What sucks worse than getting the Red Ring of Death? Getting the console fixed. Sure, there are some success stories regarding Xbox customer support. But there are some real headaches as well. Over at The Consumerist, tipster Jon took matters into his own hands. When his launch Xbox 360 crapped out, he emailed Bill Gates and customer service VP Kathleen Hogan. Within 24 hours, he got a reply from the escalation department saying that a new console was on its way. Jon tells The Consumerist:

Normally, "humorous" clips that involve executives showing off their acting chops are nothing short of cringe-worthy, an exercise in amateur comic timing. Not this fictional video of Bill Gates' last day of full responsibilities at Microsoft, however, as the solid cameos and moments that capitalize on Bill's inherent geekiness make the head Borg at MS seem hilariously human. Stick around for Bill's blippy wailing on a Guitar Hero II controller. This clip, courtesy of our brothers at Gizmodo, represents but a grain of sand in the vast desert that is their CES 2008 coverage.

Sure Microsoft's recent Xbox Live issues ticked off a bunch of new Xbox 360 owners and led to the company promising to hand out a free game down the line, but it was really just a hiccup says Bill Gates in a recent interview with sister site Gizmodo.

Actually we're not entirely sure what he says. He seems to start speaking tongues halfway into his whole reliability-issue-was-a-hiccup comment. He says something about downloading curve, or something about him, or maybe he mentions peanuts, it's hard to say. But he definitely does call the Live reliability issue a hiccup. Can anyone else make sense of the full comment? Maybe he's spilling some beans about why Live was out. This is what I got:

Xbox live, which was immensely risky, we hadn't been in the hardware business. We even had a hiccup in terms of ahhhhh... me not downloading curve... on that one reliability issue we ran into it. But Xbox alone has been fantastic success. A huge asset for the company.

BIll Gates Explains the Difference Between Microsoft and Apple [Gizmodo]

Bill Gates final CES keynote wasn't the most action-packed, megaton-heavy affair, but there was one startling revelation. It wasn't so much an announcement as it was an implication, but it would seem that Slash is ready to join another supergroup, one that's unnamed, but we're calling Merino Wool Revolver for now. The band looks to feature two toy guitarists—Bill and Robbie—and one real guitarist, a clear indicator into which of the three independently wealthy men will pull the most groupie ass. Hopefully, the three will feature as bosses in Guitar Hero Encore: Non-threatening Pastel Sweater Edition. Hey, it couldn't be any worse than Rocks the 80s.

Bill Gates and the Microsoft crew are rumored to be planning something big for next week's Consumer Electronics Show, but we've got nothing but speculation to tide us over until then. Gadget mag Stuff, however, thinks it has—or genuinely has—the scoop on what's coming down the product pipeline from Redmond. The Xbox 360 Ultimate, Stuff writes, will be hitting store shelves by this autumn and feature "1080p HDMI output, built-in Wi-Fi, hi-def audio output, cooler 65nm hardware architecture and a near-silent fan." On top of all that, the IPTV service that MS touted at last year's CES will be good to go.

Also included in the Ultimate, according to Stuff? A 320GB hard drive and HD-DVD drive. While we have our doubts about the authenticity of the details, the news seems a bit too matter of fact to ring false. Is someone at Stuff simply letting the cat out of the bag early? Perhaps we'll know more this Sunday, when we report directly from CES '08.

BIG IN 2008 - Xbox Ultimate [Stuff - thanks, Richard!]