My first blog on the mighty Giant Bomb site!  How exciting!   

Sadly the first thing I will be talking about is my pure hatred toward Microsoft, for good reason I might add...and no this isn't a fanboy rant where I spew how much my PS3 gets more love or whatever rambling nonsense others speak of.  I just get so tired of how they do business.  Like for instance, you have to call a 1-800 number to cancel your Live account, doesn't seem to bad until you factory in the people with cell phones as their primary means of communication.  Now lets add in the fact that they put you on hold to "look over your account" not to verify but look over.  I was on hold for a little over 7 minutes.  The entire call, which should have only lasted 5 minutes, went a little over 15 minutes for me to complete.  
 
I started thinking about my entire time with the 360 and I'll admit there have been some good times but when I factor in all the bad I can't help but think that they should fire their entire staff and start from scratch, or at least get rid of most of the high ranking people at the top.  The system was a rushed mess when launched, they treated the first people that got the RROD like crap, because they didn't want to admit having such a high rate of failure.  And then people began praising them after they offered the extended three year warranty, granted that was nice of them but it wouldn't have been necessary if they stayed into development a little longer and didn't try and beat Sony.  If you wanted to extend your hard drive space, you had to buy their overpriced hard drives.  If you found yourself in need to get online wirelessly, you had to buy their adapter, which cost the same as certain expensive routers.     
 
In all honesty, the new 360 is the console that should've shipped day one.  But I believe Microsoft is that little kid that won't listen to others that have good advice to share, because they think they know it all.  They refused to implement HD-DVD as their format, which I believe would have given Blu ray a run for its money, but instead stuck with the now almost outdated DVD-9.  I can only hope that someone listens somewhere in their little corporation when someone tells them that need a new format to place games on, but I'm afraid they won't because more than likely their only option is blu ray at this time...unless they can create their own, which probably won't happen. 
 
Now, don't get wrong, I do enjoy the games, I'm not complaining about the games or the developers.  I just really think Microsoft needs to rethink their entire business strategy, because at the moment they seem like the bully at school who holds the little kid by the ankle to shake all the money from their pockets.  I'll definitely be waiting when the next console hits store shelves, and chances are I may not even buy one.  This entire generations has flipped for me, where the original xbox gave me no hassles, but I constantly had issues with my PS2 and so I waited, now I've been through four or five (can't remember) 360s but I still have an original 60gig PS3.   
 
Sorry for the rant, but I truly believe that even though all companies are out to make money, Microsoft does it on a whole new level of greed.  I mean sure everyone wants to make money but at the same time make your customers feel important.  Don't make them buy only your peripherals, give them a few options or at least make them affordable.  I do like how Xbox Live is and the two different methods of online, but don't make it difficult to cancel just because you want to keep them as a Gold member.  
 
Well, that's it.  My next one will be more chipper, I promise.