(…in which our hero spends his hard earned money on an Xbox 360, runs into some trouble, makes a lot of phone calls, mournfully plays a game of Gears of War without being able to save his progress, takes some photos and finds disturbing pictures of dead presidents.)

Call me a little late to the party, but I’ve finally managed to get around to buying an Xbox 360. I’ve been planning on buying one for some time now - you know, as someone who writes for Official Xbox Magazine on a very regular basis, I thought it might be nice to actually own the damned machine. Plus, people keep offering me games to review. And I like free games.

So, when Target advertised a pack with Gears of War, Kameo and Project Gotham Racing 3 for only $50 more than the premium pack normally sells for, I thought it might actually be time to take the plunge. I’m a sucker for a perceived bargain, and the Elite SKU isn’t really doing that much for me, price-wise, so why not?

So, Thursday afternoon I headed down to the local store in the very heavy rain, handed over a lot of money - by my poverty stricken journalist standards - and then took the package home on the bus before gleefully plonking myself down crosslegged in front of the television to set the console up. After eventually finding a way to set up three consoles on a space of table roughly 20cm wide, I plugged the console in, and sat back to bathe in the experience.

“Looking good so far!” I thought to myself. “Sure, I don’t own the greatest TV in the world - and boy am I looking forward to buying a new one - but it looks pretty slick! Just give it a minute to load everything up…and another…and…hmm…”

“Uh…”

“Oh…”

“Crap.”

“Well, at least it’s only one red light,” I mused. “That can’t be too bad. Maybe if I turn it off and on again…”

So I tried that, only to find that the same problem occurred, at which point I decided to actually follow the on-screen instructions and give Microsoft a call. The girl on the phone told me that, most likely, this was a problem with my hard drive, and taking it off would fix the issue - although, not the hard drive. I’d have to send that in, or take the whole console back to the store I bought it from.

I looked out the window at the torrential rain. “Hmmf,” I exclaimed sulkily. “I’ll send it back then.”

She gave me the details, and I silently grumbled about the seven day wait for a hard drive - and thus a seven day wait for game saves, Xbox Live, and even a Gamertag - and mopily played through the first level of Gears of War before realising I’d just have to do it again when I received a new hard drive, at which point I turned the console off and went to search for disturbing pictures to bother friends with over IM.

The next morning, I woke up and realised that sending the hard drive back was pretty damned counter-productive, and that I could fairly easily brave the bus with the console one more time, especially seeing as how the rain had more or less stopped. So, I picked up the phone and called Microsoft once again, and explained my situation. The good news, said the girl, was that I didn’t even have to bring in the whole console. Just the hard drive. “Huh!” I exclaimed in blank happiness.

I called up my local Target, and was told that they would have to check with the returns manager, but that it shouldn’t be a problem for me to just come in and swap the hard drive for a new one. Unfortunately, she was at lunch, but I’d receive a call from her as soon as she came back.

Three hours later, I decided to call them back myself, and asked to speak to the returns manager. “Speaking,” she replied.

“Ah,” I said. “I’m just calling regarding a return I need to make. I bought an Xbox 360 yesterday and the hard drive is corrupted. I’ve spoken to Microsoft, and they said that it shouldn’t be a problem to just come in and swap it for a new one.”

“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully. “What’s a hard drive?”

“It…uh…” I was a little lost for words. I’ve always hoped not to be a technical elitist, but I couldn’t believe this woman was asking me this. “It’s…uh…a receptacle for data storage…” I stammered.

“What?” she said. “Is that the box?”

“Not the box, no. It clips on to the box.”

This went on for a little longer, before we came to some kind of understanding - I would just call the city store and deal with it that way, to save her from having to grasp any more difficult problems. Which I did, and spoke to a number of helpful people. I was on hold for some time, but it didn’t really matter; the problem was being resolved. Towards the end of one of the conversations, though, I was informed of some slightly bad news. The store didn’t have any hard drives in stock, and what was more, I couldn’t perform that kind of exchange at a store other than the one I bought it at.

“Fuck,” I said to the cat, who stared at me with some kind of pity, or possibly hunger, in his eyes.

In the end, the confused woman from the local store put me onto the guy in the electronics section that I had actually purchased the console from the day before. We laughed conspiratorially about the returns manager who didn’t know what a hard drive was. As it turned out, there isn’t actually any hard drives at this store either, but I can bring the whole console in, and, quite honestly, at this point I’m not really fussed. So, tomorrow morning, I’ll be jumping on the bus once again.

I’m keeping the batteries from the controller and the remote though.