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You know the upcoming New Xbox Experience that has so many people excited for some reason? Turns out that Microsoft call centers are bracing themselves for NXE-induced red rings of death. So while you’re gaining a [fancy?] new user interface you may also be losing an Xbox 360. Fun!

It’s like this: Microsoft is afraid that its Frankenstein of a machine may have trouble “taking,” in a sense, the NXE update. The result of such a rejection could be (emphasis on the “could” as none of this is guaranteed to happen) mass RRODs. And when the system breaks down…

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Some of you may recall the expose VentureBeat did on the whole RROD fiasco and VB is once again reporting that Microsoft went ahead and fired the guy you see pictured. Robert Delaware was let go last week and the 29-year-old Seattle resident plans to fight civil charges that are expected from Microsoft and former employer VMC.

“I don’t regret it,” he said in a phone call on Thursday. “I’ll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on.”

Keep on, keepin’ on.

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Making the long journey all the way from Taiwan is the Lian Li PC-XB01 I’m not sacrificing my Elite to try this puppy out, but John Biggs has volunteered his! I mean, it’s not like he can even get onto Live anymore. My Elite will undoubtedly get a case of the RROD, so I’d like to have my warranty intact when that happens.

My first impressions of this thing are that it’s huge. Way bigger than an Xbox. Maybe that helps to keep it cool. Anyway, we’ll find out for sure when John gives it a full review in the next week.

Check out the rest of the gallery after the jump.
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We now know what causes the red ring of death. It seems Microsoft, rather than having someone like ATi design the Xbox 360’s GPU, went the cheap route, going straight to a Taiwanese manufacturer with its own designs.

In other words, Microsoft’s lackluster GPU design causes the console to overheat, leading to the red ring of death. In wanting to save a few dollars, Microsoft ended up costing itself $1 billion.

The moral of the story is, don’t half-ass your work.

I keep waiting for the day when my Xbox 360 throws me the Red Ring of Death, cringing at the thought of having to call Microsoft, wait on hold, box up my console, and wait forever for it to get returned. Even though the above video tutorial likely voids your warranty, I’d much rather fix my Xbox 360 myself and then grunt like Tim Taylor when all is said and done. Or grunt like the girl in the video would. Either way.

Anyway, the fix comes to us from i-Hacked.com and, according to SlashGear, “they tested out their way of fixing the 360 on ten different ones that had gotten the RRoD and were successful with all ten.” Good enough for me.

The Consumerist is reporting that Microsoft is making good on re-licensing downloadable content for Xbox 360 owners who got replacement machines. Finally.

At issue is the fact that the Xbox Marketplace’s content is tied to each Xbox’s serial number. When you make a purchase the Marketplace checks your serial number and generates a license. That license basically says that Xbox 123 has access to content ABC. If you get a new Xbox, say you get the Red Ring of Death and you get a warranty replacement, that serial number is different, and thus the license doesn’t work.

As it stands now, it’s a long process, but they are honoring re-licenses, so if you’re patient, you’re in luck.

Here’s a Microsoft-owned Xbox 360 at the San Francisco Game Developers Conference that’s supposed to be demonstrating Microsoft’s XNA development tools but is instead demonstrating the insidious “Red Ring of Death” that’s plagued lo a-many gamer’s console over the years. The video was captured by an alert BBC reporter. Enjoy.

MS showcases Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 at expo [Reg Hardware]

Here’s a mix of good and bad news for Microsoft. The Xbox 360 sold so well during the holiday season – 1.3 million sold in December – that you can’t find it on store shelves now. Apparently, MS didn’t anticipate the console being a hot commodity and retailers are not too happy with their misjudgment. The shortage is expected to last through the quarter and MS is hoping to meet demand again in the spring. That’s an awful long time if you ask me.

So that might not have been good news per se, but this really isn’t good news. The 360 has problems and we’re all aware of that. The RROD has reared its ugly head on more than one CG staffer’s 360. I haven’t had any problems with my Elite, yet. Hopefully it stays that way, but I won’t be surprised when and if it does. My brother has had his 360 for two years and hasn’t had any problems. Now MS estimated that failure rate for the console was at 3 percent, but retailers have pegged it as high as 1/3 of all systems. That’s a pretty wide gap, but recent reports from SquareTrade have revealed that it’s actually at about 16.4 percent. Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii are significantly lower at around 3 percent. What’s more surprising is that the CEO of SquareTrade, Steve Abernethy, seems to think that the number will rise in the future. He didn’t say by how much, but 360 owners play for long periods of time and MS hasn’t really been able to fix the overheating problems so we might see more tweaking to the warranty. That sucks. Maybe I’ll keep my Elite in a temperature controlled chamber. Yeah. That’s a good idea.

Report Claims Xbox 360 Failure Rates at 16% [1up]

Microsoft seeing Xbox shortages in U.S. [Reuters]

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.

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