A minor gripe with Microsoft.

I recently went round to my Mums house to see my brother and have a bit of a session on the 360 but we were abruptly distracted by our hatred of Microsoft and their money grabbing tendancies.

It transpires now that if you're the proud owner of an XBox 360 and a Silver account you're actually penalised in true Microsoft style. Whereas before a Silver account gave you access to demos and chat facilities you're now presented with a turse note informing you that because you're not a Gold member you now have to wait a week or so before you can access the things that you were previously allowed access to.

Once again Microsoft, good effort for alienating your game playing following once again. Obviously the last time that i recieved excellent customer service courtesy of Microsoft was when my 360 got 3 red lights and at every point i turned i hit a brick wall. Obviously this was a few years ago as my 360 was one of the first batch to get the ring of death but the degree of customer support from Microsoft was absolutely shocking.


Good times. As my 360 was one of the first to go i remember my immense confusion as to why it wouldn't turn back on. Xbox services were also confused and repeatedly told me that i hadn't plugged the power cable into the mains.

Spending hours on the phone speaking to a host of Europeans with a tenuous grip on the English language, they would ritually go through the ropes with me telling me to ensure the power cable was plugged in and that i wasn't completely retarded. Despite me telling them what the actual problem was they rigidly stuck to the generic list of questions that they ask every other person who phones up complaining about a faulty machine.

With all the money that Microsoft makes i couldn't believe that they (initially) wouldn't replace faulty machines. That was enough to insense me, but now that 360 users either have a Gold account or, basically, nothing - means that once again Microsoft have kicked their audience in the teeth. Bravo!!