Pre-Console Post of the Week Update
Lots of "pre" action today.Microsoft, in a fairly shocking move, has just extended the Xbox 360 warranty to three years for failures due to the "red ring of death." Here's an excerpt from Gamespot:
Today, Microsoft announced that is once again revamping its warranty scheme for the Xbox 360. After mounting anecdotal evidence of the system's failure rate due to the dreaded "red ring of death" (three flashing red lights on the console's front panel), the publisher is changing its warranty to cover systems affected by the red ring for three years from the date of purchase. Any console which suffers the aforementioned failure--and only the aforementioned failure--can be returned to Microsoft for repair for free, as the warranty also includes shipping charges.
"As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures," the company said in a statement. The three-year extension is for all 360s, and will be retroactively applied to every console bought since the 360 launched. That means anyone who bought a console in November 2005 will be covered until November 2008.
I've been slamming Microsoft for hiding when it came to failure rates. Well, this isn't hiding, and it's going to cost them a ton of money. They're not only going to have to absorb far more under-warranty repairs, but they're also going to have to reimburse everyone who's paid for out-of-warranty repairs. Yes, this only covers the red ring of death, but anecdotally, that seems to cover a high percentage of failures.
This is also very shrewd timing in a PR sense. No matter how many great games they showed at E3 next week, they were going to be absolutely torched with questions about reliability. In other words, the focus wasn't going to be on the games, which is a cardinal sin for a gaming console. Now it looks like it will be, and there is an overwhelmingly strong lineup of games coming out for the 360 this fall.
[update: the expected number on that "ton of money" is 1.05 to 1.15 billion dollars for "anticipated costs." Ouch. Thanks to Glen Haag of The Blog for the Sports Gamer for that information.]
<< Home