Well, judging by the vast number of articles on the subject out there, and the need to keep competing with Sony’s Playstation 3, it is a No-Brainer that the 360 needs to provide support for the Blu-Ray format, and they need to do it fast. There have been “rumors” circulating from “insiders” at Microsoft that a stand alone plug-in similar to their HD-DVD player has already been designed and is in the process of getting through Microsoft Certification. These rumors all point toward something coming to the shelves in May 2008. We can only hope that they stay on point and push something to the retail sector very fast.

Arnett Out!

Well it is official; Microsoft has discontinued the HD-DVD Player ad on. As you may have heard all six major studios are have now moved to Blu-ray format exclusively. Along with Netflix, Best Buy and WalMart. So watch for the prices to drop and you might be able to pick up the connection for a steal. But will you have the movies to watch them on the addition, probably not.

Official statement after the jump.

As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD. Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market. As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.

Today we have 2 options for Hard Drives in the 360, either the 20 GB Drive that comes with the Premium or Console System or the 120 GB Drive that is packaged with the 360 Elite. If you have the 20 GB and are looking to purchase the larger Hard Drive offered by Microsoft you are going to shell out about $179.00 wherever you go. If you have limited space on your drive and are scratching your head about how to solve the problem, here’s your answer!

You can add a Hard Drive to your system through one of the available USB ports on the Console. This drive will add another dimension to your 360 setup. First of all, you can store tons of music, thousands of photos and even videos from your personal collections and view them on your High Definition Television. It is pretty straight forward and anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of buying a 120 GB Drive with the Microsoft logo on it. Better yet, you can take the drive with you anywhere you go and access those files on any PC in the World! You can’t do that with your 360 Drive!

First of all, Marketplace content can ONLY be stored on your Microsoft 20 GB or 120 GB Hard Drive that plugs into the top of your console. Therefore if you have music or videos on your drive that weren’t purchased from the Marketplace, you can clear them off your Microsoft Hard Drive to free up room for Marketplace Content, such as game downloads, and exclusive Live content.

I chose to go with a 2.5″ 160 GB Serial ATA Hard Drive. This is a laptop hard drive and I chose this size because the drive is small enough to run off the 5 volt power bus in any USB port, this eliminates the need for a power cord to your new Hard Drive. Thankfully, Microsoft made sure that their USB ports all have sufficient current at 5 volts so a single USB port will suffice.

You can purchase these drives at any electronics store or your local computer store. They can be purchased in a case or you can purchase the drive and the enclosure separately and put the whole thing together. I purchased the drive for a mere $50.00 because someone returned it to the store, and picked up a $20.00 case that featured USB 2.0 and eSATA ports for connecting. If you decide to do it this way make sure your HDD and your case have the same connections inside, for instance, the drive is a Serial ATA (or SATA) and the enclosure has to have the same Serial ATA (SATA) connection inside to mate up with the drive. Next, put everything together, usually a simple phillips screw driver does the trick.

You will have to format the drive with your PC if it doesn’t come with software or pre-formatted. If the drive comes with software, run it and plug the drive into the PC’s USB port and you should see the drive show up under the “My Computer” tab in the Windows Start Menu. Now, if you are running Windows Vista, XP or 2000 your native drive is formatted in the NTFS format, for the 360 you will need to format the new drive in FAT32 format or the 360 will not recognize the drive. Remember that FAT32 file systems are only recognized up to 32 GB, so when you partition your new hard drive, partition it into multiple 32 GB volumes. Partitioning can be done with Partition Magic or through Windows.

In Windows XP click Start, then click Run, in the box type “diskmgmt.msc” (minus the quotes) and it will bring up a list of drives, select the new hard drive and partition a new volume in FAT32, remember you can place multiple volumes on a single drive. If your new drive is 120 GB make four 30 GB volumes, once the formatting is done you are good to go, just start putting music, photos, and videos on the drive and you are ready to plug them into the XBox 360 and view them on your High Def System. For Windows Vista click Start, then in the Search Box type “diskmgmt.msc” (minus the quotes) and follow the same instructions for Windows XP.

Next to the 360 Elite and on Top

This will work for any Hard Drive of any size as long as the file system is formatted in FAT32 format, just remember most 2.5″ drives can run off the USB power inside the port, while 3.5″ or ancient 5.25″ drives need an AC power adapter to power the drive.

This setup allows me to have 80 GB of music, 10 GB of photos and , 8 GB of video stored with over 60 GB still available on the Portable Drive and my 120 GB Microsoft 360 drive has about 45 GB of Marketplace content on it with almost 75 GB free for future content downloads. All together, this setup provides me with 160 GB of personal storage and 120 GB of Marketplace storage for a total of 280 GB available for the 360. That is over 1/4 of a TeraByte, and if you have your expensive surround sound and high def system hooked to your 360, now you can view and listen to your music, photos and personal vids in High Def Surround Sound.

Arnett Out!

Microsoft has extended the warranty on all Xbox 360 consoles.

The new warranty covers new and previously purchased Xbox 360s for three years, for the three flashing red light error only.

So, if you get a red ring of death (a.k.a. RROD, three red lights, circle of doom, etc.) hardware error, you’re covered. If you have a DVD Drive fail, GPU overheat, or other problem the extended warranty does NOT cover it. The one year warranty would apply.

However, the RROD has been a large percentage of failures, so this is better than nothing. (I have had 4 console failures with only one of them being a Red Ring issue.)

So, if you have a Red Ring error failure, don’t try to fix it, don’t open the box. Send it back for free repair.

Here are the full details: Xbox 360 Warranty and Service Enhancements

Here is the new warranty FAQ : Xbox 360 New Warranty FAQ

And finally an open letter from Microsoft’s Peter Moore.

Well, my 360 died yet AGAIN.

About a month ago, my replacement Xbox 360 DVD drive quit reading. I borrowed a friend’s 360 (yeah, that’s a true friend!) until mine was repaired.

The repair process took a month. It took 2 weeks to get approval for warranty repair, even though the unit was less than 90 days old. It took two more weeks to get the new replacement (used/refurb/whatever), which just arrived.

I just plugged this replacement unit in, and got a disc read error.

Microsoft, thanks for sending me a console that someone already returned to you because it was defective.

So, if you count the 360 I bought from Circuit City while my first console was being replaced (which froze and had the ring of death), this is my fourth crap Xbox 360 console.

Yeah, these are normal failure rates, uh-huh.

Well, my console finally bit the bullet. It was a sad day in Maniac-land, my box would freeze every 5 minutes, with odd graphic squares, lines and/or fuzz on the screen. I was sure the GPU finally fried from overheating. Panic resulted in buying a new Core system to hold me over until I got this one handled.

Things went well, and I have a new system from Microsoft, at no charge to me. Since I had a unit that was made in 2005, MS had extended my warranty to the end of this year.

The only work I had to do was spend an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with customer service. Part of that time was my fault, my cell dropped the call. The rest was continually calling back because their “system wasn’t responding” and they couldn’t generate the repair order.

When the repair order was finally accepted, they even offered free shipping by way of sending me a box with a prepaid label. My 360-addicted self already had the beast boxed and sealed waiting for an address and a stroll to the local UPS store, so I went ahead and paid about 13 bucks to get her back sooner.

I was a bit concerned, kinda like rolling your daughter out of her hospital room to go under the knife, but I insured the package and decided to trust MS for once. (yeah, that was a first.)

I patiently waited, resisting the urge to call customer service with a resounding “Get ‘er done, Achmed,” and I received a nice (new?) premium unit 2 weeks to the day, from the day I called and shipped it off. I am happy with this baby, it was mfg’d in June (my first one was from Nov 05) and has the new Samsung DVD drive. My living room no longer sounds like I have a Cessna prepping for takeoff.

Interestingly enough, the Core crutch I bought had 4-5 disc read errors (on Gears) and 1 red-ring on a cold initial startup, over this 2 week span. I had planned to fleabay this thing, but I don’t want Johnny opening up a brick for Xmas and my rep taking a hit, so I’m going back to Circuit City today.

So, since I was prepared for a major hassle, I am very happy I have a new, working console in a decent time frame. Horror stories -1.

James at joystiq fixed his own 360 that was flashing three red lights, which indicates an internal error.

If you have this problem try to fix it yourself before sending the unit in.

1) Remove your hard drive and/or memory units.

2) Run “Initial Setup” under the system blade.

3) Decline inserting HDD or memory unit when prompted.

4) Sync your controller and pop in a game.

It might save your xbox 360 a repair return.

*** UPDATE *** Microsoft has a new free warranty of 3 years for the 3 red light error. If you have this problem, send your console in for free repair.

More details here:

Microsoft Extending Xbox 360 Console Warranty

Do-it-yourself repair - Joystiq

Here is another Best Buy insider leaked document. This one is dated today, December 20th shows they’ll be getting more 360s in this week.

The stores are instructed to secure the shipment and sell the product the next day. They will print vouchers and give them to you when you walk in the store, if you tell them you’re looking for a 360.

No numbers are yet known for this shipment.

Full Document

There are other rumors flying around this week about 360s being available at Sam’s club and Circuit City.

Sam’s club dates have ranged from Dec 12 to the 15 and as late as the 17th or 18th. You may want to call your local Samsclub to see if you can get shipment details. If not, just show up every day at opening to find out. (Various sources online - mostly forums.)

Also rumored for new stock is Circuit City this week:

“According to several tipsters, Circuit City has just received a new shipment of Xbox 360s which are available to be specially ordered on a first come, first served basis. Here’s the catch: the warehouses that service several states each are only getting about 170 units per distributor, so don’t expect your local store to receive more than 2 or 3 boxes.”

It looks like the next two weeks may be the time to score a 360. Be dilligent and I hope you shall find one.

Source

A WalMart employee gives us a peek into the “WalMart Wire” info for 360 shipments for this month.

These are harder to snag due to shipping arrivals during the day. However, the numbers look pretty promising, especially for next week:

WM Week 45(week of Dec.3)
9500 Units
Avg:3 units per store

Week 46(week of Dec 10)
27000 Units
Avg:9 per store

Week 47(week of Dec 17)
35000 units
Avg:11 per store

Week 48(week of Dec 24)(Tuesday after Xmas most likely)
24000 Units
Avg:8 per store

Maybe it’s time to find a new friend at the local Wal Mart electronics department?

Source