased to function properly after their original console bit the dust. If
• 

  Microsoft reports DRM issues with 360 DLC are getting resolved

  http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-reports-drm-issues-with-3...
  119 days ago in SlashGear · Authority: 1,499

  Weve all heard horror stories about the Xbox 360s RRoD. Hopefully youve never had to experience this issue yourself, but if you have, you may have had bigger issues than just trying to get it fixed. In fact, Microsoft has made it much easier to get your
• 

  Xbox Live owners getting content re-licensed to new Xboxes

  http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/03/26/xbox-live-owners-gettin...
  120 days ago in CrunchGear · Authority: 3,761

  Xbox Live owners getting content re-licensed to new Xboxes Written by Matt Hickey March 26th, 2008 No Comments The Consumerist is reporting that Microsoft is making good on re-licensing downloadable content for Xbox 360 owners who got replacement
• 

  Microsoft May Slowly Be Fixing Their Broken XBOX DRM

  http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EkpyVlyVlEjMrKzKgJ.p...
  120 days ago in Xbox-Scene.com - Xbox 360 Xbox360 Modchips Xecuter3 Xenium SmartXX X-Chip X-B.I.T Xecuter2.6 Xodus - Gamesave Dashboard exploit · Authority: 395

  From consumerist.com: [QUOTE] A ray of hope from reader James--Microsoft was able to fix his broken XBOX Live account. Are they getting their act together? Maybe? "I'm sending this in due to my experience with XBOX LIVE Support and Microsoft's
• 

  Has Microsoft Fixed It’s DRM Problem?

  http://www.videogamingblog.net/2008/06/15/has-microsoft-fixe...
  42 days ago in Video Gaming Blog · Authority: 26

  Has Microsoft Fixed It’s DRM Problem? Jun 15th, 2008 by admin Submitted by videogame2play The Consumerist has been following the story of Kevin and the aftermath of his RRoD for a couple of months now. Unfortunately, Kevin’s situation is not at all unique. Even conservative numbers report that 16% of all Xbox 360 consoles may have to go into service for repairs of one nature or another. If the problem is as serious as the Red Ring of Death, a new or refurbished console may be shipped to the unlucky gamer. Normally this sounds like a great thing, but not when it comes to downloaded content from Live. See, the problem is that content purchased from Live is strenuously protected. It is not only tied to your Live ID, but also to your console. Change one or the other and you may not have access to your legally purchased software. By submitting a 360 for warranty repair, you just may fall into that category yourself. So, what I want to know is why can’t Microsoft let people transfer what they have bought legally from one console to another? Sony allows this. See, content from the PlayStation Network is not tied to an individuals system. If I purchase a game under my login on PSN, I can carry that content with me to any PlayStation 3. The catch is that it is under my unique profile. I can access it from another PS3, other then my own, but I have to have a profile on that machine also. See, Sony realizes that sharing is fun. Log in on someone else’s PS3, download a game that you own but they may not. Think of it like being a demo. They get to play it as long as you are logged in on their PS3. After you log off, they have no access to it. Unless they have your password they can’t get at your content, so what do they do? Buy it themselves if they like it. I think that strategy is much preferable then the very user-unfriendly Microsoft method of controlling content. Back in March, fellow Consumerist reader James provided an example of what he had to go through to get his content back. After getting “the runaround” he was finally told that Microsoft would re-license his content for his new Xbox, but it would take 20 to 30 days. Days! My question is why would it take so long? Would it be so hard just to look up his account, see the old 360 serial number and change it with the new? Why the extended wait? Why make the consumer suffer? One last question. Why do we put up with it? Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs. Rating 3.00 out of 5 [?] Posted in XBOX games
• 

  MICROSOFT REPAIRING DRM

  http://www.360mods.me.uk/360news.htm?blogentryid=3243246
  85 days ago in 360 mods and repairs | number 1 for xbox 360 · No authority yet

  Microsoft May Slowly Be Fixing Their Broken XBOX DRM >> From consumerist.com: [QUOTE] A ray of hope from reader James--Microsoft was able to fix his broken XBOX Live account. Are they getting their act together? Maybe? "I'm sending this in due to my experience with XBOX LIVE Support and Microsoft's broken XBOX LIVE DRM (Originally posted here) I too, like Kevin, sent in my XBOX360 for repair after the RRoD, and was sent a brand new XBOX360 as a replacement. Now, mind you, I had my XBOX360 registered on their website for warranty information, so I could see when they sent a brand new one, because the Serial Number on my warranty information was updated before they even had the new box on the truck to me. This was late December / early January. So I called XBOXLIVE support in February, and got the same runaround as Kevin- re-download it, restore your GamerTag, etc, etc, etc. They never once offered the re-licensing until I specifically asked for the points to re-download my content. Once they did, I got the same spiel as others in the previous thread; for those that weren't keeping up, Microsoft could "fix" the problem by re-licensing my old content to my new XBOX360's serial number. Of course, this lengthy process (CTRL + H being a difficult task for their XBOX LIVE department, but common knowledge to their warranty division) would take 20 - 30 days. Of course, having no other alternative, I told them to go ahead and do it and get it resolved already. This was 32 days ago at this point. Monday morning I get a call from an unknown number, and the message on my voicemail was from XBOX LIVE, letting me know that the re-licensing has been resolved, and all I need to do is re-download my older purchased content to the new XBOX360.
• 

  Review : 120 Gig Hard Drive for Xbox 360

  http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_review_120_gig_har...
  108 days ago in 8Bit Joystick.com · Authority: 235

  Yesterday I finally had enough of having to delete space and re-download TV shows and other content from Xbox Live every time I wanted to get something new. I took the plunge and blew $180 on the big 120 Gig Hard Drive for the Xbox 360. This is the same as the one that comes with the Xbox 360 Elite. Space on my old 20-gig Hard Drive has become a premium commodity over time. Xbox Live arcade and additional content for games has been a bigger hit with me than i had expected. Each arcade game added up and they are now making games closer to the 150 meg file cap. I also had to get Psychonauts again after I had given my disc copy to my friend BBQ as a welcome to Xbox 360 gift and by getting the downloaded Xbox Originals version of Fable I can give my disc copy to my girlfriend's friend for her upcoming birthday. A cool thing about Xbox Originals is that if you have a save file from the disc version of the game it will see the save file automatically. Psychonauts clocks in at 3.9 gigs and Fable is a hefty 3.2 Gigs. There is also an added convenience about not having to get up and swap out the disc. I know that sounds pretty lazy but it is a big boost for when your playing Xbox Live arcade titles with your friends. BBQ and I will quickly switch between Puzzle Fighter, Joust and Street Fighter II. It also irked me that there was TV show episodes that I've purchased the rights to but I did not have the disk space to have a copy them on hand. There was that HD episode of Star Trek and the second season of The Venture Brothers that I got before the DVD came out as well as a few of my favorite episodes of South Park and Robot Chicken. I am currently at 8.4 Gigs and downloading more as I type this. So I reached the tipping point and my annoyance at the 20 gig hard drive's inadequacies out weighed my love for 180 bucks. Now the hard drive is pretty pricey at $180 but it is not a common PC size but a smaller notebook sized drive and it has to be faster than a standard drive. It is cheaper than portable hard drive based MP3 players. The hardest part was getting the space plastic open and prying the goodness out of the blister pack. I never though I would be nostalgic about the days of stuff coming in cardboard boxes. The drive looks exactly the same as the 20 gig drive but there is a "1" in front of the "20" and it comes with a one-time data moving utility software disc and a pretty decent looking cable. I was struck by the brief but useful existence of the cable. I was going to use it once and then it was going to be discarded never to be used again. I made sure to follow the instructions to the letter. With the old drive in place connected the new drive with the USB cable and I booted up to the data moving utility. It asked me if I wanted to proceed and then warned me that it was going to take and hour and twenty minutes to transfer everything. This was a perfect amount of time to watch my DVD of King of Kong : A Fist Full of Quarters and play with my cats. I then removed the utility disc and powered down the Xbox and swapped the hard drives. All the content that I had on the old drive worked without a hitch including the TV shows and games. I am shocked at how slow it is to download a few TV shows in HD and while TV shows over Xbox Live is pretty cool I don't think that renting movies over Xbox Live is a realistic alternative to movies on optical disc. I've been downloading the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles all day long now and hopefully I'll be able to watch it tomorrow. With movie rentals it is faster to physically drive to to rental store, rent the movie and watch it a couple times before the Xbox Live rental is downloaded. However I really got this drive so I can get all the demos, DLC expansion content, arcade games and XNA community games I want without having to figure out how I am going to delete enough room and wait for the stuff to re-download. Basically I've been downloading stuff every moment since I completed the upgrade. This means all weekend long using the background downloading feature. I've been a little worried about this since the fan is still on but it is not as high as when they console is on and playing a game. Hopefully the Jasper based Xbox will be out soon. When I get my new Jasper powered Xbox Arcade I hope to just slap this bad boy and not have to worry excessively about my Xbox dying on me suddenly. Hopefully they might fix the horrible DRM issue of tying content to a specific console by the time that I upgrade to a new Xbox 360. I didn't want to wait for the upcoming 60-Gig hard drive to upgrade and then slowly run out of space. This is the hard drive that I am going to be using for my entire Xbox 360 playing lifetime.
• 

  Tasty Links for April 4th 2008

  http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_tasty_links_for_ap...
  111 days ago in 8Bit Joystick.com · Authority: 235

  I just got done a new draft of my super long interview for Xbox360Fanboy.com and so you can read it over there soon. Gamerscore Blog : Sakura Con 2008, Redux Taito DS Games Come to U.S., But Not Paddle Controller | Game | Life from Wired.com Sega Confirms Sonic Unleashed | Game | Life Wii: Sam And Max Totally Headed To The Wii GTA IV edited for Australia UPDATE: Microsoft May Slowly Be Fixing Their Broken XBOX DRM Here is the video from my upcoming review on the Xbox Wireless Racing Wheel
• 

  141 - 03/30/08 Bobby Blackwolf Show - Xbox Live Arcade: Good or Bad for Gaming?

  http://www.allgames.com/radio.asp?show=blackwolf&ep=141
  112 days ago in The page cannot be found · No authority yet

  We open up by talking about Lost Odyssey and it's lack of save points.Then we talk about the messages we've received on our PS3 about when we're going to actually play games - so we started playing one!After reading an email about our WiiWare discussion from two weeks ago, we discuss Metanet's comments in their Gamasutra postmortem on recent XBLA title N+, as well as their later clarification.Also, we look at Microsoft telling Japanese developer 5pb that they are cutting down on faithful arcade ports with respect to shmups Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X and Ketsui X.So the question becomes: what do YOU, the gamer, think of Xbox Live Arcade's offerings? Our chat room answers may surprise you.We also briefly discuss Microsoft's DRM and that they may be close to fixing it.
• 

  141 - 03/30/08 Bobby Blackwolf Show - Xbox Live Arcade: Good or Bad for Gaming?

  http://www.allgames.com/radio.asp?show=blackwolf&ep=141
  112 days ago in Allgames.com · Authority: 82

  We open up by talking about Lost Odyssey and it's lack of save points.Then we talk about the messages we've received on our PS3 about when we're going to actually play games - so we started playing one!After reading an email about our WiiWare discussion from two weeks ago, we discuss Metanet's comments in their Gamasutra postmortem on recent XBLA title N+, as well as their later clarification.Also, we look at Microsoft telling Japanese developer 5pb that they are cutting down on faithful arcade ports with respect to shmups Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X and Ketsui X.So the question becomes: what do YOU, the gamer, think of Xbox Live Arcade's offerings? Our chat room answers may surprise you.We also briefly discuss Microsoft's DRM and that they may be close to fixing it.

Advertise on Technorati

Advertise on Technorati