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IS THE XBOX 360 GUITAR HERO II X-PLORER GUITAR DEFECTIVE?

There have been numerous complaints across the internet regarding the X-plorer guitar included with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II, and yesterday word began to circulate that RedOctane’s customer service had notified someone that there were two (2) models of guitar that were in fact defective.

The reported problem with the guitars, aside from having the worst back button in the history of the franchise, is that the whammy bar is partially or totally unresponsive, the yellow fret button sticks, the “tilt” function for Star Power works, but only sporadically and that some form of issue with the strummer exists, be it that it’s too loose, too tight, doesn’t work, etc. (For those wondering about my comment regarding the back button, that’s the button used to activate Star Power if you don’t feel like tilting the guitar – and it’s miniscule and recessed on the X-plorer)

According to Kotaku, one of their readers got the following response to his queries regarding some of the issues he was having with his controller;

“We have isolated this issue to two model numbers that can be found on the guitar’s packaging. The numbers are 95065 and 95055. We are asking that customers who puchased their items from a retailer perform an exchange with that respective store (for a model number other than the defective two listed above). Customer’s who purchased through our online story can complete an rma request for their defective item and we will exchange it for a fully function guitar controller. We do apologize for the inconvenience and will [resolve] these matters.” – Quote from RedOctane customer support as per the Kotaku article

Since my guitar is a 95055 and it most certainly has lag issues with the whammy-bar, I started to look to see if there was any official word regarding that comment. In searching through RedOctane’s site and the official Guitar Hero forums, I couldn’t find anything other than links back to the Kotaku article or other sites that had picked up on that quote. There was no official comment from RedOctane to be found.

Here is what I did find in my search for answers;

  1. It appears that there are only two models of guitar – the 95055 and 95065. The few sites that stated the box they had said “95067” advised that the guitar inside was labeled as a 95065.
  2. I Called my local Gamestop (where I bought the game) and they advised they haven’t heard anything about the issues with the guitars or any kind of a recall / return request.

Given the horror stories about some of the guitars and the fact that mine, while off, isn’t badly off, I’m really inclined to hold onto it for a few more days until someone knows something concrete as I’d hate to bring it back and get one that’s even worse. (Especially since the only guitars out there are apparently the problematic 95055 and 95065 models)

So, is RedOctane really asking people to return their guitars? I don’t know. I know I’ll be holding onto mine at least until next week in hopes that someone makes an official, on the record, statement about this whole mess.

April 7, 2007 Posted by | Activision, Defective, Guitar Hero, RedOctane, Rumors, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment

GAMESPOT LEAKS MAY 7TH XBOX 360 DASHBOARD UPDATE NEWS?

Now don’t take this at 100% face value, but according to MyGamerCard.net, Gamespot accidentally posted the below video about the new features coming to the Xbox 360 Dashboard on May 7th. The video was supposedly taken down almost immediately at Gamespot, but resurfaced on YouTube a short time later. Since Gamespot hasn’t mentioned the video one way or another as of yet, there’s really no way of knowing if they were just posting a video they saw somewhere, if this was actually one of their in-house produced videos or if they have nothing to do with the video at all.

I will say that the guy saying “yippee” in response to one of the features is what tripped my “I’m not sure if I believe this” radar. Check it out below;

As for what’s actually showcased in the video, I’ll say this…

  1. They talk about the new Achievements message, but don’t actually show an example of it. I, for one, would love this feature as I freely admit I probably hit the guide button every time I get an achievement to see what it was for – unless it was something obvious and/or expected.
  2. Am I the only one who got really nervous when they were talking about low-power background downloads and the fact that the 360’s cooling fans would shut off during this process?

April 7, 2007 Posted by | Achievement Points, Microsoft, Rumors, Update, Xbox 360 | Leave a comment