The HAL 9000 computer from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"

At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. Our de facto Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling, who in his day job is the creative director for Newsweek.com, posted here last month about his brief playtime with the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, sandwiched between the obligations--and joy--of raising his new daughter. In today's entry, he reflects on how his affection for his Xbox 360 has been tested in recent weeks.

My first Xbox 360--that's right, my first Xbox 360--died just two weeks after I received it as a surprise for my wedding anniversary last summer (my wife still gets Hall of Fame status for that gift idea.) One minute it was humming along nicely as I parachuted into position on Bridge Too Far in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, the next it froze up and stared me down with its HAL 9000-esque eye burning three-quarters red--the dreaded "ring of death" came to visit. I somewhat sheepishly brought it back to my local Best Buy, secretly afraid--after a night of Googling message boards--that I'd suffocated it in our TV cabinet and melted its innards to mush. The salesperson at the returns desk barely looked up as I gingerly pushed the repackaged unit across the counter. "So have you been getting a lot of returns on these?" I ventured after the silence became uncomfortable. "Uh-huh," she said, eyebrows raised, "good luck with this one," pushing a new unit back across the counter. I left quickly.

Truth be told, the Xbox consoles are the first Microsoft products I've truly loved, and the only PC-based products I've spent money on--otherwise, my household is all Apple. It felt like Redmond had gotten it right with the first Xbox: solid-if-chunky industrial design; smooth and bug-free operating system; genre-defining games like Halo, and Xbox Live--the lifeblood of my nightly gaming. Miraculously, Microsoft had become the underdog I rooted for: they even wooed me away from my PlayStation 2 after only a year.

I had written off the demise of my first 360 as a price-of-being-an-early-adopter-fluke, confident I would not see red on my new console. However, the last few days of news--particularly what this interview doesn't say--have given me pause. The fatalist in me is left thinking its not a matter of if, but when, my 360 will die. It's funny: I have an iPod nearing its end that cost as much, but I'm not nearly as upset the thought of it tanking. I know I can walk into an Apple store and get a new one that will likely be just fine. If my second Xbox goes, my wife may catch me dejectedly whispering "but how can I trust you anymore?" into its red eye before I get it replaced.

I watched G4's live coverage of the Microsoft E3 media event last week. Nothing too shocking in terms of previews--for the most part, I'm excited about the games I already knew about. I will be making a serious fool of myself on the sticks once Rock Band ships. Nuclear fallout looks like good times for me in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare--and I'm happy they've jumped on the multiplayer beta bandwagon. Grand Theft Auto IV may finally hook me on the franchise--Liberty City looked as dingy and muggy as the real New York can be in the summer. Assassin's Creed is intriguing--it might bring back some of the fun of the original PS1 Tenchu for me, and the wide playable expanse of Jerusalem was impressive. And as far as Halo 3, they had me at the image of the distant battlecruiser silhouette shimmering in the heat--but it would be nice if that was actually in the game, pre-rendered or not.

To date, my replacement 360 has chugged along without incident, and I hope it survives this generation of consoles so I can play all those games, then eventually have it retire with dignity, like its predecessor, as the bedroom DVD player. But like N'Gai, at a minimum I'd like a better explanation of exactly what the issues are that have contributed to the hardware failures (naively, I was waiting for it during last Tuesday's press conference.) My two cents: longer-term, if Microsoft really wants to make the Xbox central to home entertainment, not just to gaming, it needs to be both affordable and reliable--otherwise it will lose the edge to people just cobbling together their local on-demand DVR service, a decent DVD player or media PC and calling it a day. So before that Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360 ships, make sure the guts of the machine--and not just the paint job--are worthy of the Master Chief.