Anyone who’s been following the news (or rumors, as Microsoft would have you believe) knows that I have not been having much luck with my 360. From the general Xbox Live problems that many people are experiencing to the disappearing achievements that I supposedly made up, things are not working the way they should. Microsoft apparently didn’t appreciate my whistle-blowing, however, because they’ve decided to shut me up by having my 360 clipped.

Before I go any further, let me clarify a few things. I love my 360. I love Xbox Live. It’s for these reasons that I get so upset when they don’t work. I don’t write these articles to bring unwarranted negative attention to Microsoft or the Xbox brand. I don’t do this to give the Sony fanboys more ammunition and perpetuate the flame wars. I don’t just make stuff up in the hopes of generating attention for our site, or me in particular. I don’t do this just for the money.

I write these articles because I’m unhappy with the state of the 360’s world. If a horde of people were made aware of the problems the 360 is having, especially if it lets them know they are not alone in their Xbox woes, then perhaps Microsoft would find the proper motivation to actually fix them (the problems, not the people). I write these articles to let everyone know that I will not just sit around and let Microsoft (or anyone else) pretend there is nothing wrong when there very clearly is. Public outcry is a powerful force.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me continue.

About two weeks prior to writing this article, I wrote up a a nice little piece about Xbox Live’s service troubles.

I quickly followed that up with an article about why I love Xbox Live, where I sarcastically pointed out the things that are actually great about it but were not working properly like Microsoft claimed they were.

Then last week, I wrote an article about disappearing Achievements. This, like the stories before it, was written from personal experience with the 360 and Xbox Live. I didn’t write it based on a rumor or hearsay, but from living through it myself. This prompted numerous responses on our website and other sites such as News4Gamers and Kotaku. The comment sections were full of people corroborating my story with their own experiences with disappearing Achievements.

While I can understand people not wanting to believe the story based on the fact that I have no hard evidence to prove it, as well as the notion that I’m just some amateur no-name looking to promote myself, the fact that so many other people have reported having the same experience should make it somewhat more credible. Microsoft doesn’t think so. Their official position is:

Xbox LIVE is not erasing Achievements earned while playing on the service. If any member is having trouble with their Xbox LIVE service, we urge them to contact 1-800-4-my-xbox.

Well thanks, Microsoft. I was having a problem and I did contact 1-800-4my-xbox. It was your people that confirmed to me that disappearing Achievements was, in fact, a known issue and offered me a solution (that I have yet to attempt because it seems impossible). Had your techies known they were talking to the great Dan Landis, Ripten writer extraordinaire, maybe they would have sung a different tune to prevent me shouting it from the rooftops.

So now that I’ve given you enough context for this story and done enough self-promoting, let me continue with what’s new.

RRoD. To those of you that have never seen that before (which I find hard to believe), that stands for Red Ring of Death. It’s the current term used to describe the three flashing red lights on the 360’s face when it goes kaput. I just got it last night. This really isn’t that strange — it happens to a lot of us. So why am I writing an article about it? Well, it’s what followed that got me typing.

All red and no green makes Dan a sad boy.

Not 10 minutes after I saw those beautiful red lights did I get a call from none other than Mike. If you don’t know who Mike is, you’ve got plenty of company because I don’t know who he is either. He claimed to be from Microsoft Consumer Relations.

“I was just calling to confirm your issue with missing Achievements. Specifically, I want to know whether or not our customer service agent has resolved your complaint so that we can help other people with the same issue. Is this still an issue for you?”

I tell him that the previous agent said I need to get another achievement in the same game to update my profile, which should then unlock my previously earned achievement that had disappeared. I don’t really see myself ever getting any of the remaining achievements because they are just too hard, so I haven’t even tried the supposed solution. Now that I already have him on the phone, however, I wanted to report that my 360 has died and needs repaired.

“Really? Well, that’s very unfortunate. I can’t assist you with that problem at this time because that is not my department. You’ll have to call 1-800-4my-xbox during normal business hours.”

Oh, right. It isn’t normal business hours right now. In fact it’s 2:30am. I ask him why he’s calling me now if it isn’t normal business hours, and he tells me that I had called them before during this time frame, so they base their callbacks on that. Then he thanks me for my time and hangs up.

Very strange. So it appears to me that Microsoft hired a Black Ops guy named Mike (obviously a cover) to stealth-kill my 360, and then call me to make sure the job was successful. Even if you aren’t a conspiracy nut, you have to find the timing to be more than just a coincidence.

Mike calls at 2:30 in the morning (strange) and asks about an issue that supposedly isn’t acknowledged by Microsoft to even exist (also strange). And this happens less than 10 minutes after my 360 dies on me (super strange). Either Microsoft is trying to send a message, some Xbox fanboy is upset with my stories and hacked my shit, or it really is just a strange coincidence. I’ll let you be the judge.

Moving on. I go out to “24-hour store whose name I won’t mention because I loathe giving them my money” and pick up another 360. I’m working on a review of Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom and, obviously, I need to play the game to do that. I’ve been wanting to get another 360 anyways, so this just gave me an easy excuse to justify it to my wife. Long story short, the power supply of my new 360 doesn’t work.

So I called 1-800-4my-xbox today during normal business hours and reported all of my issues. Apparently I can’t send my new power supply in the same box with my old 360 because it’s “harder to track”. The power supply needs a separate box that I have to pay to ship to them, even though it’s brand new and not my fault that it doesn’t work. I tell the woman on the phone (Rita) to forget it, that I’ll just take it back to the store and get a new one. She then gets confused and cancels the repair order on my 360. After about 20 more minutes, we get everything straight: repair my old 360, and I’ll replace my new 360 on my own.

Do I really think Microsoft or some hacker broke my 360? No, not really. It is a strange coincidence, but that’s probably all it is. I sometimes wonder if Microsoft cleverly designed the 360 to break after a year and make people like me buy a “backup” 360 to alleviate my worries. What a great way to increase sales! Surprisingly, none of the stores I called to get a replacement 360 (Target, Wal-Mart, Gamestop, EBGames) had any in stock, and the one I had purchased last night was the last one from that particular store. Have they really not received any shipments since the holiday rush? Are too many people buying new systems because their friends got one, or are that many systems defective that all those people are already needing replacements? Discuss.

Basically, the point of this article is to address the baggage the 360 currently comes with. It’s incredibly frustrating, and someone with less patience than me would quickly give up on it altogether. Someone on the fence about whether or not they should “Jump In” might decide against it because you’ve filled the pool with shit. Please, Microsoft, for the love of Mike — stop pissing off your customers and get it together.

This was going to be a pool full of shit, but that would just be gross.

There has been some discussion about the recently released demo of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for the Playstation 3 on the well known gaming forum Neogaf. A very select few have been having some visual troubles with the game, resulting in a pixelated mess on their HDTVs. This is surprising, since most who have experienced the beauty of Insomniac’s game can see that it is very sharp and pretty damn special to say the least. So what is going on here?

On some 1080p HDTV’s Ratchet and Clank appears to be pixelated, or in the best possible words – a garbled mess. Now reports of this have been few and far between, but it seems that although being a 720p game, when 720p is selected on the display options for the Playstation 3 the game does not appear as it should on some HDTV’s (a 52inch 1080p Sony Bravia is one of the mentioned televisions). When 720p is unchecked, leaving only 1080i and 1080p the picture in fact clears up but at the bottom-right of the screen is a block of broken up, fuzziness.

What could be the problem? Well some research has been done at the Beyond3d forums, suggesting that Ratchet and Clank is 704p or 704by1280 pixels instead of the regular 720by1280. This is unlike the Halo 3 problem of being a 640p image (or even Conan at 576p) being upscaled to 720p (and higher) since Ratchet and Clank is not upscaled by the Playstation3.

Upscaling from 640p to 720p would cause some strange exaggeration of aliasing, and other minor problems with picture quality. Instead, Ratchet and Clank cuts off 8pixels above and below, meaning the remaining image will still be rendered at 720p but with small black bars above and below, such as you would see when you watch an HD film on your television. A 1080p film will have black borders above and below, thus not using all the pixels, but the quality that is displayed still means it is 1080p. Ratchet and Clank is even less extreme than this, since the black borders would be almost unnoticeable if your HDTV didn’t use overscan to remove them completely. This image is sent from the Playstation to your television, and then the overscan of your television will make the final picture fit the screen, thus not showing the black bars.

Ratchet and Clank being 704p is thus a clever way to save some pixels without impacting visual quality, for Ratchet and Clank is so gorgeous to experience, especially at 60fps, that you will double check to make sure you are not playing through a Pixar film. But could this be a problem for some 1080i/p HDTV’s? It’s not clear if it is, but it could be due to these televisions upscaling from 704p without overscan.

Whatever the problem is, Insomniac seems to be keen to get it fixed for every HDTV out there. While we have yet to confirm that the following is indeed from an employee of Insomniac, it appears that one One of the Insomniac team members has personally posted on the Neogaf forum asking exactly what the trouble is. If it is a member of Insomniac, it would be This is proof of just how down to earth the developer is.

“Hey guys,

Can you send me any brand/model numbers of TVs you have if you are having issues and what the issue is, plus what settings you are running (screen caps are helpful too).

We believe the lower right corner garbling issue appears to only be happening with 1080i/p output forced and with no-overscan. The vast majority of people shouldn’t experience it, and we highly recommend ensuring your PS3 has 720p output enabled as RCF will look best at that resolution and it should correct the issue.

If you’re having the strange pixelation issues, we want to try to replicate that here. We’ve never seen it in-house on all of our various HD sets, and knowing what TVs we need to track down would be helpful.

Appreciate your help
JS”

So let’s hope Insomniac gets this fixed for those that have the problem, otherwise some sorry sods will be missing out on one of the best looking games the Playstation 3 has to offer.

(Note: Insomniac has not confirmed that the game is rendered at 704p.)

Sources: Neogaf, Beyond3d

Update – 10/16 7:36 PM EST
The poster on the Neogaf board has been confirmed as an actual employee of Insomniac. Well known to the board, and featured in several of Insomniac’s Podcasts.