doobiwan found quite a helpful piece of information.
As you are all aware the Xbox 360 has possibly the worst survival rate of all the consoles. While the 3 year RROD warranty helps to ease this pain with an instant swap out we are still left with a bit of an issue.
Once you have your system swapped out (and have kept your old HDD) you can’t play your arcade games unless being currently signed into Live. Which means if your Internet goes down you can’t play online or your arcade games.
Which is more than a little annoying. Well there is a way to fix this problem.
All you actually need to do is re-download the games. Now I haven’t tried it myself but I am going to guess that it won’t actually re-download them but will rather check that you have them and then activate them again.
So there you go.. simple as that…
Xbox.com | System Use – Downloaded Content After Console Repair/Refurbishment
Last Updated: April 22, 2008
Nduimiso
April 22, 2008 at 14:18
does not work for me, downloaded everything again (yes it does check that you have it and then downloads for a second and then says complete) i even deleted some stuff and downloaded it again but it doesnt work, what does work is creating a new live account on your new console (you also get the 1 month free live) and downloading from that account, you can now use your content if you have downloaded it on your new account (impractical for paid content but can be used for free stuff like the media update, free themes etc.)
moegoe
April 22, 2008 at 14:45
hehehe… replaced my machine last week and like a dumbass, I deleted DOOM and tried to download it again… only to find that I can’t due to the DRM!!! LOL!!
Now I have to do Mr. Spl0it’s workaround…
I’ll try this again tonight with another arcade title other than MK3.
Nduimiso
April 22, 2008 at 15:19
even if you hadnt deleted it XBL wont let you re download it either.
moegoe
April 22, 2008 at 15:27
True true!!! but now I don’t have DOOM and might never have it…
baba
April 22, 2008 at 15:56
The catch phrase is this:
License restoration will only work on the console as returned to you by Microsoft’s service center.
We don’t get our consoles returned to us. I guess they link the s’n of the console to your Live account somehow, and it doesn’t happen when you swop out your console in SA.
Nick
April 22, 2008 at 15:58
Hey Guys, I do know how to sort this out. I called Xbox Support and told them that I want to move my license over to my new console. All I needed to do was supply them my new serial number, my gamertag and a scan of my slip for the store.
In the end, they told me they couldnt help me because now that I had “moved” to South Africa, i was no longer in a region supported by Live.