Owner of seven failed Xbox 360s speaks out
Our thoughts that anecdotal evidence would pile up publicly about the failure rate of the Xbox 360 took less time than we imagined. Dean Takahashi of the Mercury News wrote a piece this morning about a loyal Xbox 360 fanboy who has given up on the system after seven units "croaked" on him. Rob Cassima, 42, who attended the Zero Hour Xbox 360 launch event in the Mojave Desert said, "All of the four that we got at Zero Hour croaked on us.''
Takahashi met Cassima and his wife at the event a year and a half ago. After Cassima contacted Takahashi about his plight, the journalist got him in contact directly with Peter Moore ... that must be nice. An Xbox 360 representative has since contacted Cassima to offer him a brand new unit. Cassima says, "A new 360 was all I really wanted in the first place, but after two failed attempts dealing with Microsoft's overseas call centers, I am very annoyed that it took an e-mail directly to P. Moore to get results ... I am just so gun-shy about the reliability issue ... I still feel like a chump."
Tina Conley, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, told Takahashi the failure rates are "within the consumer electronics industry average." Microsoft refused to give exact failure rates. Yeah, that's not going to cut it much longer if these stories of failure continue with less than two degrees of separation between people. Purchasing extended warranties should not be the answer to defective production.
See also:
Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
BBC show tackles 'clapped-out old banger' Xbox 360
