Ultimate Sadness

So I read this story on engadget, one of my fav. blogs. Without further delay, here's the story:

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There's certainly been no shortage of sad stories involving Xboxes, but when it comes to attempts to get the console repaired, this latest tale from a gamer known only as Nathaniel might have to take the cake. As you can see above, his console (one of the first to hit the market) boasted a good deal of personalization, including signatures from folks at Bungie and the Xbox 360 team, and a spiffy illustration by Rooster Teeth Comics artist Luke McKay. As with many other Xbox users, however, Nathaniel's console eventually packed it in, and he was forced to send it to Microsoft for repairs. Needless to say, that's when things took a turn for the worse. Despite calling ahead of time and getting assurances that his prized console would be sent back intact, and including a letter reiterating how much the console meant to him, Microsoft apparently took it upon themselves to clean it as best they could before returning it, leaving only a few faint smudges of permanent marker to ensure that it was, in fact, the same Xbox. There's no word as to what Nathaniel plans to do next (other than weep), but given that Microsoft gave the royal treatment to someone that did nothing more than get a Zune tattoo, you'd think they could at least give the guy a few free points or something.

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Now how awfully sad it is that after all the efforts made by Nathan, Microsoft employees still did not see any sentimental value to this, erasing it all. I'd like you to think not in terms of XboX but perhaps consider your favorite sport or tv show or something. Now consider how important a shirt, piece of paper etc. etc. will be to you to have it signed by you idol in NFL or NBA and how would YOU feel to see it all destroyed by an outsider?

Lastly, I'd just add that if this was my console and got ruined like that by evil, cold, emotionless hands, I'd cry more than I cried for the one whose name shouldn't be said. Those who know her name, good, those who don't ... idk!! Yeah, i'd cry that much and hate microsoft more than I hate Sony and Yahoo combined.

Halo 3 Madness

So like everyday, I got to work at 11 AM (yeah pretty late for coming to work but oh well) and my first hour, hour and a half is dedicated for reading the news from my "Personalized Google" homepage. The blogs include /. (nerdy way to say slashdot), 360 Fanboy, Engadget and betanews.com. Moving forward. The first blog title I notice on my homepage "Halo 3 pre-orders top 4 million?" and I was like "whoa! already?". The game comes out in November and I have been waiting for it since November 2004 (the moment I finished Halo 2). The numbers are ridiculously crazy but I have little room to doubt it, since the hype about Halo 3 is just enormously crazy. In December last year Bungie, (creators of Halo), aired a 60 second commercial for Halo 3, during Monday night footbal. Not surprisingly, I left work early that day (at 5.30) just so I could watch the commercial in all its HD glory (I wasn't the only one so crazy about it). It was just one time commerical that will never be aired on national tv ever again. And just after the commercial was aired, my first reaction was "That's it?" and then I went online and swarmed by IMs people bitching about how short the commercial was, which is pretty ironic considering Bungie probably paid like a few million dollars to air that commercial. But the point is that almost everyone I know, who owns a Xbox, has been waiting for this game to come out for ages. The day after the commercial was aired, Joystiq, another popular blog, had a video breakdown/analysis of that 1 minute commercial that ran for SEVENTEEN minutes. Yes, a frame-by-frame breakdown. Every single detail, from a comet to the bubble shield to the master Brute was ripped apart and analyzed and assumptions were made on what the story would be like. Seeing that kind of craze about a game is just incredible. If the numbers are real, then we are talking about almost about 300 million dollar sale on the first day the game comes out, beating even the best of the best Hollywood movie. But then you can find a party pooper in every good thing and in the above mentioned post, the party pooper is Kiggle. Read the post and read the comment number 13. And also read the reaction to his comment. The reaction is even more funny (just shows how loyal people are towards the Halo franchise, that they don't want to listen to anyone bitch about this game). Even though his speculations sound reasonable, I have my own reasons, mainly the hype I just talked about, to believe that the numbers are most likely real. And last but not the least, I didn't want to be left behind from this party so I pre-ordered my collector's edition from costco.com after lunch.

If any of you reading the blog wants to join the Halo 3 party when it comes out or want to be part of the Halo 3 beta, let me know. You can join the beta party starting May 16th for three weeks. And if anyone owns a 360 and playing Rainbow Six: Vegas or Crackdown currently, then send me a friend invite on Xbox Live @ the gamertag "sp4rt4n029" and I'll teach ya how to kick some puny ass in those game ;)

Until my next post, take care!!