Flashing red lights alarm Microsoft amid mass Xbox 360 crashes

Stan Beer
Friday, 06 July 2007 13:23

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft Windows PC users are all too familiar with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". Now Microsoft has to contend with a US$1 billion hardware problem afflicting Xbox 360 consoles worldwide known as the "Red Ring of Death".

For those not familiar with the Xbox 360, the console has a circle on the front panel made up of four quadrants of lights. When all is well, all four quadrants emit a steady green glow. What has been making Xbox 360 owners' blood run cold is when three of the lights suddenly start flashin red, which indicates a hardware failure.

What exactly is causing this as yet unexplained hardware failure is unknown - or at least Microsoft is not saying. However, with about 12 million Xbox 360 consoles in the wild, some estimates are suggesting that affected consoles number several million. With Microsoft admitting that the problem will cost the company US$1 billion, that number appears to be no exaggeration.

The Xbox 360 is manufactured in China for Microsoft by three partners - Celestia, Flextronics and Wistron.

Microsoft, in total damage control, is taking the hardware failure issue so seriously that it has issued a public proclamation extending its usual one year Xbox 360 warranty to three years for consoles that experience the Red Ring of Death. In a message on the official Xbox website in Australia, Peter Moore Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft has published an open letter addressing the hardware failure issue.

In a vague reference to the cause of the problem, Moore said Microsoft has identified "several factors" that could cause a red ring hardware failure and that improvements have been made to the console.

In a further indication of the depth of Microsoft's determination to contain the issue, Moore stated that not only would Microsoft retroactively provide a three-year warranty covering all Xbox 360 consoles affected by the red light hardware failure but it would also reimburse customers who have previously paid to have the problem fixed.

The US$1 billion Xbox 360 repair bill will come as a serious blow to the bottom line of Microsoft's games business which had recently looked like it was on the verge of going into the black for the first time. With Microsoft not being forthcoming about the specific hardware problems afflicting its nextgen games console, consumers are left to wonder what are the chances of having to make a return trip to their retailer with console in hand over the next year.