A very sad story about why Microsoft sucks.

I’ve got a story. About a very depressed XBOX360 steering wheel. Here goes:

So I originally bought one of these wireless steering wheels 5 months ago, give or take a little bit. Well it worked for 3 hours. Then it broke in like 10 different ways. So I brought it back. Got a second one. It didn’t work. Brought that back. Got a third. That one worked for a week or so. Then the force feedback stuff didn’t work anymore. So I brought that back, really pissed off.

And now, we come to the poor little fourth steering wheel.

Wheely, as I will so lovingly call him, worked perfectly for a month. We had great times together. I got through about half of Colin Mcrae DiRT with him by my side. Then I put him down for five fateful minutes. When I picked him back up to play another race, his force feedback didn’t work anymore. Poor Wheely. And this sucked mainly because the store warranty was up. So I had to call Microsoft.

Whoop-de-fucking-doooo.

After about half an hour of really, really bad hold music, I got connected to a woman who I’d guess was from somewhere in China or Japan. Lovely. Well, she went through 20-25 minutes worth of “does it work if you plug it in like this” and “try this” with me, even though he was most definitely broken. I said I wanted a refund, because I’d been through 3 of these damn wheels, and a new one was probably not going to work any better. “I’ll speak to my supervisor.” Five minutes later, she’s sorry but she can’t give me a refund. She’ll ship me a part to try and fix it. If that doesn’t work, I can call up again and send it in. OK.

Four weeks later, apparently we got a message from them to confirm the shipping address. Well I never got this message because no one told me until very recently. But.. why the hell does it take four weeks to get to a point where they’re ready to ship me a part that I didn’t even want?

By then when I hadn’t recieved anything, I was just about to give up on poor old Wheely, because honestly I couldn’t be assed. He may have cost $130, but he just wasn’t worth all the work.

A few days ago I got a box. With picture instructions on how to put the steering wheel in. And a shipping label. So, it looks like Wheely’s not dead after all. He’s going to get sent to get fixed. Three months after I called customer service. Three months! Though, I’m not quite sure if I want to send him away. I mean, he still works, just not the way a $130 steering wheel should. I’m sort of afraid I’ll get one back that’s more broken.

Needless to say, I’m not going to buy too much Microsoft stuff anymore. Especially with the whole huge worldwide 360 breaking fiasco.

</Rant and story over>