Today is a momentous day. A joyous day. A glorious day, even.
Today, my Xbox 360 finally displayed the red ring of light that so many users have come to know and love. Why would an issue that prevents me from playing any games be a blessing in disguise? Read on.
You see, my Xbox 360 was manufactured in December of 2005, making it one of the first to come out. For a while, I had no problems, but then the system began telling me that my discs were dirty or damaged when they clearly were not. It would recommend cleaning them or checking for scratches, but the problem was obviously with the disc drive (which always sounded like it was struggling to load when this error occurred). This was worse with some games than others, depending on how they loaded data from the disc drive (presumably). I learned to live with it because my system was quickly out of warranty and it only came up sporadically. I considered myself halfway lucky for not having the “red ring of light” error - a fatal error that many Xbox 360 users experienced. When Microsoft extended the warranty to three years for those who got the red light error, I kind of started hoping for it.
Then, this morning, while I was playing MLB 2K6 (I know…), I heard a faint “beep” and then the screen went black. Fearing it was a problem with the TV, I changed inputs, then TVs, and the error reoccurred. It got to the point that the system wouldn’t even start up all the way without freezing. Alas, I thought I was out of luck because the lights remained green. Then, several system restarts later, I saw it, and rejoiced.
The lights were red.
I’ve now used Microsoft’s Xbox 360 support website to put in a service order, but it remains to be seen how promptly the situation will be rectified. I’m just hoping they’ll send me a revamped system with an HDMI port - and, hopefully, a functional disc drive. 