Time up Xbox?

After 1 and a half years, I have finally lost patience (and interest) in my Xbox 360. So am planning to sell up and replace it with a brand spanking new 80GB PS3.

I bought my first 360 just before Christmas 2006 to go along with my new 40″ LCD TV. The first few days of hi-def gaming with Gears of War was fantastic.The graphics were awesome and the Gears cover mechanics really added to the realism. Unfortunately, the Honeymoon didn’t last very long. The ear deafening roar from the noisy 360 itself was disappointing. Then I had to replace the 360 after less than a week’s worth of service, spoiling my Christmas games fest. This was my first introduction into the world of pain surrounding Microsoft’s dodgy hardware.  Then I had to replace my spare controller and both of my rechargeable battery packs a week later. The wireless headset was complete and utter rubbish. My second 360 has been a royal pain in the backside. I have had to deal with constant interruptions to gaming sessions due to “unreadable” disks, all of which were brand new and completely unblemished. My 360 had a habit leaving strange concentric rings of crud, which took ages of gentle rubbing to clean off.  Then last Christmas, as I was planning another annual games fest, the console suffered the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) and I was left without a console for three weeks. Actually, I bought a Wii to cover the loss so it wasn’t all bad. Since then, it has been used less and less. I would play once in a blue moon, often interrupted by the “Unreadable” disk error. Then, the other night, as I settled down for a rare hour on GTA IV, it happened within 5 minutes of starting up. The final straw.

It is sad because I still love the console for all its faults. All of my brothers have 360s. The controllers are the best of any console, Arcade was great for a quick blast of Geometry Wars and online play was second to none. With big changes to the menu system, Gears 2 coming out this Christmas, and the brilliant Microsoft only PGR series, it would be tempting to stick with it for a while longer, or even just go for a new 360 in the hope that they have sorted the issues out.

I would love to hear from anyone else with similar experiences, particularly those who traded in for a PS3. How did you find the switch? Any regrets??