The last time that I came to you with a Captain’s Log, it was because MiDigital had miraculously called me after over a month to organise to collect my broken console and drop off the new amazing, happy one. Great stuff, I thought. You can only hope these days that when your replacement console arrives, it might be a Jasper …

You may remember that in January, I posted up a “Captain’s Log”, which was meant to follow the progress of my faulty Xbox 360’s swap-out procedure with MiDigital. What eventually happened is that I received no response to my request for a swap-out and was very quickly told my all of our readers that faxing through the necessary documents was …

I am pretty sure this image has been doctored but it was just to good not to post up. It’s been quite a hectic week for the Xbox 360 in the media but like the old saying goes “What goes around comes around”. Now it’s time for the 360 to show it’s pedigree and to make it out of the …

A little while ago, I posted up an article about how I am now going to be moving onto my fifth, yes fifth, Xbox 360 console since my original purchase. Well, I thought that for interests sake, I would keep a log of the new swap-out process that goes through MiDigital and even though I am only in the first …

Tomorrow I will be faxing through my forms to MI Digital to have my broken Xbox 360 replaced. While you always hear about the RROD, the Xbox 360 still seems to have quite a lot of other issues that go fairly unnoticed. When I get a swapped out console back from MI Digital I won’t be on my second, or …

Most of us won’t know him, most of us have never heard of him but the problem for Microsoft is that most of America does. The man I am talking about goes by the name of Leo Laporte. He is a presenter of an American Tech TV show called The Screen Savers and today, in a huge knock to Microsoft, …

While the console race has been a close and interesting one to follow, it seems like Microsoft may be whipping a card out of it's sleeve that may just give them a big advantage. The sickening thing about this whole story is that it's an advantage that is going to be obtained by making their console reach a standard of quality that should have already been there all along. Is there a bright future ahead for the Xbox 360, or are we just being setup for even more disappointments from Microsoft? The problem is obviously that Microsoft released a console that was flawed from the start and even though they were in the knowledge of those flaws, decided to release it anyway. It was good to see that Microsoft landed up paying for their underhanded tricks in the long run, with the need to extend RROD warranties for a problem that really shouldn't have been there from the start. Usually I don't enjoy seeing anyone suffer for no reason but they deserved it because at the end of the day it was always the consumer paying the price for a lazy design job and some underhanded business tactics. Many of the issues with the Xbox 360 may now be coming to an end with the latest batch of Xbox 360's to leave the factory and if a decent job was actually done this time around, we may see the era of problematic Xbox 360 consoles actually come to an end.... The new consoles have had their internal memory pushed up from 16MB to 256MB, meaning that the console will now be able to store the NXE dashboard without the use of a hard drive.... The internal memory, while not of much use for other functions is at least big enough that it can now carry the NXE and still have a little bit of space left for a few small Xbox Live Arcade games.

...While the change isn't entirely revolutionary it is a welcome addition for all of the consumers who are going to be looking at buying an Arcade unit.... According to a recent article on Neoseeker , the latest batch of Xbox 360's to come out of the factories are now packing what is called the "Jasper" chipset, which now has a reduced 65nm graphics chip as well as what has now also been revealed as a lower power requirement.... All consoles produced after October 23, 2008 now have this new chipset and if all goes well with the new design then we may see the end of the Red Ring of Death as we know it.

While many of you may already be clued in about the Jasper, a new piece of information has come to light with regards to identifying if an Xbox 360 console is a Jasper or not.

...Will the new chipset mean that consumers in future will no longer need to deal with the terrible woes that have plagued so many gamers in the last two years or are we only being set up for even more disappointment from a lazy design team? Time will have to tell on this one but if Microsoft have actually done a decent job then them and us could possibly looking at a much smoother future for the console and one that should have been there from the start.

A rep from Microsoft has complained that Microsoft has completely screwed a lot of them over by releasing the NXE update, which was rumoured to start causing RROD's, right after the time that a lot of customers warranties had ended.... Apparently the update has been causing a lot of issues for users and caused the MS service lines to explode with calls of complaint. The rep from Microsoft had the following to say: "I hate what the company did this year," "They released the New Xbox Experience a few days after the extended warranty period ended for most users and it's tough to explain that to raging callers. How do you say that MS just screwed them all?" Ouch, not afraid to tell it like it is I see. More of this whole mess, after the jump. The rep also went on to say that: "our bosses really fed us to the lions this time. We're getting everything from crying kids to death threats from angry adults. It's an orgy, I tell ya." Now while I don't want to move the focus away from how incredibly bad the NXE experience has been for many people, I really had to laugh at this next bit. The rep also said that some callers were blaming the update for some of the most ludicrous things.... Well, someone actually phoned in to complain that the his power went out after updating to the new dashboard. Well angry caller, look on the bright side, at least that way you were safe from having a RROD burn your house down, just like in those other reported cases. I can't see the release date of the NXE being a coincidence, so this whole deal of releasing just after a lot of peoples warranties had expired was a pretty mean trick to pull. Any South African users experienced a RROD after the update?