Ever had a console break the day before a big game release?

So I had just finished a game of Modern Warfare 2 when I noticed weird green circles on the screen that definitely don't belong there. I naturally went to the dashboard thinking it was just the games fault but the circles remained. I turned off my 360 and ever since rebooting it, it is no longer spitting out any audio or video. It seems to start up fine but the TV can't get a signal. Tried a different HDMI cable, a component cable hook up and tried my cable box which uses HDMI to make sure it wasn't my TV. This just had to happen on September 19, the day before Gears of War 3, a game I have been eagerly anticipating. So unless I am missing something that is way over my head, my Xbox just broke.

With me being a college student, money is in short supply so buying a replacement for my 4 year old Xbox is pretty far fetched. So, has something like this ever happend to you?

My PS3 broke just as I was finishing God of War 3. I didn't get it swapped for a new one for half a year, so yeah, that kinda sucked. On an Ironic note, I just sold my 360 yesterday and would have been willing to sell it to you for cheap had this happened to you earlier.

Sad day. :(

Ive had my power shut off the day Dead Space 2 came out. The power company did not inform us and fun shit went down. No power for 2 days.

No, but I imagine that my 360 will die soon. It seems to be a refurbished 2005-2006 model that they sent me after my third time replacing it with the warranty. Thinking I should just wait to get an Xbox 360 S, but I don't know what I would do with my old Xbox 360.

not that i can think of. a couple of years ago i was on winter break and it was the middle of the night. there was nothing to do. i decide to turn on my xbox 360 and watch something. i turned it on, i got E74 error. i turned it off  and i got E68 error. i would get both of them. i was pretty mad at it. i ended up laying in bed until i fell asleep.

My PS3 died right at the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I was trying to finish before Resistance 3 came out. I thought I'd be able to handle not having a PS3 for a while, but it is pretty tough knowing that the ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection and Uncharted 3 are coming out soon.

Oh god luckily not. That must suck.

sort of. my xbox 3060 broke the day after christmas (the second biggest gamiing day of the year for me, after christmas day of course) for a couple of hours. After "chatting" with ms support for a while to no avail, my bro discovered that we could fix it by picking it up and shaking it.

I'm afraid that my PS3 breaks before Skyrim comes out (I have a phat 80gb) so I haven't used it for 2 weeks now. If that happens...

My PS3 died during Dead Island(Fat 40GB 2007 model) and got a YLOD. I used about half a day researching and finally fixed the YLOD(and found about a cat's worth of dust and hair in the coolingfanarea). Now it runs better than ever before.

Almost.

A few hours of playing notorious console-stresser Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on launch day sent my PS2 to purgatory. Luckily I managed to open it up and claw it back from the brink of death by tinkering with the drive mechanism. They were some tense, frustrating hours though.

I bought Persona 3 FES as soon as it came out. I got to the first boss and my PS2 broke (it was unable to load anything). I borrowed my friend's PS2 to play through it until I bought a PS3 a few months later. 
 
My PS2 lasted forever though. I bought it day 1 and put thousands of hours on that thing (it lasted me through college and then some).

Luckily not.
 
But I was cleaning my room earlier this week, moving stuff around and when I hooked the x-box back up it gave 3 rings...with Gears 3 around the corner.
I checked all the cables and rehooked them and luckily it worked, but I had a great scare for a moment.

My 360 red ringed immediately after completing Halo: Reach. Beat the campaign, played about 10 min of multiplayer, and then it died. That was last February. Still haven't gotten a replacement for it :/

360 red ringed a few days after Gears of War came out and when it happened, I proceeded to throw a cup down my stairs...it was fucking mayhem

I bought MW2 a week or so after the initial release and my 360 died once I got to the White House chapter. It started as a weird film grain effect, I thought it was a part of the game. I went and bought an Elite a few hours later (I swear it wasn't for MW2 alone), I wasn't going to sit on my hands for the next month. Sold the old Xbox once I got it back.

my ps2 died right after the opening cutscene for metal gear solid 3

i didn't replace it, and didn't get to play mgs3 until i got a ps3

My 360 red ringed about a week before the first Gears came out.

360, dead day of Halo 3. I went to the midnight release, came home at 1:00am with school the next day. Plugged in the bastard and then suddenly all the lights went red... Saddest moment of my life.

I bought my Xbox 360 in 2008 just to play GTA IV and it broke while playing the game (more cosmetic, a front spring broke and lodged in the machine). It then broke again while play Red Dead Redemption (I sent it in and payed $99/US, got a brand new one). After that, it's been good to go.

First day of the Reach Beta. My console made loud noises, and RRODed. I was devastated, especially as I had purchased ODST for me and my best friend so we could be in the BETA together. Few days later, it worked. I was so relieved.

Not really a huge release, but mine broke 2 hours into my freshly purchased Prototype, after which I called MS and had a 30 minute conversation about the game with the coolest repair service dude, maybe because I wasn't mad or even angry about my 360 dying, he told me he gets yelled at a lot by customers, as if it's his fault their machine died. (probably happens at all repair services)

I had my 360 back within 4 days :D (well not mine, they just sent me another one)

But if my machine would die a day before stuff like GTA, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Hitman or Saints Row.. I'd just go out and buy a new system.

Guess, I'll have another 360 for in the kitchen when the original one came back form repair (you know, for those 40 seconds you're making a sandwich :D)

nope

i got the red ring the day before gears of war 2 came out. i was not happy.

I downloaded and installed Portal 2 on steam on release day, and at the exact moment of the install finishing, my PC's powersupply decided to kick the bucket.

Great timing indeed.

My CPU fan became unreliable the day before Civ V. That was kind of terrible mostly because it took a few days to figure out the problem as the fan was still starting up. At first, thinking it it was a PSU problem.

I spent like $200 on Rock Band 2 when it was new, came home, spent a bunch of time putting the drums together, only to have my xbox red-ring... then put it all back in the box and returned it, and never re-bought it (thankfully). Maybe that was a good thing, thank you Microsoft!

LA Noire. Damn it. Wasn't red ring though. I bought a new Xbox that day just so I wouldn't have to wait.

@smokeyd123 said:

My PS3 broke just as I was finishing God of War 3. I didn't get it swapped for a new one for half a year, so yeah, that kinda sucked. On an Ironic note, I just sold my 360 yesterday and would have been willing to sell it to you for cheap had this happened to you earlier.

Sad day. :(

Really not ironic whatsoever.

@MordeaniisChaos: No way, the same thing happened to me too. My screen just randomly showed a bunch of artifacts and when I turned it back on it was ringed!

I've never had the issue, no. My launch day Xbox 360 RRoD'd a week before its three year warranty, though. I was kind of happy about that one.

No, but mine red ringed on my birthday :(

My 360 died a couple of days after Halo: Reach came out. Bought a new one the same day.

Happened to me on the eve of mass effect 2. Yeah.

Might not have been big to most, but I got the RRoD the day before Rock Band 2 came out. Coincidentally, the day before Rock Band 2 came out was my Birthday.

Yeah, I got the Red Ring a day after Christmas. Luckily it was under warranty and I could get a replacement....3 weeks later. Sadly, I had to resort to playing the Wii...THAT'S HOW DESPERATE I WAS!!!!

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

Luckily not. But I was cleaning my room earlier this week, moving stuff around and when I hooked the x-box back up it gave 3 rings...with Gears 3 around the corner. I checked all the cables and rehooked them and luckily it worked, but I had a great scare for a moment.

That's happened to me three or four times now. Each time I think it's dead :{

My 360 died about a week before Dragon Age II came out. Then, it just started magically working again the day DA2 came out. It's still working which both troubles me and makes me happy. Fortunately I have a PS3 to fall back on.

my PS3 died with my Mortal Kombat disc inside of it while I was winning the third round of the final fight against shao kahn. It was really fun getting that disc out let me tell you.

My first 360 E74'd on me two days before Fallout 3. I had a PS# as well, and ended up buying it for that, but had to get the 360 version as well for the DLC. First time I double dipped on a game.