I have been a gamer for about 15 years and have made my way through 5 console generations. In the past I played whatever system I received as a gift and based my wishlist mostly on which games I wanted to play. When I was young I tended to stick with what I knew, which was Nintendo. That was until I received a PS1 as a gift. Then for 2 console generations I was a Sony fan. This generation was the first in which I would make the decision on which console I would get and how I would spend my own money.

After careful consideration and a long time waiting, I finally settled on the Xbox 360. I spent so much time debating because like most people I had heard of the all troubles with the hardware failure. The overheating and "Red Rings of Death" were enough to keep me at bay for the first couple of years. Why would I spend my hard earned money on a console that I would have to replace? Every one of my friends who were early buyers of Microsoft's new box, were on their second or third system by the time I decided to buy in.

When I finally got mine though, it was well worth the money spent. I figured I had waited long enough for Microsoft to work out the bugs and bought a console with the newer chipset. The exclusive games it offers have been great, the online gaming in Xbox Live has been stellar, and until recently I have had no problems with the system. It's my recent experience however that has prompted this blog. Funny how you never hear about the good things a company does, only the bad. And so the bad begins.

Two days ago in the middle of Fable 2 my 360 froze and I got 4 bars of vertical static on my TV screen. I turned off my console and gave it a break, I had been playing for a couple hours and figured maybe that was why it had froze. It wasn't the first time I've had a console freeze on me. A couple hours later I tried it again, this time playing the Fable 2 Pub games in the arcade. After about 5 minutes of that it froze again in the same way. I checked a few forums and the consensus was my 360 was on its way out.

The next morning I tried in vain to play a couple other games, thinking maybe it just had something to do with Fable. Since it didn't I decided to call it in and see if it was covered by the warranty. I have had my 360 for just over 11 months so everything should have been covered. After talking to "Max" the automated man you get when you call the service number I waited 15 minutes on hold for a real person. We talked, and exchanged info, you know, got friendly. Eventually she asked me to turn my system on and see if the error was still happening. Low and behold when I tried to boot it up, I got the RROD. When I told her this she had no more questions for me and told me that I was experiencing a hardware failure. It turned out that they were in the middle of a system update and she wasn't able to finish my request for repair. I was told to call back in 3 hours and finish my request.

After 3 hours I retried and was told the same thing by a different woman, who sounded very much like the first. She told me though, "better yet, try back tomorrow." This makes me wonder if they are putting me on the back burner while they work on the new Xbox experience. A new dashboard and the ability to use NetFlix sounds good, however there's a good chance my Xbox will be in the shop while many others get to enjoy the new update.

Now I'm a fairly level headed guy and I understand that this type of stuff happens, however it should never happen on this scale. This hasn't been a few systems affected, in fact in my experience it has been every single console I have known of. I have a friend in the market to buy a new console with only enough funds to get one this holiday season. He loves the prospect of being able to play against me and my other friends online, but when I told him this had happened to me, he more than questioned which console to buy. I would probably be the reason he would get a 360, but I don't know if I can, in good faith, suggest a console that I know will fail at some point and cause him a hassle.

It's not just the new customers that Microsoft is losing its software sales as well. I'm a little upset because I am in the middle of Fable and can't wait to play some more. I'm more upset because of the new games I will be missing out on while I wait for my system to be repaired. This couldn't have happened at a worse time, with the release of Fallout 3, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2, and Tomb Raider: Underworld. There are a ton of games I would love to play and will be left to wait. I'm not sure if I will wait though, I have $75 in credit from Gamestop that is burning a hole in my pocket and no reason to spend it on 360 games. I could and probably will use it to buy games for the Wii or DS which I could play immediately. Without a doubt I would purchase 360 games first if my console was working. Microsoft is losing not only my money but my loyalty as well.

The other day I came home from work to find my girlfriend playing Hexic on the 360. Not too unusual for her, she loves playing the XBLA games, what was unusual was the conversation that ensued.

"Hey honey, what you up to?"

"Playing some Hexic,"

"I see,"

"I'm trying to get this stupid achievement, I've played like three games in a row and I keep getting so close, I know I can do this,"

The achievement was the 75,000 points in a timed game, but that wasn't the important thing, the thing I found interesting was that she was playing the game, not just to play, but for the achievement. Now I'm sure everyone knows those people that play just to inflate their Gamerscore, and she is not one of those people. The achievement just kept her going. I'm sure she wouldn't have kept playing or tried to get to that score, if there wasn't an "award" for doing so. Some of the old-school gamers might set certain markers they want to get to in some games, but for the most part games that give you nothing to shoot for have the least amount of replay value.

In my opinion this is the magic of the Xbox 360. It has quickly become one of my favorite parts of my newest console, and one of the reasons I chose it over the PS3. Built into every game there are things to actually accomplish. Just beating the games is not the end of the fun anymore. Most achievements encourage playing longer and artificially make the games longer. This is especially important to the budget minded gamer. When you only have a few bucks to spend on your gaming addiction, it's vital that you get your money's worth.

Now I've heard the argument that achievements are evil and people are playing bad games just to up their Gamerscore. I have no reason to defend these people and I won't. Instead I'd encourage people not to judge others on their Gamerscore. While a 20,000 score is impressive, if you look deeper into that score and find it full of Avatar and King Kong achievements you would be less impressed knowing how easy those achievements are to get. I think it would be a great idea to be able to highlight your favorite achievements, the ones you're most proud displayed for everyone to see.

Balancing the achievements is more important than just putting them in the games, I think. I mean it's great to get the achievements throughout the game, and most of these are good. Achievements for taking out each of your assassination targets in Assassin's Creed are a good example. However, some achievements feel like they're just put in there to make the games have an even 1000 points. One of the first achievements I ever got was a complete accident. I was playing Dead Rising and I fell off of one of the shelves in the warehouse. When I heard the noise that is now synonymous with achievements, I thought to myself, "What did I do," later finding that I got points just for falling a certain distance. Other good examples of these are most of the achievements that come with sports games. Why would I get an achievement for making an interception? I didn't even do it, the computer did!

Other types of achievements I dislike are the ones that require you to play for ridiculous amounts of time. Even Super Smash Bros. Brawl gives you awards for just playing for hours, so it's not only a 360 problem. After awhile you will get bored with any game and you shouldn't continue playing a game you're not enjoying anymore just to unlock achievements. Achievements should be just that, something you achieve. If you just hand them out freely, they become meaningless. Love or hate them, I think they are good for gaming. If they get different people playing and help out the sales of our favorite hobby, you can't be too upset.