Xbox 360 on the DL - 4 to 6 weeks

It finally hit me. The 360 is going back for repairs. It started on Monday when I started playing some demos, and it froze up, which has never happened before. No matter what I played, after about 1 minute, it would freeze up and the screen would go all checkerboard. No red ring of death, but still classic signs of overheating. Mind you, I have it in an open space, on it's own, in an apartment which is usually very cool, and that wasn't enough to stop it from happening.

One billion dollars to fix the problem - I'd hate to be the guy who took the fall for that one ;) For the record, the replacement will be my 4th 360 - the first 2 died due to an Xbox Live update gone bad, but I was able to return them to Target for replacements. Not a good track record, which is a shame for such a great system.

Thankfully the 360 tech support was helpful, but it'll be 4-6 weeks before I get it back. Yikes. At least it'll be free and should be back before the killer 360 fall lineup:

• BioShock
• Halo 3
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Mass Effect
• Beautiful Katamari
• Burnout Paradise
• Guitar Hero III

(And a bunch of Live Arcade games)

That's in addition to the following Wii titles:

• Metriod Prime 3: Corruption
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl

(And a bunch of Virtual Console games)

And then there's these PC games:

• Hellgate: London
• Half Life 2: The Orange Box

And I'm sure there's some DS games I'm missing too...

I may not leave the house for a year ;)