Something Free From Microsoft - And All It Cost You Was $480

You couldn't just be happy with the version of the Xbox 360 that you had. No, you had to go and upgrade to the Elite, with it's precious HDMI port, 120 GB HD, and sleek black finish. Yes, I'm jealous. But in the process of handing over $480 to Bill Gates and friends, you ended up making your video game life just a little bit harder. And that's because the Elite wasn't designed for you - it was designed for new customers.

Apparently, the suits at MS thought that all the complaints about the lack of an HDMI port on the old 360 came from people who flat out refused to buy one. So, the Elite was made for them. It never occurred to them that existing 360 owners would want to "upgrade" to the new system, so MS left out one crucial piece of the upgrade puzzle - the HD transfer cable.

You know all that crap you download off of Xbox Live? It's stored on your existing hard drive. And in order to make use of it on your new console, with your new hard drive, you need to transfer the data via a special cable. Unfortunately, MS decided not to package the cable with the Elite, and only packages it with the separately purchased 120 GB HD. So, those people replacing their old consoles were left out in the cold regarding their save games and downloadable content. Unless they wanted to shell out even more cash for a memory card to transfer the data that way.

But once upgraders started to complain, the boys in Redmond finally decided to give them the transfer cable free of charge - it's really the least you should get for $480. If you need the cable, you can get the PDF form here. Too bad you have to mail or fax it back - there's no online submission. Hell, it's not like these people make software to access the internet or run servers or anything.

And once you receive your cable in the mail (8-12 weeks later, I'm sure), you can get the instructions on how to use it here. See, even Microsoft can do the right thing eventually. Why, I'll bet in 20 years, they'll even turn off product activation in Windows XP. I won't bet much, of course...