Xbox DRM and the Red Ring of Death

manekineko2 writes "In the latest case warning of the perils of investing in DRM'd media, an owner of an Xbox 360 reports that after his Xbox suffered the infamous Red Ring of Death, it was replaced by a new system with a different serial number. Upon receiving his replacement, he found that he could only access the media he had purchased from a specific account. He also received the run-around for months from customer service before his case was escalated, only to be informed that there is no ETA for a resolution, there is no way to receive status updates on the process, and there is no compensation that will be granted. Given claims that the Xbox 360 defect rate is as high as 1 in 3, has anyone on Slashdot gone through this as well after getting their system exchanged?" Update: 02/14 17:11 GMT by Z : An emailing user noted that the original summary was not very accurate; rephrased to be more in-line with the situation.

Re:HAH!

[mjolnir_]

Everything this guy says is totally wrong. He is the world's biggest fanboy. And he drives a pink jetta.

Re:HAH!

[Brian Gordon]

I do agree somewhat with your sentiment.. I have a very hard time sympathizing with anyone (don't mark me troll but I'm going to say it!) stupid enough to purchase DRM'd media from Microsoft. They've consistently shown that they can't be trusted to keep your content usable over the long term- the PlaysForSure fiasco alone should have driven anyone intelligent away from xbox live.

Even better than that

[Actually, I do RTFA]

To my understanding, the points they give you are equal to what you spent, but not earmarked. That is, you get an equivalent value of content, but if you no longer like what you purchased you can get other media in exchange.

Which seems like a reasonable perk to extend to people who have to go through that rigormorale.