Nothing will ever properly prepare a video-gamer for the death of a console. Nothing. Not hearing about it happening to other people, or watching reaction videos on Youtube, or reading about the extended warranties that came about as a result of a slew of dead consoles. If your console has never died, you are ignorant to the suffering. But when it finally does, be prepared to rummage in your closet for all-black ensembles, because it is a time of mourning.
I was ill-equipped for the untimely death of what had been my lover, my confidante and my partner in crime for four years. My unsuspecting, loyal Xbox 360 crapped out on me the night before I came back to Binghamton.
But Xbox 360s don’t just stop working. Instead, Microsoft programs the consoles to provide a series of light signals to help players diagnose what is wrong with the Xbox.
This series of light combinations is known as the “Ring of Death,” a fitting name for a red circle of terror not unlike the eye of Sauron from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw the blinking red lights was a mix of terror, fear and unbridled rage.
The rage came as a result of a purchase I had made earlier in the day, a purchase made solely to improve my gaming experience. After three years of playing video games at college on a minuscule 20-inch piece of crap television, I splurged on a 32-inch Samsung HDTV. I spent the rest of the afternoon gloating to anyone with a pair of ears, and my father caught me caressing the TV box in my living room at random intervals.
Late that night, I turned on my 360 and a circular ring akin to Dante’s “Inferno” greeted me. I immediately woke up the entire house with a scream that sounded like I was shooting steroids directly into my ass. I threw my controller, half-punched the shitty old television and then sat on my bed with my head in my hands.
Fuck hurricanes and earthquakes, the death of my Xbox had turned my world upside down.
Even my parents knew to steer clear of me when I came down the next morning like a Nazi zombie.
“I’m surprised you’re so calm,” my mother said to me as I plotted what to do with my broken console in silence.
I toyed with the idea of punting it off the roof of my house, running it over with my mother’s Lexus or taking a sledgehammer to it and letting my dog chew on the power brick. Instead, I packed it up and brought it up to school with me, and now it’s serving as a nice-sized paperweight in my room.
Perhaps I will demolish it in a drunken stupor, or pull a Kayne and pour some Hennessy on it for my lost homeboys.
But most likely I’m going to sell it to GameStop for a measly $20 and then buy a brand new one.
A girl’s gotta game.