Microsoft Owns Up To 360 Defects

Next Generation reports on Microsoft's acceptance of responsibility for early 360 defects. While originally claiming that system failures were well within the norm for consumer electronics, they've now adopted a more service-friendly attitude. From the article: "Upon further investigation, it was further discovered that the bulk of the units were isolated to a group that was part of the initial manufacturing run of the console. Returns for repair are coming in for a variety reasons and it's a higher rate than we are satisfied with. We've made the decision to comp repairs for consoles manufactured before January 1, and provide refunds to the small group of customers who have already paid for repairs."

What about my warranty?

[Siguy]

I just received in the mail, 6 months late, my warranty I purchased the day I bought my 360. If I get free repairs now then shouldn't they give me my money back on that warranty?

Red Ring of Death

[Gregory Cox]

The article makes it sound very mysterious, but it seems like the "red ring of light" is just the LEDs on the power switch changing from green to red, indicating a hardware failure. It's been nicknamed the Red Ring of Death [teamxbox.com].

Re:Sad

[HuguesT]

I'm not sure about DELL, but Apple, who has earned a reputation for good engineering in general, posts about a 15% failure rate on its laptops in the first year, according to that survey [macintouch.com]. On some models, it goes as high as 4!%, and 73% over two years.

So 15% is within normal by that standard.

Actually...

[MoriaOrc]

They've done this kind of thing atleast once before with the 360, though not publically as far as I know. I bought a 360 around new years, and since I didn't get an extended warranty (although hat was probably a little stupid), it fell out of warranty about the end of March. Back in July, I think it was, they released a big new feature filled patch (the one with background downloading, finally). A few days after that, my 360 started locking up and then showing the Red lights. A little browsing the internet later, I found out quite a few other people had had similarly coincidental hardware failures. After a quick talk with their tech support, I ended up getting the 360 replaced for free, despite it being out of warranty.

It's good to see MS officially admitting that there were hardware problems a large portion of the launch units and fixing them, just like any recall of a deffective product is a good thing to see.

Re:Sad

[refitman]

Yeah Apple [theregister.co.uk] have a great [theregister.co.uk] reputation [appledefects.com].