You know, three years ago last June, I purchased an Xbox360 Pro. This was when the 20 Gig HDD was the only thing it came in. There was no Elite, and no HDMI.

I never got a RROD. Granted, the most I played was about 2 to 4 hours a night, and not "every night" by any means. I work full time and then I was a full time student.

Well, this August, I finally got the dreaded RROD. Yep, my 360 was toast. Now, I have a PS3, a great PC and a Wii (which I still want to call "Revolution"). But my 360 was the one I played most. Probably because I really loved the original Xbox. It was superior in many ways to the PS2. It was a tank, yes, it was ugly, yes, but damn that thing was solid. I had hoped that the same quality Microsoft put into the original would carry over.

Unfortunatly, this does not seem to be the case.

I've decided not the replace my 360. Instead I traded all my 360 stuff towards PS3 and Wii stuff.

WHY?

THe answer is simple. We the consumers have rights and responsibilities. Microsoft has a responsibility to sell us good stuff, sure, but we as consumers have the responsibility to NOT BUY IT if the product is below our standards.

What I'm saying is this - as a consumer, I can not in good faith purchase another 360. To do so would be to reward Microsoft for selling me a faulty product in the first place. It's like telling a kid who get's caught with his hand in the cookie jar "oh you got me, my wasn't watching, go ahead and have your cookie".

No.

This is not how this works. I can't go spend another couple hundred bucks because "oh I had an *older, poorly made 360* and now I can rest easy because Jasper is *what they meant for me to buy*.

That's not how it works.

You wouldn't go into a job interview and tell the hiring manager he's a jerk, and then say "Give me another shot, I was just off my game before, let me show you the real experiance." Go ahead and try it, see how that works out for you.

The fact is that we're letting them do it to us. We as consumers keep just buying another console. Stop it!

Do your friends a favor, if their PS3, or Wii, or even 360 suffers a failure, and they go to buy a new one... find a stick, HIT THEM! And then look at them and say "no". The message we're currently sendign to Microsoft buy purchasing new 360's to replace poorly manufatured ones is "it's okay, jerk us around, we got your back".

And then maybe, just maybe, the next generation of Xbox will be solid like the original again. When whatever replaces the 360 comes out, I'll buy it. I'd be happy to. Like I said I loved the Xbox and the 360. But I will not buy another 360. To do so would be wrong.

It's a tough decision, because there will be games coming out on the 360 only that I will still want to play. But you know, sometimes you have to sacrifice a little to take a stand, to do what's right. The 360 failure is unfortunate. I know Microsoft can do better. I'm casting my vote to persuade them to do so, so that in the future, we'll have a product that we'll love, that we know Microsoft can make.

I'm not a fanboy, I'm just wallet consious. Microsoft had their chance this generation. We'll see what happens Next Generation.