I have been thinking lately about how we(the consumers) go in on day one of a consoles launch thinking to ourselves, oh yeah I got it before anyone else, only to end with the worst end of the deal.

So when I bought my shiny new Xbox 360, I was in the league of the first to get their hands on it.It was an awesome feeling knowing all my friends would be jealous and on top of that, I knew I was about to see the best gaming technology yet.I waited from 7 A.M. until 12 A.M. to get my console and then rushed home to try it out.Perfect Dark Zero being the first game I got and let me just say, PDZ itself had me dying to play being as big of a fan of the N64's smash hit as I was.Anyway I got home put it through the initial setup and was blown away.At the time(You know ,anytime before Gears),these were the best graphics I had ever seen.Story sucked, but gameplay made up for that.

Anyway, spending to much time on the wrong subject.I thought I had the best their was.Until it crashed, I turned it on to play PDZ and POP!Some wierd noises came from inside the console and it started blinking in between color and colorless picture.O.K no prob, I sent it in ,got another in about two weeks and was at it again.Thinking it was normal for this to happen the first time ,I overlooked it.Only to be suprised when it happened about eight or nine more times.So, after going through Wal-Mart and Microsoft Customer Support multiple times, I see the new Xbox 360 Elite.Sleek black finish, 120 GB hard-drive, and multiple rumors of reduced crashes and bugs.This left me thinking,WOW I got screwed.I go and buy what is supposed to be the best and here comes the best.I then decided to purchase this new found glory.After about a month, I worked up enough for the Elite..................

Unpacking the new beauty I plugged it in and did the aforementioned initial setup.Greeted by the now extremely familiar Xbox Dashboard and a slightly clearer picture(HDMI), I began to go along as usual.No more crashes, no more overheating, NO MORE CUSTOMER SUPPORT!!! Man I was glad to stop calling that number,or so I thought.After about a month BAM there goes the Elite, cracking, popping, andwhirring sounds included.IT CRASHED TOO!!On top of that, now they have announced new chips that stop overheating, but the only way those of us who already have a 360 can get one is for ours to break.Of course, if you are made of money you could buy another, but most aren't.

Bottom line,I feel a little stupid now for buying the 360 at launch, when I could have waited and got the console after they put the new laundry list of fixes into it.

1.Quieter disc drives.(Rumored)

2.Bigger hard drive.

3.New chips that supposedly stop overheating.

The list goes on.What I am trying to get across is how the consumer should feel good about buying new technology at launch, not tricked into buying the so called best only to be spending more on it's successor later.Anyone else feel this way?

P.S. When I say successor, I don't mean like Xbox then Xbox 360.I mean the better version of the same console.Hope this article wasn't too boring.