So... my 360 has finally died, not today but about 3 days ago. It all started after I downloaded the Star Trek: Legacy Demo. I had graphical errors and freezing randomly, until it got to the point where I had the ROL error. I called Microsoft Supprt and after talking to them for a while I was sent a box for the poor 360. 

They sent me a protective wrapper to put her in and a box to ship her with. Apparently the repair facility is located in texas, as the UPS label would appear to show.

So, now I send her back and I wait to be able to play again. Hopefully I'll be able to get on on someone else's 360 to get the arcade titles I'm going to miss, and have already missed. TMNT and Castlevania. Anyways, I'm out a 360 for a while, so I don't know what else to do.

Today Microsoft began their new program, Xbox Rewards. However, just as when they opened the Halo 3 site for the rule of three registration the site completely lagged out. I don't really understand how Microsoft manages to understimate the traffic flow upon release of these key sites. After the hype for the Halo 3 site and release, there ensued a 2-3 hour time-slot of inability to access the site. The fact that you got an error page wasn't good enough for people since there was a user limit for the registration, 13,333 users. Now with the release of the Xbox Rewards program, there was again a user limit, not in the same way as the Halo 3 site, but again the limit. Users aren't satisfied with not being able to access the site immediatly so instead of letting the site cool down and users trickle in, it become mass mayhem. Hundreds, even thousands of users constantly refreshing trying to access the page, only causing more server bandwidth to be bogged down.

I find this to truly be a shame, Microsoft needs to start planning the release of these events ahead of time. Releasing the site a week ahead of time so users can register before the event and not cause the bandwidth to be choked in such a small amount of time. Adjust expectancy for users and appropriate the proper amount of bandwidth for the release, gradually lowering it until it averages out.

That's all for today. Just me, upset, waiting to register for the new program.