The Pre-Order:
Honestly, I feel like I've had the worst luck in regards to my whole experience with the Xbox One. First I spent countless hours on the phone with the Microsoft Store customer service department trying to make sure my order was taken properly. That took 4 calls and 5 hours of my life away. And the biggest surprise/shock from that whole ordeal was a supervisor actually upfront lied to me and up-sold me on a new Gold membership after telling me my current Gold on my 360 wasn't transferable. So I took his word, ordered another 12 months of Live and then realised that it just didn't make sense. I called back to find out that yes he lied to me just to get a sale. Unbelievable. I also pre-ordered in July Fifa '14 and a few other games. Oddly when I received shipping notices I didn't get anything for a few games. I checked online and found the status to be "back ordered" till Dec. Odd considered I pre-ordered in July and I could walk into EB Games 3 days before launch and grab them off the shelf. Anyway, after being emotionally scarred from that whole ordeal I complained all over their Facebook page. I was quickly assisted by an "escalations" agent out of the U.S. Much better experience.
The Delivery:
The Xbox was finally on it's way over on the 22nd. I took a half day off and asked my loving girlfriend in advance to work from home in the morning. That way if it arrives in the morning she's there, and I'll be back in the afternoon in case it showed up then. I leave the office at 2pm, make it home at 2:30pm to find my girlfriend had to leave to work at 1:30. She left a note for UPS to leave it in our property management office. I wasn't cool with this but I was home now so it didn't matter. I waited till around 3pm and then my escalations agent called to tell me UPS attempted to deliver at 2pm but no one was home. I lost my mind. She called UPS for me to attempt a re-route back to me but couldn't promise anything. I immediately called my girlfriend and ripped into her. I blamed her for this whole thing because she bailed on me before I got home (which wasn't part of her promise). She called UPS and bitched at them too and surprisingly UPS called me back. The error turned out to be they didn't get a unit# inside my building so they didn't know where to deliver it. Odd. So I apologized to my girlfriend and thanked her for fixing the situation. UPS waited until last minute and showed up at 7pm at the very end of the day on Friday.
The Xbox One Experience:
Finally the moment I had been waiting for. I opened the box like a kid at Christmas and hooked the console up as quickly as I could. Somehow I was able to forget all the stress I endured the last few months. I began the set up process.. Hooked up my cable box into the console and was ready to roll. I immediately noticed no One Guide options. A quick Google search informed me this option wasn't available at launch in Canada. I can't describe how much of a disappointment that was. But I would live to deal with it. I began installing all the important apps and then my game discs. Overall I fell in love with the new console but did encounter a lot of bugs along the way. Apps like Skype would freeze on me. NBA2K14 couldn't make it past the boot screen without a "soft reset". And on top of that I have yet to be able to connect to an online game with a friend without the server failing to connect. The Audio CD player app didn't work so great for me. Audio sounded static-like and hissy. Almost missed the ability to rip my cd's to the console and play them while I'm gaming. Voice controls like "Xbox, On" worked some of the time. But when it did on the first try I felt very proud! My pinned apps kept disappearing and re-appearing. I had a hell of a time trying to connect to Fifa '14 for an online friendly. It seemed we both had a ton of router changes to make first. I did experience some online lag from time to time too. And then I experienced some lag within the dashboard too. I found out that holding the power button on the console for 5 sec to reboot would usually get rid of whatever bugs I couldn't escape. I miss my online friend pop-ups and a handful of other things my 360 spoiled me with. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate the new features I just feel like the One is just the beta for what it's meant to be. Or maybe even the Alpha. So many bugs, missing or incomplete features.. I feel like they should have waited until next year and get this thing right.
The Last Straw:
Funny enough how out of all the games I own on the One (Fifa '14, Battlefield 4, Forza 5, Ryse, NBA2K14, Killer Instinct and Powerstar Golf) I find myself addicted to Powerstar Golf. I tossed in countless hours last week upgrading my golfers. Last night I tossed in a few rounds, left the house for a few hours and came home to find my Day One console was DEAD. No power, no juice, just a lifeless console. Turns out I had a lemon, suddenly. The powerbrick would light up orange until it was plugged into my console but once plugged in it just faded like my hopes and dreams. I again contacted my escalations agent who forwarded me to Xbox support. They quickly took a case # and asked me to ship it back and I'd have my replacement in 1 - 2 weeks. Not so acceptable. Better yet my Fifa '14 disc was still inside the console. Yes I did try the manual eject with the paperclip trick but with my luck it did nothing. I spent 2 hours trying to fiddle with that little hole and no dice. So I've lost my console after all this and my fav game. Today I will be packaging this thing up and waiting out my 2 long weeks. Luckily someone I knew at the Microsoft Store close by had an extra Xbox One with my name on it so I impatiently bought another one to use until my new one arrives and then I will be happily selling it for someone else's Christmas gift.
Personally, I don't think anyone's luck can be worse than mine.
EDIT:
Due to concerns about my girlfriend ripping I made sure to make note that I apologized for wrongly accusing here when UPS took the fault. :smile: She forgave me and we are living happily ever after.
Honestly, I feel like I've had the worst luck in regards to my whole experience with the Xbox One. First I spent countless hours on the phone with the Microsoft Store customer service department trying to make sure my order was taken properly. That took 4 calls and 5 hours of my life away. And the biggest surprise/shock from that whole ordeal was a supervisor actually upfront lied to me and up-sold me on a new Gold membership after telling me my current Gold on my 360 wasn't transferable. So I took his word, ordered another 12 months of Live and then realised that it just didn't make sense. I called back to find out that yes he lied to me just to get a sale. Unbelievable. I also pre-ordered in July Fifa '14 and a few other games. Oddly when I received shipping notices I didn't get anything for a few games. I checked online and found the status to be "back ordered" till Dec. Odd considered I pre-ordered in July and I could walk into EB Games 3 days before launch and grab them off the shelf. Anyway, after being emotionally scarred from that whole ordeal I complained all over their Facebook page. I was quickly assisted by an "escalations" agent out of the U.S. Much better experience.
The Delivery:
The Xbox was finally on it's way over on the 22nd. I took a half day off and asked my loving girlfriend in advance to work from home in the morning. That way if it arrives in the morning she's there, and I'll be back in the afternoon in case it showed up then. I leave the office at 2pm, make it home at 2:30pm to find my girlfriend had to leave to work at 1:30. She left a note for UPS to leave it in our property management office. I wasn't cool with this but I was home now so it didn't matter. I waited till around 3pm and then my escalations agent called to tell me UPS attempted to deliver at 2pm but no one was home. I lost my mind. She called UPS for me to attempt a re-route back to me but couldn't promise anything. I immediately called my girlfriend and ripped into her. I blamed her for this whole thing because she bailed on me before I got home (which wasn't part of her promise). She called UPS and bitched at them too and surprisingly UPS called me back. The error turned out to be they didn't get a unit# inside my building so they didn't know where to deliver it. Odd. So I apologized to my girlfriend and thanked her for fixing the situation. UPS waited until last minute and showed up at 7pm at the very end of the day on Friday.
The Xbox One Experience:
Finally the moment I had been waiting for. I opened the box like a kid at Christmas and hooked the console up as quickly as I could. Somehow I was able to forget all the stress I endured the last few months. I began the set up process.. Hooked up my cable box into the console and was ready to roll. I immediately noticed no One Guide options. A quick Google search informed me this option wasn't available at launch in Canada. I can't describe how much of a disappointment that was. But I would live to deal with it. I began installing all the important apps and then my game discs. Overall I fell in love with the new console but did encounter a lot of bugs along the way. Apps like Skype would freeze on me. NBA2K14 couldn't make it past the boot screen without a "soft reset". And on top of that I have yet to be able to connect to an online game with a friend without the server failing to connect. The Audio CD player app didn't work so great for me. Audio sounded static-like and hissy. Almost missed the ability to rip my cd's to the console and play them while I'm gaming. Voice controls like "Xbox, On" worked some of the time. But when it did on the first try I felt very proud! My pinned apps kept disappearing and re-appearing. I had a hell of a time trying to connect to Fifa '14 for an online friendly. It seemed we both had a ton of router changes to make first. I did experience some online lag from time to time too. And then I experienced some lag within the dashboard too. I found out that holding the power button on the console for 5 sec to reboot would usually get rid of whatever bugs I couldn't escape. I miss my online friend pop-ups and a handful of other things my 360 spoiled me with. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate the new features I just feel like the One is just the beta for what it's meant to be. Or maybe even the Alpha. So many bugs, missing or incomplete features.. I feel like they should have waited until next year and get this thing right.
The Last Straw:
Funny enough how out of all the games I own on the One (Fifa '14, Battlefield 4, Forza 5, Ryse, NBA2K14, Killer Instinct and Powerstar Golf) I find myself addicted to Powerstar Golf. I tossed in countless hours last week upgrading my golfers. Last night I tossed in a few rounds, left the house for a few hours and came home to find my Day One console was DEAD. No power, no juice, just a lifeless console. Turns out I had a lemon, suddenly. The powerbrick would light up orange until it was plugged into my console but once plugged in it just faded like my hopes and dreams. I again contacted my escalations agent who forwarded me to Xbox support. They quickly took a case # and asked me to ship it back and I'd have my replacement in 1 - 2 weeks. Not so acceptable. Better yet my Fifa '14 disc was still inside the console. Yes I did try the manual eject with the paperclip trick but with my luck it did nothing. I spent 2 hours trying to fiddle with that little hole and no dice. So I've lost my console after all this and my fav game. Today I will be packaging this thing up and waiting out my 2 long weeks. Luckily someone I knew at the Microsoft Store close by had an extra Xbox One with my name on it so I impatiently bought another one to use until my new one arrives and then I will be happily selling it for someone else's Christmas gift.
Personally, I don't think anyone's luck can be worse than mine.
EDIT:
Due to concerns about my girlfriend ripping I made sure to make note that I apologized for wrongly accusing here when UPS took the fault. :smile: She forgave me and we are living happily ever after.
Last edited:
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