The other day, I turned on my Xbox 360 to the red ring of death — or so I thought. It turned out to just be the one-quarter-but-not-full red ring of not-death. I was scared but after rebooting, everything was fine. Crisis averted.
For a brief moment, though, I thought that I had joined the legions of Xbox 360 owners that have turned on their systems to the real-deal blinking red ring. Now 8bitjoystick.com has an interview with an unnamed source inside Microsoft with some more details about the sometimes-problematic console.
The source confirms the 30% console failure rate and says that many of the problems have to do with the console being rushed to market to beat Sony’s PS3, understaffing, motherboard timing problems, bad parts, poor heat dissipation, defective or insufficient heat sinks, humidity, and more. Pretty much what people have been saying all along, now apparently corroborated by someone on the inside.
Inside Source Reveal the Truth About Xbox 360 “Red Ring of Death” Failures [8bitjoystick.com]
At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter whether this source is true or not because pretty much everything in the interview IS true.
There is simply no excuse at all for the reliability problems of the 360. Its 100% down to the fact that Microsoft don’t care enough about their customers to supply them with a good product. They released it knowing it was faulty and then lied about the faults for over a year, even publicly describing disgruntled 360 owners posting on forums about the 3RROD as ‘liars’.
I couldn’t care less what games the 360 has, I will never buy one. Nor will I ever buy the Zune or any other bit of tat electronics they try and sell.
Wow looks like we have a fanboy here. Ever sine the introduction of the new chip the failure rate has gone down from 30% to 5% which is sitll A LOT more than the PS3’s and Wii’s but don’t tell me that microsoft isn’t trying, they may havem ade some mistakes but they’re getting it figured out, if they didn’t care why would they extend the warranty from a year to three years?
Because has MS did not extend the warranty, a class action lawsuit will definitely ensue. It may cause MS more money and the XBox brand will be practically dead – your average joe won’t even bother to buy a 360. That’s not to say that no class class action lawsuit will be filed — it’s impact on MS would be much less severe had the warranty not been extended.
ewe
Thats the same way i feel about SONY haha hehe LOL
Hey man i still love the XBOX 360 and i will support it!! GO XBOX 360
IM A FANYBOY
I heard the PS3 doesn’t have problems only because nobody has it to see if it works :P
ROFL I lol’D!
Rigghht ajadoniz, 10 million people have a PS3, it works perfectly fine.
Heres a little corollary for you Xbots out there:
It sicking there are people that support Microsoft even though Microsoft has clearly lied about the high failure rate to the consumer base, and rushing out a faulty product to the market, why?
= To beat Sony to the punch
Why do they want to beat Sony?
= Because Microsoft wants to prevent Sony from dominating the home media center market.
What does preventing Sony from dominating the home media market has anything to do with us gaming consumers?
= Absolutely nothing! Its Microsoft’s Prime Directive, pave any path and
support Windows products into everyone’s living room just like the PC is in everyones office.
What does Microsoft’s ultimate directive have to do with me the gamer?
= again Absolutely nothing! Microsoft admits the Xbox 360 is an insurance policy, so one day their ultimate goal of having a 2nd PC in the living room running Windows can be realized. Millions will be poured into a loosing game division, does Microsoft care if their game division is bleeding money?
Not at all, they can fund it forever if need be.
This Means Microsoft really doesn’t care about the quality of the hardware, nor about the gaming comunity at large as long as they can have prevent Sony from dominating their ultimate goal. Basically they only care about gaming up to a certain extent as an insurance policy.
yo, about that red light that you. you should look in to that because my last 360 used to get that before it got the RROD.
MS is screwed because they screwed so many people but it seems those people love being screwed by MS so its just an endless cycle of screwing each other over, no wonder so many have a red ring.
Regardless of the problems with the hardware, I’m still planning on buying one in a while – there are just too many good games on the system to pass up, and in the end that’s what it’s all about. Still a dick move on Microsoft’s part though.
Gears Of War is only 30 bucks
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-6vmj-71-bn-49-en-84-k-40-extended.html
I’m afraid due to the fact of a shoddy console that the 360 will not be accepted as a mainstream piece of equipment, it’s basically fringe element, hardcore computer PC tech heads who enjoy games and who will buy it, yes a lot of people enjoy games but they will not just go out and buy a 360 cause it has some great games but those who have bought one wanted one from the very start, I really can’t see it selling more than 40 million units in the next 3 years. Anyway, let MS keep losing money, I don’t care, they’re not getting any of mine, neither are Sony, muahahahaa, I sold my Nintendo gear *yawn* plus I just don’t have time for games, we’re all still paying off our international bankers, welcome to the benevolent slave race.
@imaballa
Your such a sad twisted Sony fanboy, i’ve not really been interested in buying a consoles this generation but after reading your Sony PR speech i’m now going to buy 3 Xboxs, one of each elite/premium/core, hell i think i’ll buy a couple more and sell them on ebay for £1 to the first person who can tell me why Sony fanboys are such nutjobs that they spend more time bitching about a console they don’t own than actually playing the one they do?
P.S not having many games worth playing is not an exceptable answer, we all know that already.
@Steve,
Why am I a twisted Sony fanboy? I think your the twisted Xbot tool.
People like you say the stupidest things like:
“Hey at least Microsoft gave us a 3 year warranty!”
“Microsoft is giving it the good ‘ol college try!”
Its pretty twisted, your justifying their screw ups, and coverups.
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Here is why your an Xbot, if you were a regular consumer that cared about quality of the CE(consumer electronics) then having an Xbox 360 with a over 30% failure rate is outrageous! Then they hide this fact for over 6 months (as Peter Moore admitted) and called those reports of RROD as what was it? “unrelated issues not a specific defect”?? basically calling them ‘Liars’. To top it off, all the senior management jump ship, one VP sells millions of their stock before the 3 year warranty announcement, thats showing faith in the product.
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I guess Xbot’s have to justify their purchase by being such a tool, no anger, just a twisted sense of misplaced loyalty to a company that ultimately does not have the gamers interest at heart.
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Xbot’s will say “it’s worth paying the subscription fee for Xbox Live”, even though Live isn’t so ‘Live’ these days. Its also worth paying for the game Lumines only to find once you play it you have to pay extra to progress further in the game. Or its worth it to pay for Themes, and pictures too right? BS.
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Let me ask you this, Sony’s PSN is free, its free to play online games, Themes and pictures are free, bluetooth chat, messaging, store, all free, now when ‘Home’ comes out and it will have surpassing feature set than Xbox Live, and it will still be free, What will your reasoning be then??
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Microsoft’s plan of using Xbox as an insurance policy to prevent Sony dominance in the living room isn’t a hidden agenda, or a conspiracy theory its well known and publicized in the past, and now again with this Xbox Engineer. Basically your Microsoft’s Pawn, a tool if you will, manipulating the many while their ultimate goal or ulterior motive is to back Windows up.
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Now you say PS3 doesn’t have any games, over 100 games after 1 year is not only on par with what Xbox 360, PS3 sold aprox. 10 million in 1 year more than Xbox 360 same time.
Your reasoning makes absolutely no sense:
A) You complain PS3 has no games, when in fact they have comparable number of games 1 year time frame, you expect PS3 to spontaneously have as much games as 2 year old Xbox 360 (your stupid if you think that)
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B) Xbox 360’s 1st 1million sold in 1 quarter game was ‘Gears of War’ almost 1 year after Xbox 360 launch.
PS3’s 1 million sold in 1 quarter game(S) were actually launch titles are: Motorstorm, Resistance Fall of Man,
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C) PS3 has about 10 million user base 1 year after, Xbox 360 had 7.7 million 1 year after launch. PS3 is selling at a faster rate than Xbox 360 did.
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Hey go do that, go buy 3 Xbox 360’s you sissy Xbot tool, while your at it go buy 3 add-on HD-DVD players they are worth as much those Xbox’s. LOL
Yes, go buy 3 Xbox’s! You’ll need spares when you start seeing the RROD!
*acceptable
Man it’s like it’s a fucking suprise or something..I do alot of fucking coke, but xbox is junk….
I blew a inside the xbox cd tray sent it back for repair and bill gates sent a note saying hope it works fine, your actions were disgusting but very very tasty.
Here’s a serious question for XBOX 360….
***If Xbox 360 has a failure rate of 30% and lets say half of that 30% are people who have purchased more than 1 Xbox 360, what is the actual user install base at?
Over 2.5 million 360s are rebuys (where gamers who went out to buy their second or third 360).
***If Xbox 360 has a failure rate of 30% and lets say ALL of these people have purchased more than 1 Xbox 360, what is the actual user install base at?
Over 5 million 360s are rebuys. This means the staggering 17 million Xbox 360’s sold are actually 12 million… not so great for a system that released in 2005.
***Another question; how many users have signed up for Xbox Live? What percentage is this of the 360 ‘install base’?
***Sony stated they have over 6 million subscribers to PSN. I believe that their install base was at 7 million when they quoted this. This would be a staggering 85% sign up ratio. Not bad for a system that has been out 1.2 years.
So, all 360 fanboys (kids) STFU.
@nynja
I see your still trolling for Sony, I’ll answer your question with another question, If the 360’s actual install base is much less like you suggest, who’s buying all the games?
MS have a very high attach rate and sell more games than PS3 & Wii combined, i suppose everyone’s buying games for their broken console and then buying the same game again for their replacement are they?
@Steve,
Yet Again your trolling around for Microsoft, Xbot. How much are you getting paid to defend Xbox? Probably none, like I mentioned in my previous response to your stupid remarks you just have to defend your precious console you invested in even though they have given you a faulty piece of crap hardware and ram you with microtransactions, you tool.
You just posed a question that refutes the over 30% failure rate, even Microsoft admitted their extremely high failure rate, you must be blocking all of that out and continue thinking its the greatest piece of hardware.
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To answer your stupid question about attach rate, the only figures of attach rate are only from NPD, which only covers America, specifically US. PS3 sold more in Europe than US, and Japan is a little behind US. In Japan the attach rate is like 6 times that of Xbox, in Europe the attach rate is also higher than US figures considering Europe sold more PS3 than US.
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I agree with Nynja, I am sure couple million were rebuys, but that only accounts for the rebuys within 1.5 years before Xbox implemented the 3 year extended warranty, (im assuming Microsoft is not counting replacements in their sales figures).
Currently, in the United States, Xbox 360 indeed has a larger install base when compared to the PS3 (based on NPD figures). Fine. What I really want to know is, what percentage of that number are gamers who purchased a replacement 360. Or upgraded from the older model to simply get an HDMI port (Elite) or the Halo themed console. This is a question I bring up for those who seem to forget about an unbelievable 30% failure rate. If the reason to buy a 360 is for Xbox Live, then wouldn’t the sign up ratio be some indication as to what the actual install base really is? Maybe. From what I remember, MS stated a while back, they had about a 60% of the install base signed up for Xbox Live. Based on the PS3’s ratio of PSN users to install base (around 80%), I would have to make an educated guess that the 360’s is about the same; 80%. This leaves 20% unaccounted for. So 20% of the actual install base is just replacement 360s (rebuys and MS shipped replacements). That would be around 4 million, making the Xbox 360 install base actually around 13.5 million. As for your “attach rate” or simply put, game sales – why on earth could it be higher for the 360?
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You want an answer for that? Here you go:
Reason posibility #1: Microsoft advertises its “inflated” install base. Game rental companies, such as Blockbuster and GameFly purchase more game copies to accomidate the larger install base. Do you really believe that the total sales are just gamers? A large chunk of total game sales include the purchases made by these large corporations. This may explain why I have such a difficult time finding any PS3 games from these rental services. As they believe the demand is really ‘that’ much higher on 360.
Reason posibility #2: 360 gamers are bored of their games and keep buying because they have yet to find a game to keep them compelled long enough to not care about what new game is coming. While PS3 owners are still dazzeled by Ratchet & Clank, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Warhawk, Resistance, Folklore, Motorstorm, CoD4, UT3, Skate, Oblivion, Rainbow Six, Assassin’s Creed, GRAW2, many of which are SOLID games – offline and online.
Incase you have forgotten, PS3 games tend to have more content than 360. Especially those exclusives. Have you played a PS3 exclusive online yet? If you have, you would never touch a P2P online game again. Go try out Resistance or Warhawk. Once you go black, you never go back.
Personally, I am waiting for the killer apps; Killzone 2, SOCOM4 & Confrontation, FFXIII series, and MGS4. After these games, I will not be buying games as often as I have been. In reality, SOCOM and FF will would be enough to keep me happy this entire generation. Just as it did on the PS2.
I do not deny that the 360 install base is higher than PS3 – what I wish to know is by how much? But of course you already know that the Wii is kicking both consoles’ butts with the install base, right? ;)
Steve wrote: “i suppose everyone’s buying games for their broken console and then buying the same game again for their replacement are they”
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LOL! I just had to comment on this… So you are telling me that Halo 3 sold 17+ million copies? What is the actual sales number? 4.6 million copies, if I am correct. Or better yet, how many registered users are there? I doubt its anywhere near that number.
How clumsy of me, I forgot about the disc scratching problem. But of course, who would buy a new copy of their ‘favorite’ game if it was ever damaged…
@imaballa
I’m getting a cheque for 5 million pounds paid directly from Bill Gates charity which is really just a front to pay us MS trolls.
Why how much are you getting to be a Sony troll, nothing? to be Sony are such a cheap ass i hear they wont even pay for exclusive games.
I really think Sony should give you some cash, you’re such a hardworking troll that you even try and answer other trolls comment for them, now there’s dedication for you.
ahh i see avoiding the issue, such an Xbot. Im not a Sony fanboy I like all game consoles except Microsoft’s. There’s good reason for that, Microsoft treats their consumer base like tools and arrogant about their mistakes and it sickens me there are people like you who defend them for their faults. Its pretty sad really. I’m sure you’ll be defending Xbox Live’s outages too, and defend any screw ups made by Microsoft. You probably applaud Microsoft for forcing EPIC to sell Gears of War maps when EPIC wanted to give em out for free.
No need to pay for 3rd party exclusives when they are all going multiplatform. It’s all good with Sony owning 19 in-house studios, thats right Microsoft has Rare studio, Im sure your looking foward to Banjo Kazo! LOL :
* Clap Hanz – Hot Shots Golf series
* Polyphony Digital – Gran Turismo series, Motor Toon Grand Prix series, Omega Boost
* SCE Japan Studio (Project SIREN Team, etc.) – Ape Escape series, LocoRoco
* Team ICO – ICO, Shadow of the Colossus
SCEI Subsidiary Divisions
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
* Incognito Entertainment – Twisted Metal series, Warhawk
* Naughty Dog – Jak series, Uncharted
* SCE Bend Studio (formerly Eidetic) – Syphon Filter series
* SCE Foster City Studio – Jet Li: Rise to Honor
* SCE San Diego Studio – The Mark of Kri, NBA ‘07
* SCE Santa Monica Studio – God of War, Kinetica
* Sony Online Entertainment LLC. – EverQuest
* Zipper Interactive – SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs series
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.
* Bigbig Studios – Pursuit Force
* Evolution Studios – MotorStorm
* Guerrilla Games – Killzone series
* SCE London Studio (includes Team SOHO & Camden) – The Getaway series, SingStar series
* SCE Studio Cambridge (formerly Millennium Interactive) – MediEvil series, Primal
* SCE Studio Liverpool (formerly Psygnosis) – Wipeout series, F1 series
Sony Computer Entertainment Korea Inc.
* SCE Korea – EyeToy: EduKids, GloRace: Phantastic Carnival
@imaballa
“ahh i see avoiding the issue”
Yes you got me, i’m just not inteligent enough to be able to respond to your vastly superior and analytic take on us poor “xbots”.
I shall be spending my last MS cheque on trolling lessons so i might one day aspire to be as good a troll as you.
I was thinking of leaving MS anyway after my 19th xbox elite got the RROD, caught fire and killed my cat.
Please post some more long copy and pasted lists of Sony studios et cetera as it’s not at all boring or obsessive!
I now leave you, a sad and broken xbot :(
“Drugs are bad m’kay?”
When my unit came back from service it (or its replacement) was significantly louder than before.
I think either an extra fan was added or the ones inside were set to run most of the time.
I’m sure that goes back to the heat dissipation problems.
Simple Solution…
Ever thought of just fixing it yourself?
I did — And so can you. Have a look here:
http://3redlightfix-xbox360repairguide.blogspot.com
Let me know how it turns out.
Thansk