My experiments with truth - aka the Xbox 360 india launch

I

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Ok , picked up a new XBOX 360 last week (1 day after launch) at Bangalore. The premium model retailing at around 27.5 K.

Reached home, and opened the box ..only to discover that M$ did not ship it with a component HD AV cable, only composite.. I look at my large screen HDTV and sigh....well time to call up M$ support.

Support only available Mon-Fri 9AM-5PM.. well there goes a perfectly wasted weekend....

Call up M$ support, inform them that the box is supplied with a composite cable.. have to go through hoops explaining that I picked up the premium kit and not the core...(how dumb do support folks think users are ..hhhh?).

Welll the support folks ask me to go fight it out with the retailer ( has anyone in India ever received customer support from a dealer ..after he has made a sale??)

Dealer calls up contact..passes buck around... I decide to pick up a new cable instead ..another 2 K down the tube..

Ok..now armed with cale, I hook up to my TV at 1080i ...connect the toslink into my receiver.. and voila ..beautiful picture ...am blown away ...but ...hold on..whats in the box... a miserable arcade game...hmmm...13 Gb. of empty space... could M$ not fill the disk with some demos at least for the India folks? ...DSL is still expensive in India (at least to me it is ...and my 2 Mbps. connection gives me a miserable 780 kbps. throughput ..c'mon MS India..use your hearts..if you want to win some gamers over from the PC arena..at least fill the damn box with some demos that can be played out of the box.
Ok..looks like M$ wants us to max. out our DSL connection, so I hook up the LAN connection to my GigE network, and fire it up.. my uPnP enabled switch recognises the xbox right away...and I am connected to Live...ahhh

Ok..now I need an account..try to login using my existing live account..no can do...India is not priviliged enough to be a part of live...hoookay...now create a new account in the US, set appropriate country codes to US, set outgoing DSL interface to proxy via US server and register...works this time..(afterwards I tested and found that live does not check origin. IP..so I can now use india dsl connections to access live without the extra routing).

hookay..now i am on live..time to start some downloads..download a few arcade games that the wife loves..and invite her over to play...

ok...now that live is configured and working..time to test the xbox with vista MCE and use it as an AV extender. Ok, RC1 recognises the xbox right away..and soon 1080p/720p wmvhd videos are streaming across my network to my large screen tv...wow...this box really works...so far so good..

ok now to try and play dvd's across the network ...ahhh no can do my friend..playing dvd's on the xbox switches back to 576P...mmmm..ok I guess I can live with that (given that my dvd player has a beautiful DAC that handles hd o/p for dvd's this is not much of an issue to me.

The new Vista MCE interface is good looking on the xbox, my entire 1 Tb. of file storage is now available in my living room ...life is good....or is it? ...start to look at video support..ahhh..only M$ codecs supported..no Xvid/Divx/H264 ....awwww....i knew the dream was too good to last....

so neway, it plays games right..time to go to the store and pick up a few titles...NFS MW and Quake are my fav. on the PC , so time to see if the xbox can throw more frames than my 7950 GT.

Hmm..wher do I pick up titles... call the dealer..yep..titles are available..table tennis and more table tennis... *gasp* are you kidding me...??? naw...only table tennis is available saar...

ok..time to call another dealer..are titles available? yes saar..all titles come in box itself...ahhhhh..how stupid of me...titles come in box yaar.....

call another dealer...yep you guessed it..table tennis available saar...why you not buy core system..it comes with race game saar...want to buy saar???

ok..the collective IQ of the dealers that I spoke with will still not exceed the value of room temperature on a warm bangalore day....c'mon M$ ...you launch a gaming console without games?? are you guys nuts....??

Ok..so back to fiddling with media capabilities...finally get it to transcode and stream..waste of pc cpu/network bandwidth...and the resulting quality is hardly viewable....so which leaves me with my assessment of the xbox 360 -

1) Good for streaming MP3...yeah right..my AV system can already do that...

2) The demos I downloaded from live (12 Gb. of them) look good..but whats the use of playing demos if you cannot purchase the games from your local store...the india cost for games is 2500 (which is ok if you are earning in USD and living in India), but for the average joe without stock options...my guess is as good as yours...

3) Can finally stream Xvid/Divx - well my dvd player does that too..

4) Can play DVD's - well my dvd player does that very well ,.and upscales via a genesis chip to boot ...

So what is the xbox good for???? well without cheap games and Xbxlive ..you may as well buy a PS2 ..and enjoy the wide variety (read cheap / bootlegged) games that are available.

So what did I do next.....? well the india xbox now sits in a corner... and has been replaced with a US import (NTSC/J).

Getting games is not an issue...retailers in SIN/BKK are happy to ship me used games/new games at 20USD a game, delivery takes a few days via courier..but the availability of titles the the cheaper price are hard to beat...

So... M$ let me know what you folks think you hope to acccomplish by launching this crap in India..if you want to do anything ..please do it right..

launching a new console without games/ adequate sales support and dealer awareness about your product, you stand a very slim chance of selling your console..

PS...hardcore gamers in India are techy geeks..so when you do an ad promo..please drop the cricket fanboy thing...show what your console can do..and you stand a chance of getting some india customers.
 
If you already had a NTSC-J box with proper cables then why did you go for the PAL version, i heard its more easy to connect to LIVE through the NTSC-J box then the PAL box since MS has not released LIVE in India yet.. Did you have some problems with the NTSC-J ?

I know Games are an issue here and have heard many complain so thats why many of my friends have resorted to buy the Jap version of the console and import cheap games from Jap and get it almost in the same time they release in U.S...

People on the X360 Indian forums have also complained about the bad Customer Support, i was ready to buy it too the same day it launched in India so i could get some sort of warranty but after many Indians complaining more about the PAL version than the NTSC-J version, i think i will pass the warranty and Indian games....

Btw the X360 is mainly or only for gaming, i never heard M$ boast much about the entertainment shit of it. Wait for PS3, maybe thats what a fullly loaded entertainment system is supposed to be like..

And yes i have no clue what the heck is wrong with the ads of XBOX360, why cant they showoff of the good looking games and people will be hooked on. Some serious BS ads, btw any kiosks sighted in India guys ?

akS !
 
well, why did i buy the india box? hmmm..cause i believed that M$ would do the right thing for India and launch the product correctly - read cheap console+games.

I spend considerable time outside the country and have avoided bringing back a 360 to avoid hassles with warranty (early 360's were toasters) with a rma level of 30%. After the launch..i just decided to sc*** the warranty as local M$ were not capable of resolving a minor issue with a mis-packed cable ..what use is this local warranty anyway?
 
Yes, X360's made before January 2006 had lots of faults anyways...

I completely agree with this, there is one more guy on these forums who did not get the HD-AV cable and unfortunately like you he also had to get it from somewhere else... I doubt MS support will be as strong in India as it is in US... I was waiting for MS to launch the box officially in India like many people just to have that secure warranty thing...

Many people feel cheated in a way, anyways as i said the box is only for Games and LIVE = The Heart of the BOX. Well i presume if anyone in the coming weeks is unfortunate to have a faulty xbox than he will have a hard time getting in contact with someone who can actually help him, like always he will just be revolving in circle with no help from anywhere...

Anyways i wanted to know from where do you import your games from Singapore and Bangkok for 20$, i heard the cheapest we can get for legit games is 38$ with 4$ shipping....

akS !
 
27K is far too much to be paying for a x360 but what really gets me is how there was a similar thread where someone complained about missing component cables too. I wonder if they're deliberately pulling out the cables.
 
^^

This has been replied to by MS India

Xbox.com | International Forums - OMG cant believe this.You wont believe who called me.

Hi guys the cables hafve been wrongly shipped you are absolutely right, but we have corrected the situation where u should sperately recieve the HD AV cable free from the retailer u purchase the console we have given them the correct cables additionally. In case you don't recieve or are being charged by a retailer. Send me mail directly at mohita@microsoft.com & I will fix it.

Keep your feedback coming guys it helps us to become better and create a gaming revolution in India.

Cheers

Mohit Anand
Click to expand...
Atleast they havent completely ignored us gamers:cool2:

akS !
 
i am not sure...but around 6 months back..my friend got Xbox 360 from the US\japan...as i remember...and we all were like...wowwW!when we saw it in his house..on a HDTV..playing..mostwanted...and i thought games were available in india...but u saying titles are not available ?

also my friend has more than 20-25 titles for the 360 ?how come did he get?i am pretty sure he gets them locally ?are these grey market dvds shipped into india ??
 
^^

Yes, games imported from Japan are available locally at many places... Btw faheem how do the games look on the HDTV ? Can you tell me some more info of were your friend got the Xbox360 from India and has it given any sorts of problems yet...

I am dead sure i want to get a Xbox360 but not the PAL version since they are not available here(no good games to buy).

akS !
 
whateve_r said:
This has been replied to by MS India
Click to expand...

So who's fault is this? MS' or the dealers. From the message quoted by MS India, it seems like it was MS' fault. I can't beleive MS would fool themselves into believing there is noone here who would own an HDTV.

friedclyde said:
what more can you expect from microsoft??? lol i dont mind waiting for another year but its gonna be a ps3
Click to expand...

Yeah, too bad Sony hasn't given the slightest hint that they will be officially releasing the PS3 here in India so we will never know if they would make the exact same stupid mistakes. Oh wait, The HDMI cable doesn't even come standard with the PS3.
 
whateve_r said:
^^

Yes, games imported from Japan are available locally at many places... Btw faheem how do the games look on the HDTV ? Can you tell me some more info of were your friend got the Xbox360 from India and has it given any sorts of problems yet...

I am dead sure i want to get a Xbox360 but not the PAL version since they are not available here(no good games to buy).

akS !
Click to expand...

ok...i dnt knw much abt the NTSC \PAL versions...and which one my frnd has...and he didnt get the 360 from india...somewhere from kapan\US ..so even uses some extra power concerter sumthing...
but to tell u the games look mind blowing on ..HDTV ..he has a big scree rear projection HDTV...and he uses some canvas\cloth for the screen...i dont have much info...but the games just look ...realistc..and really superb..i ve played..
MOST wanted ..and a few FPS games..with him..and yeah also fifa...and really had fun....with HDTV ..and 5.1 surround speakers from JVC\JBL (dont remember the name)... which where as big as me !!!
really remember the days...when we had fun in the vacation after my board ..exams..all cauz of his 360 ..hdtv and..the speakers...and not to forget..the extra soft sofa...l:rofl: :rofl: ...but i miss it..now..as we both are in different...college...and lack of time..!!

sorry for writing...so long..but couldnt hold ..myself...telling u the experience..
i am sure..when u have some good games..to match up with the HDTV and X360...u too will have fun !!:)
 
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