Sony, Hackers, and Fail Oh MY!

My gaming history with Sony has always been a rocky one. The original PS1
constantly overheated and needed to be turned upside down to play after only
a few hours. Within 3 months of owning the PS2 it was scratching game discs
to unreadability. Calling Sony's support line yielded nothing but frustration as
they wanted me to pay 150 dollars to repair my 300 dollar console. I gave up on
Sony then; I had always been a supporter of their electronics, but a problem
that was clearly theirs wasn't addressed to my(the customer's) satisfaction and
I turned away from them.

So when the news of Sony being attacked by hacker groups hit, it didn't really
phase me. From my experience with the giant corporation I can understand how
you put enough people with bad experience with them together, something bad
was bound to happen. God knows that Laws these days favor corporations far
more than they do the user, or consumer/individual.  Unfortunately I don't think
hacking the Playstation Network is going to cause Sony Corp to be repentant of
their business practices. It was irresponsible of them to host credit card data
and passwords unsecured, and I really can't see the Gaming Division of Sony
having a long and fruitful life.

The hard drive on my Xbox 360 died last month.  In stark contrast to Sony,
Microsoft has always handled my console issues right, until now. Offering
repairs well beyond warranty dates free of charge. Unfortunately, there has
been a series of mistakes on their part, which has kept me from receiving my
replacement hard drive. The customer service person I first spoke to selected
on the computer to send me a "Hard Drive DOOR" instead of the 250 GB
hard drive. I am now told that I cannot receive a hard drive until they locate
the broken one I sent them, I taped the reference number to the hard drive
and wrote it on both sides of the package I sent it in, and tracking the package
it has been listed as received at their service center.

Every time I have called I am told that an escalation specialist will call me in
24-48 hours. I have yet to receive a single call from them regarding this issue.
For the first 3 weeks I called them every 50 hours (giving them a fair chance
to call me as promised). At one point a supervisor jumped on the line and made
promises to give me free Microsoft Points and a Year of Xbox Live to make
up for the constant blundering on their part during this issue. I am now currently
waiting as patiently as I can, it has been over a week since I called about the
hard drive as it's been costing me a lot in pre-paid minutes on my phone.
In the end, I do believe Microsoft will make good, a faith I never had with
Sony.