Probably nothing. I know someone who went through 3 of them in as many days. And that was when he first decided to purchase one. All 3 were non-operation right out of the box. His 4th one worked it seems. But if that had been me, I wouldn't have bothered after the second one failed. This is probably why I refuse to purchase an Xbox, that and it's doing really piss poor here in terms of market share and available titles.

And they blow way too much of their budget on researching and designing things that are completely pointless and could never hope to work.

How did he manage that? Please tell me he didn't actually buy all three.

And then he put them on top of each other, and karate chopped them.

Oooookay...

Two years ago, I decided to get a console. Hearing of the high 360 failure rates, and having a good computer, I decided to get a PS3. Haven't regretted it. Nothing against the 360. There are a lot of great titles available for it, but some I can play on my PC and the rest I consider a sacrifice that I'm willing to make in order to not have to replace my console or pay for on-line access.
Again, the 360 is a fine system when it works, but I don't have the kind of money to keep replacing a system. I'm no Sony or Nintendo fanboy, but I have to face the reality of my financial situation. I hope your curse comes to an end soon Cheese. Nobody should have that many systems fail on him. :(

He only paid for one as he got refunds for them as they were fucked on the day he bought them. The first two apparently came from the same store. The third from a different one. Not sure about the fourth.

That's some determination. I think I would have just got a PS3 by that point. Is the forth one still working?

I think so. He hasn't mentioned it breaking down or anything.

Forth time lucky then, I suppose.
When did he get it? Was it a first generation? I suppose it must have been to have a failure rate like that.

About a year ago now. They certainly weren't first gen. NO idea what their build name was, but he said it was the latest one (at that time).

I don't know which he went for but the Elites are supposed to be more reliable. Not that I'd have been tempted to get even one of those, to be honest. I've learned to limit my spending on Microsoft hardware.
But I do like their dirt cheap standard keyboards. Best I've ever used, actually. Oh and the 360 controller's good, so long as you never need the D pad for anything.

I entirely agree on both points. Their keyboards are amazing for the price, and the 360 controller is very well done. No idea why they were stupid enough to make the D pad 4 directions instead of 8, however.

Or why it's so spongy. If it had to be 4 directions then why not make it more like the SNES or Playstation controllers? But yeah, that aside it's a good controller.

The D-Pad on the Slim controller seems better to me, although still worthless... could be dreaming. Also, what do you mean the D-Pad is 4 directions instead of 8? You mean it doesn't have dedicated sensors for the diagonals?