Just got off from a lengthy phone call with someone from the Xbox Escalation team at the Microsoft corporate office and I have a bucketload of information for you.
As we know, the initial solution to the DRM problem was to issue Microsoft Points codes to match the amount spent on premium content and rebuy it on a different account. He told me that after some time, Microsoft performed an audit about this process and found that 90% of customers abused the process by using their points to buy different content than what was originally purchased. Following this audit, the refund of Microsoft Points was immediately stopped and apparently, Xbox Support no longer have the possibility to do this.
The current solution to perform license transfer is now in place. It is a very lengthy process, which requires someone to manually go through the whole download history and identify every item that has been purchased and do the license transfer one by one. My understanding is that the delays are due to lack of manpower due to the huge amount of such transfers that are in the queue to be processed.
I commented that it should not be such a lengthy process for a database update, and that they internally should have a way to do this license transfer more quickly for whoever performs the actual work. He agreed and said that they were working on some tools to help them speed up the license transfers.
He told me that officially, in all internal documentation, this process is supposed to take 30 days and that's why Xbox Support give us this estimate. He is well aware that this deadline is not being met, but understandibly he is not in position to promise any more accurate turnaround time for a license transfer to be performed.
He said that once the license transfer is in the queue, there is not much than can be done to get an update on it, and having Xbox Support reissue another request will not do any good.
He mentioned that this is a high profile issue at Microsoft, they are aware of it, and that just two weeks ago he was personally in a meeting that was almost entirely devoted to the DRM license transfer issues. That was good to hear.
I asked some specific technical questions about the license transfer:
- Free or temporarily free content like Carcassonne and items acquired through a promotion code (that don't show up in your billing history) should be transferred correctly along with all your other purchases as long as they are listed in your Download History.
- In the case where a license transfer is performed to a console serial number, but the content is never actually redownloaded to that console because the console fails before it can be done, I asked if this would prevent another license transfer to a third console serial number. He said that doesn't see any reason why this should affect the transfer to the third console and that the license transfer could be done from any (valid) serial number in the database regardless of whether the content was downloaded to that console or not.
He reminded me that if a console is upgraded to a different model (for ex. premium to elite), the license transfer will NOT be performed. Since that isn't my case, I did not discuss this issue further.
About the inability for Xbox Support to contact the license department directly, he said that it's unfortunate but I can understand that this can happen in a big company. He also said that Xbox Support would never give a customer a direct contact to the Escalation department, even if you call 40 times. They just can't do it. (I got the contact information from another user in this thread).
He stated that the license transfer is normally supposed to be done according to the process when a console is sent for repair. I mentioned that some people have had success by attaching a written reminder to their broken console when sending it back. He said that he'd never heard that, but it couldn't hurt and he certainly would recommend to do it.
About my specific license transfer request, he said that he spoke with someone from the licensing department before contacting me, and he was told that a bunch of transfers should be going through next week. He suggested that I wait one week until then before sending back my #2 console for repair, so that the pending #1 to #2 transfer could be done before the normal #2 to #3 transfer at the repair center. But after considering all the information, I said I'll send my console back right away. The transfer could still go through before the repair is processed, and I'll attach some information to my console about my license transfers to be done.
All being said, I'm rather satisfied with the conversation and I have faith that my license transfer will be performed, eventually. Other than getting me more information, I don't think that my contact with the Escalation department will get this done any faster than if I just let the request follow its due course in the queue. But at least I'll have some follow up.
I told him about all the bad publicity that this issue is generating, and suggested that if they ever got those tools working to perform the transfers quicker, they should mention it to the community, and also that they should comment about the issue and how they are addressing it on this thread. He said that he understands the frustration, but there are some things that can be commented on publicly, and some that can't...
I hope I'm not disclosing anything I shouldn't with this post, but I just believe that sharing this information will help alleviate some of our concerns and make the wait more bearable for us. Information is a good thing.
360 #1: Oct 5 '06-Sep 5 '07 RRoD
360 #2: Oct 2 '07-Dec 3 '07 DVD
360 #3: Dec 13 '07-?
