Xbox 360 Ring of Death cost Microsoft $1 Billion

[Kev]

There was a good article on GameSpot yesterday which discussed the infamous 'Ring of Death' fiasco which has plagued the 360 since it's launch.

Apparently Microsoft have taken returns on 1.2 million of the roughly 11.6 million shipped Xbox 360s, costing them $1 billion.

It's clear that Microsoft rushed the initial release of the 360 to get a head start in the next generation gaming war. It definately shows that they didn't extensively test the system and just released it to the public.

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26580495&tag=;title;1&part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6197354

[Bex]

"Microsoft actually ceased production of the Xbox 360 in 2007 between January and June to find and address the issue, according to the report." is certainly something I didn't know. I knew it was bad, but not that bad :O.

Thanks for posting this up, was an interesting read :).

[QueenB]

It is bad but, I think M$ made it good in the end by repairing and offering a 3 year warranty for RROD. I can't think of a better way they could have made up for their.....'mistake'. Hopefully they wont rush into releasing a console again and I can see 1 billion reasons why they wouldnt lol.

[Kev]

Yeah I think they did the right thing...but I think they had to though. I've read that many shops accept faulty xbox returns with no problem but I think there are a lot of people who have had to send them away and have been without it for a few weeks (this recently happened to my friend, he's had the 360 a few years so couldn't return it to the shop so he had to send it away, he did get a new one but it was a few weeks without a system).

[QueenB]

Happened to me a couple of months ago - RROD. Contacted M$ and they sent a courier, took it away for repair and returned it to me within 2 weeks I think it was. They fixed it and threw in a months Live subscription too. I guess 2 weeks is a lifetime when you are waiting for your console but, I appreciated the effort Microsoft made.

[Kev]

Happened to me a couple of months ago - RROD. Contacted M$ and they sent a courier, took it away for repair and returned it to me within 2 weeks I think it was. They fixed it and threw in a months Live subscription too. I guess 2 weeks is a lifetime when you are waiting for your console but, I appreciated the effort Microsoft made.

That actually doesn't sound too bad. I could handle two weeks. Good of them to throw in the subscription too.