Gone Legit.

Well, just for one system, really.


I’ve been a big fan of the Xbox 360 since before it came out. I wasn’t sure I was going to get one on the Japanese launch day, ’til I went to a friend’s place and checked it out.

Then I got one on the way home.

Since then (December 2005) it’s been a good source of entertainment.

It’s also been a source of headaches.

Ever since Dead Rising came out last Fall, my 360 has been less than perfect. I’m not blaming the game, it’s just that after I loaded it up the first time, shit got all wonky. I got a new copy of the game and things seemed to be okay, for the most part.

I got the occasional lockup in games, which was annoying, but not completely intolerable. Then there were other games that just didn’t work at all. The same copy would work great on a friend’s machine, but lock up on mine.

How wonderful.

Once the warranty ran out in December I decided to get creative and mod the system. I reflashed the DVD drive to allow playing copied games. I put a clear green shell on the console (which did look quite nice). I even added some lighted exhaust fans to give it a nice, nuclear glow. (They were also supposed to keep it cooler, too.)

I don’t know if it was all my modding, or if it just began a slow march towards death. The lockups became more constant and some games (legit or burned) would barely run at all.

So I got more serious about the cooling process.

I pulled the thing apart down to the board. I cleaned off the CPU and GPU and put new thermal paste on them (Artic Silver 5, of course). I put heatsinks on two of the RAM chips and the Southbridge chipset.

Still locked up. Crap!

I wasn’t ready to give up yet, so I went looking for other cooling mods. I found a good one on llama.com that would seriously speed up the fans (by increasing their power source from 5 volts to 12), pulling a lot more air through the main heatsinks.

And make things a tad noisy.

The lockups were gone, but so was my nice, quiet (relatively – it is a 360 after all) game machine.

That did it.

I’d decided before doing the 12-volt fan mod that if that didn’t get things fixed, I was just going to get a new 360 and sell off the old one. As I said, the new mod worked, but I just wasn’t happy. I couldn’t relax and enjoy my games, wondering how long things would hold out, or if my next lockup was going to come at an inopportune moment. (Like several had, falling right inbetween that delicate time when you’ve finished a mission and need to get to a save point.)

I had to go to Akihabara today to scout some stuff out and get some computer supplies (ink, paper, etc.), so I took a little detour and checked out what kind of used stuff was in my favorite game shops.

I’m glad I did!

Much to my surprise, Sofmap had a used 360 Core system (the one I’d been thinking of picking up to replace my current 360) that came with a copy of Blue Dragon. (A game I’d been curious about, but hadn’t picked up, since it’s all in Japanese.) They were selling it for Â¥19,800 – a nice markdown from the new price of Â¥28,800. I took a closer look at it and saw that it had been originally purchsed on April 24th.

Of 2007!

(Side note: Electronics retaiers in Japan will usually stamp or write the sale date on an item’s box (if there’s a place for it) for warranty purposes. It’s very handy in case you lose your receipt.)

That was surprising enough, finding a used system for sale 10 days after the original purchase date. Then I checked the Sofmap tag, to see when it had been sold to them. Care to guess what date that was?

Yup! 24 April 2007!

Why would somebody buy a system then sell it back to another shop on the same day? I’ll tell you why. Odds are the buyer had a lot of points (store credit) on his Yodobashi loyalty card and was in need of cash. So he just bought an expensive item that he new another shop would give him cash for. He loses some of the value from his points, but since no store will give you cash for points, it’s a reasonable hit to take.

Of course, I bought it. ^.^

I took it home and checked it out, curious if I’d be able to flash the drive in it. Turns out I can’t, as the drive is incompatible with my flashing hardware. (The new drive is a Samsung and my old one was a Hitachi. I know Samsungs can be flashed, but not via USB and not by a Mac. As far as I know, anyways.)

So what?

The new system works, has a one-year warranty (okay, one year minus 10 days) and I’ve got enough accessories from my original 360 that the limited contents of the Core pack aren’t a big deal. (I had a spare wireless controller, wireless headset and an extra wired headset.) The only thing I’m really missing is a hard drive, but I’d pretty much decided to get the 120GB one next month, since I think my original 20GB drive was kinda flaky.

What about my old system?

I took it apart again, pulled out the cooling mods, put the original case back on and packed it up nice and neat. (Always keep your original packaging, kids – including all those silly bags they put each component in.) I went back down to Akiba and promptly sold it to a used game shop. How much did I get for it? Â¥24,000.

That’s right, I made money on the day. ^.^

Of course, I can’t play burned games anymore, but I’ve got plenty of 360 games I haven’t finished yet. And a few of the ones I’d downloaded I’m definitely going to buy, because they were awesome and well worth the money. So it looks like I’m out of the 360 download business. For now, anyways.

And I’ll probably stay that way. At least until the warranty on this system runs out. ^.^

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