Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2012My advice to current XBox owners: Never purchase a new console. Always send your old one in for repairs. This will help you avoid the aggravation I have been forced to endure.
Back in February, my old XBox console started having longer load times and randomly freezing up. Realizing that it was several years old, likely on its last legs and long out of warranty (meaning I'd have to pay to have it repaired) I decided to purchase the newer S model. I also bought the hard drive transfer cable, moved all of my content to the new one, then ran the license transfer process to assign all of my downloadable game licenses to my new console.
Except... it didn't work. For some reason all of my content is still assigned to my old console. If I purchase something online, my download queue shows the message "Assigned to other console" and will not download it. Even if it's a new item I've never purchased before, it still gets assigned to the old console. Also, I now have to be signed in to XBox Live to play any previously downloaded games on my hard drive. If I'm offline, it shows up as the trial version, since the paid unlocked version is still assigned to my old console.
I have tried clearing the cache. I have tried deleting my profile and downloading it again. I have tried deleting the latest system update from my console and downloading it again. I am unable to attempt the license transfer again because of Microsoft's ridiculous limit on how often it can be performed. Which I understand is to prevent chronic miscreants from jumping to new consoles without penalty every time their current one gets banned, but in my particular case it kind of completely sucks.
Microsoft has proven themselves spectacularly useless in helping me get this fixed.
The first support representative I talked to was very friendly and assured me the problem would be fixed, but it could take up to 72 hours. Perfectly satisfactory answer. I wait three days. Nothing happens.
I call back and am told by another equally friendly support rep that, no, it actually takes up to 25 days. Why the first guy told me 3 he does not know, but all right, fine, I will wait 25 days, what other choice do I have.
25 days pass, and... still nothing. At this point I am exceedingly tired of this nonsense. Back into support chat where friendly support rep #3 helpfully asks for... my console ID for the new system. Because apparently they need it to do a manual license transfer. And they cannot obtain it on their own. And for some reason did not, oh, I don't know, actually ASK me for it during one of the previous two chats. So now I am waiting ANOTHER 25 days for them to resolve this. In the meantime I am stuck with a not insignificant amount of purchased content that I must be connected to XBox Live to even use. I'm sure anyone who has ever purchased a PC game with invasive DRM that requires a persistent online connection can understand my frustration with that.
At this point my confidence in Microsoft's ability to fix this is pretty much zero. It feels as if they are utterly incompetent and dragging their feet every step of the way. I have been a loyal Microsoft customer for years, and am not asking for anything big. I just want my content back, the content which I own a license to use. I just want what is mine. That is not too much to ask.
I will post an update on April 20th, which is the end of my current 25-day waiting period.
I wish I had paid for a repair and gone without my old console for a few weeks. I deeply regret buying this new one.
This could happen to you.
UPDATE, 5/10/2012:
See the comments section. Amazon has a 1000-word limit on reviews. And oh my gosh is there ever more to tell. Seriously, get popcorn.
