You can’t unscrew the pregnant woman.

Late last month a story surfaced about a gamer by the name of Nathaniel who sent his Xbox 360 in to Microsoft for repairs after it got the infamous red rings. However, his console had special significance because it was covered in unique signatures and custom artwork. He was at first hesitant to part with it, even if it was only to be temporary, but he eventually decided to send it in instead of attempting to fix it himself. He even took precautions like calling ahead and sending a letter with his console to ensure he received the exact same one and the marker wasn’t smudged or removed.

When he got it back, while it was his exact console like he had requested, all the signatures and artwork was gone. Despite his call, letter, and the fact that the permanent marker was obviously meant to be there, someone had cleaned it all off before returning it to him.

Fortunately for Nathaniel, however, Bungie and Microsoft have decided to do whatever they can to help. While they can’t replace the permanent marker that once covered his case, they can shower him with even more, and that’s what Bungie has done already and Microsoft plans on doing.

Bungie quickly sent him a huge amount of Halo swag, listed below:

• Legendary Edition Helmet signed by most–if not all–of the studio staff
• Halo 3 Soundtrack (two disc) signed by Marty O’Donnel
• Bungie Jacket
• Bungie T-Shirt
• Halo 3 Messenger Bag
• Two Halo 3 Limited Edition Wireless Controllers (one covenant, one human)
• Halo 3 Faceplate and Skins for Xbox 360
• Four McFarlane Action Figures (MC, EVA Spartan, Brute Chieftan, Jackal Sniper)
• Halo Actionclix Preview pack (Target exclusive sticker on the front)
• Halo Actionclix Game Pack 4
• Halo 3 Wall Graffix
• Halo 3: Ghosts of Onyx Novel
• Halo Graphic Novel
• Halo 3 Wristband
• Halo 3 Hackeysack

Plus, over at at the Gamerscore Blog they say that he’s going to get even more:

We have been in touch with Nathaniel, both to express our sympathy (as gamers, we appreciate what he felt seeing a “clean” console staring back at him), and to let him know we’re working on righting things for him directly. We haven’t let on to anyone exactly what that is but, personally, I think it’s pretty sick (in a good way!).

As well as working internally to resolve the issue, we have been working with Bungie and other external sources (No, I’m not going to tell you who, yet). As you’ve seen, Bungie stepped in and sent him some awesome swag while we’ve been working on our project.

Again, please be rest assured that there are many of us working hard to make sure Nathaniel will be the grinning gamer in no time.

They also say that they’re trying to make sure that this kind of thing won’t happen again:

People at all levels of the Xbox organization have taken this case to heart and are using it to make sure our repair processes can lessen the chance of this type of thing happening in the future.

Looks like Bungie and Microsoft are really doing everything they can to make sure that Nathaniel gets far more then he had in the beginning (and they just mind end up looking great even after their repair process led to his console being wiped too). However, while they may be putting all this extravagant time and energy into one unfortunate gamer, what about all the others? It looks like Nathaniel will be getting significantly more than what he lost, but it would have been nice if just a little bit of this effort had went towards all the people who have had problems that weren’t this publicized. They may not have lost as much, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who could use some condolences for things they’ve lost dealing with Microsoft’s support but didn’t have their story spread across the internet.

To recap, here is what he started with:

And here is what he has now:

Plus, a working (if entirely white) Xbox 360, internet fame, and the promise of even more from Microsoft. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.