..in disguise
My American xbox 360 arrived this morning. The first thing I did was diligently check the input voltage required and I was then pretty disappointed to see that it didn't auto switch between 110v and 220v.
Now I had realised the voltage issue before deciding on a US xbox, the excitement of finally getting round to buying one seemed to cloud my thought process. Asking Tim, the US resident purchaser, to check the input voltage for me and buying the appropriate transformer from radio shack for me would have beenprudent far too sensible.
So not put off by this minor set back, I went off to do what I thought I might have to - hunt for a transformer. Having spent a little time online I figured I needed one capable of 300W so off I trotted at 11.45am into town.
As soon as I left the building it started to rain.
After trying out a few electronics places to no avail I played my wild card and went off to the import games shop. He gave me some good advise including some information about a local electronics shop that would definately have it, but he couldn't recall exactly where it was. I tried the place he first suggested to no avail and the guys at that shop didn't know where this illusive electronics place at the station was.
Next stop, the other import game shop the other side of town. They did know about the legendary electronics shop and gave it a name - Grieder Bauteile.
Spurred on with faith in Grieder Bauteile, I wandered over to the location to be faced with the harsh reminder that this is Switzerland and lunch time therefore non mainstream stores are all shut. I had arrived at 12.40pm so I still had 20 minutes to kill. What the hell I thought, I'll try at Media Markt. 20 minutes later I was back at Grieder Bauteile dripping with more rain water with a wireless remote but no transformer.
Once inside the diminutive shop I patiently waited 10 minutes for the rough hewn uni girl to finish ordering her assortment of 100 diodes and watch batteries. Thankfully the guy there did have one in stock for the bargain price of150CHF I just don't care anymore. I indicated that I would buy it and he then told me that it's in the cellar so he can't get it right now since the shop was busy (there were two other people after me by now), so I had to wait for his colleague.
10 minutes later and well into the second hour of my expedition the guy came over, then went off to the cellar for 10 minutes to find the beast. I purchased it, then got a tram back to work.
I am now the proud owner of a 350W step down transformer and wet feet.
Now I had realised the voltage issue before deciding on a US xbox, the excitement of finally getting round to buying one seemed to cloud my thought process. Asking Tim, the US resident purchaser, to check the input voltage for me and buying the appropriate transformer from radio shack for me would have been
So not put off by this minor set back, I went off to do what I thought I might have to - hunt for a transformer. Having spent a little time online I figured I needed one capable of 300W so off I trotted at 11.45am into town.As soon as I left the building it started to rain.
After trying out a few electronics places to no avail I played my wild card and went off to the import games shop. He gave me some good advise including some information about a local electronics shop that would definately have it, but he couldn't recall exactly where it was. I tried the place he first suggested to no avail and the guys at that shop didn't know where this illusive electronics place at the station was.
Next stop, the other import game shop the other side of town. They did know about the legendary electronics shop and gave it a name - Grieder Bauteile.
Spurred on with faith in Grieder Bauteile, I wandered over to the location to be faced with the harsh reminder that this is Switzerland and lunch time therefore non mainstream stores are all shut. I had arrived at 12.40pm so I still had 20 minutes to kill. What the hell I thought, I'll try at Media Markt. 20 minutes later I was back at Grieder Bauteile dripping with more rain water with a wireless remote but no transformer.
Once inside the diminutive shop I patiently waited 10 minutes for the rough hewn uni girl to finish ordering her assortment of 100 diodes and watch batteries. Thankfully the guy there did have one in stock for the bargain price of
10 minutes later and well into the second hour of my expedition the guy came over, then went off to the cellar for 10 minutes to find the beast. I purchased it, then got a tram back to work.
I am now the proud owner of a 350W step down transformer and wet feet.
posted by nj at
14:50
9 Comments:
Crap, I wish I'd thought to check.
By
Anonymous, at 3:50 pm
Not as much as me
By
nj, at 4:18 pm
I'm curious, what were your reasons against buying a plain PAL Xbox 360 and sticking a modchip in it?
By
Anonymous, at 6:47 pm
Since I'm moving to the US in July 2007 and already mainly buy my games online from the US, region 1 makes sense for me.
Regarding modchips - I'm not particularly interested in warezing games for the 360 since they're not prohibitively expensive. If I can mod it to run XBMC while retaining live functionality I might mod it later, but for now I'm happy with a big fat transformer sitting next to it.
By
nj, at 7:49 pm
Given the monstrous size of the 360 transformer itself, it never occured to me that it wouldn't be able to handle European current.
How are you liking Gears?
By
Anonymous, at 8:00 pm
I'm enjoying it a lot as you can imagine :)
I'm currently playing around with live - I figured it was good, but they've really done something special there, I'm very impressed.
I've had the opinion for a while that microsoft do actually care for their gamer audience and this is only helping to confirm it.
By
nj, at 8:05 pm
Ah, makes sense. I wasn't insinuating warezing at all, by the way, just freeing your console from region locking. Since there aren't any multiregion boot discs for the Xbox 360 (like the Freeloader for the GC), I guess that would be the next best thing.
By
Anonymous, at 8:55 pm
Don't worry, I wasn't judging ;)
I actually didn't know that chipping the console frees it from region locking. I might look into it after all
By
nj, at 9:03 pm
hahaha ... I'm can't stop laughing ... thrust me, not much better here in the US to find stuff ... but that's an other story ;o)
By
Anonymous, at 5:22 am
Post a Comment
<< Home