DRM cripples 'repaired' Xbox 360, can no longer access paid for content

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Microsoft, DRM and the non-working Xbox 360. It’s like a Tom Clancy novel.

A Kotaku patron, Kevin, has his Xbox 360 red ring of death on him last November. Fair enough, it happens. So he contacted Microsoft, which then arranged for his console to be repaired. A little while later a repaired Xbox 360 arrived in the mail. Hooray.

Not.

Microsoft sent Kevin a different console. When he tried to access his Xbox Live content on this different Xbox, he found that it didn’t work on profiles that weren’t the purchasing profile. When you buy something on XBL, it can be accessed by every profile on the console and not just the one that did the purchasing. Not so with the new Xbox.

So here Kevin is with a semi-gimped 360. What’s Microsoft’s reaction?

There’s nothing they can do. Kevin called and called Microsoft, received assurances that the problem was being worked on. This tete-a-tete began in November; it’s now February and there’s no solution in site for Kevin. Microsoft told him that hopefully there will be one sometime in 2008. How nice of them.

So there’s two issues at work here. One, Microsoft is using some busted DRM with its Xbox 360. Two, its customer service comes across as woefully incompetent.

Microsoft Has No Answer For Their Broken XBOX Live DRM [Consumerist]