Dean Takahashi completes chronicles of Xbox 360 red ring of death

By now we have all heard of (or experienced) the infamous Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death, and we also pretty much know what causes it. Heck, we've even seen ways to avoid it by spending more money on fixes instead of going through Microsoft's replace / refurbish / replace process. In what he calls his final chapter on an extensive bit of investigative journalism, Dean Takahashi uncovers the early quality control-absent rush to market that resulted in a massive number of Xbox 360s being sent to market despite known design flaws. Dean goes on to propose that all this has kept Microsoft from winning this round of the console wars, as costs to keep the consoles working crippled Microsoft from aggressive marketing measures such as price cuts. In the end, he concludes (via an anonymous quote) that Microsoft treated the Xbox 360's launch like a software company would, as if some future patch would cover up the inherent problems with the console's design.

[Patrick @ Sep 8th 2008 12:26PM]

Hmmm, well I guess the question is was the risk of rushing to market worth the advantage of getting a head start on the competition? No doubt MS had a huge advantage by getting there first, but was it worth the $1 billion? It's hard to argue with their success this generation as compared to last though.

[Rollins @ Sep 8th 2008 10:42AM]

For a company that operates in a long term mindset like Microsoft does, the $1 billion was most likely worth it. They've gained the mindshare that they could only grasp at with the original Xbox and still seem to be winning their battle with Sony. As far as Nintendo's concerned, I think Microsoft's big answer to them will come next round.

[404 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:26AM]

That "next round" may bring in problems though. Fanboys will be fanboys and will buy it anyway, but I'm sure there will be a lot of people who hold onto their wallets and wait to see if the next Xbox incarnation has similar problems. If MS want to avoid a slow uptake (and therefore losing all of the "OMG! 50 Bazilion sold in the first day! We're awesome!" hype) then they're going to need to really reassure people who've been bitten once and are shy the next time around.

[KarlW @ Sep 8th 2008 12:18PM]

I don't know about the war with Sony being won. Of course, fanboys will come and vote me down and my opinion will seem meaningless, but the figures say that the PS3 is gaining ground fast.

Most analysts seem to think Sony will come up behind Nintendo. It'll be similar to the PS2:Xbox:Gamecube install base ratios of yesteryear, only with it being Wii:PS3:360 (that's the prediction most analysts seem to share).

The good thing is that this generation has shown that: Microsoft can do well in the games industry, Sony's dominance isn't guaranteed, and that Nintendo shouldn't be ignored. It's turned the industry politics of the last generation on its head!

[Forrest @ Sep 8th 2008 12:39PM]

Well, this whole concept of console 'Generations' may start to get a little fuzzy, if it hasn't already.

The Wii as a device doesn't quite compare on a hardware level to the 360 and the PS3. Should it really be considered part of this 'generation' or is it a device unto itself?

The PS3 is supposed to have a life span of 10 years (despite claims of other companies who put the life of BluRay at a fraction of that time). Will Sony release a new console shortly into this lifespan? It will have to in order to have a console in the same 'generation' as Microsoft's next offering, which will probably happen sooner than 2016. What if the PS3 hasn't reached maturity at that point?

This competition amongst 'generations' is getting kind of silly. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will continue to release consoles over time, on their own schedules. They'll start planning their new console while their current console is going strong, so they can be prepared to release the new console once the sale of hardware and software for their existing 'flagship' console tapers off. From a business standpoint it would probably be better for them to stagger releases with their competition. They can offer a device that is clearly superior to their competitors' current offerings, and at a time when consumers have had time to forget about the outlay of cash for the competing system. Christmas 2008 may be a huge year for the PS3, then Christmas 2010 may be a huge year for the 780, then Christmas 2012 for the PS4, etc. People might be more willing to own all consoles instead of just one each 'generation'

[pfromg @ Sep 9th 2008 6:01AM]

being first was all MS had.
based on pure spec / features the 360 could not stand against the ps3 in an even race.

for example , bluray, built in wifi , built in power supply, hdmi, HD upgrades, quiter,ect,ect.

If MS had not launched when they did , the 360 would have been dead before it left the starting block. In that respect , it was right for them to launch their unfinished hardware.

[Adderz @ Sep 8th 2008 10:34AM]

oo snap.

I had a 2006 console and i never had a red ring of death.

life goes on.

[Rollins @ Sep 8th 2008 10:43AM]

It's only a matter of time. My day one 360 died about a month after its second birthday. :)

[Patrick @ Sep 8th 2008 11:02AM]

@Adderz

same for me.


i've got a console i bought in november 2005 (launch week) and i've never had a RROD problem with it.


in fact the only "problem" is that the da*n thing sounds like a vacuum cleaner. my fix? turn up the speakers. i don't use it for dvd anyway.

[white_ultras @ Sep 8th 2008 12:04PM]

I RODDED 2 early X360s over Forza, the latest Elite system is going strong.
I think that RODD problem is related to some of the early hardware.

still GOW, soon GOW2, HALO3.. hands down, X360 is da shit -!-best-!-

[Cal @ Sep 8th 2008 12:22PM]

Not had any RRODs myself, but that's probably because every time there's a new SKU at a decent price I sell my old 360 and upgrade. For example I sold my old 360 premium for £150 (yay ebay) and got a 60GB for £180 =)

[KAIKAI @ Sep 9th 2008 4:06PM]

fu** me right
3 month old xbox 360 elite
red ringed like a week ago :(
not cool not cool at all

[TravisO @ Sep 8th 2008 2:32PM]

You are the exception, not the rule. After talking to enough Xbox 360 owners (and I don't mean people complaining on forums) the question isn't if your 2005 through Summer 2007 Xbox 360 has RROD, it's only a question of when.

My Nov 2006 Xbox RROD'd, was fixed extremely fast by MS (less than 2 weeks from the day I mailed it out I had it back) and RROD'd the first game I started playing. Fortunately they replaced it with a Sept'07 model (no HDMI though) and it's worked great.

But with the recent price reduction, I'm tempted to go buy a new Arcade edition, put my HD on it and sell mine used so I get the newest quietest model along with an even lesser chance of RROD, plus HDMI.

[Jorge @ Sep 9th 2008 1:15AM]

Consider yourself lucky, every person I know that owns one experienced it. I waited for the Elite to come out because of the bigger hard drive and because I naively expected the problem to be fixed by then...I was wrong. I bought it when Halo 3 came out and even though I don't use the 360 that much it failed at the beginning of August so it barely lasted 10 months. When you buy a product like this one you expect it to work at least a couple of years. I mean I still have an original NES that still works and no other console that I owned has ever failed except this one. They should have been more careful and spend some time to fix the problem instead of jumping the gun trying to get ahead of Sony and Nintendo with a flawed console.

[Rob Bourne @ Sep 8th 2008 10:36AM]

Hey, at least they don't wait until the warranty is up before breaking!

Touching wood in a totally non-sexual way, I haven't had a console break on me since the SNES - and that was my own fault. I guess I'm lucky.

[Neon Jebus @ Sep 8th 2008 11:27AM]

Yeah well if you do have a system replaced under warranty you better hope the others fail before the original warranty on the first system runs out. I wouldn't think they would sink so low if it wasn't for seeing a close friend go through this right now.

He had gone through the repair process twice before, now the third system has failed. Since his first system is now out of warranty they have told him he must pay to have the third system repaired.

That is bad customer service. If you have been producing something known to be of questionable quality (even after repair) you should extend the warranty out for the replacement at least for a year after the repaired unit is sent out.

To think they are still aiming to hurt the customer because they rushed the system to market.

Yet my friend just went out and purchased a new unit in hopes to break the poor service cycle. He would have bailed out on the system all together if it wasn't for his high attachment rate (game owned). So you have a customer out there buying software for your system and you still can't make it right...it shocks me.

[chefgon_ign @ Sep 8th 2008 12:10PM]

@Neon

How is that possible? Launch day systems still have two months left on their warranty, unless the warranty was voided by modding then 100% of systems on the market should still be covered right now.

[Cal @ Sep 8th 2008 12:25PM]

@chefgon

It probably wasn't an RROD problem, it'll be the 12 month other problems warranty that's up.

Oh and my only console to die was my Masterdrive, the rain killed it =(

[Neon Jebus @ Sep 8th 2008 12:27PM]

@chefgon

Which was what I was thinking as well. I asked him if I could call them myself with his information. They told me the same thing. He never modded a system at all. Oddly I think he had opened up the first system but they repaired it for free.

Unless it is a case that they just aren't saying it over the line to keep the customer from being embarrassed. Maybe that is the case but they told me the 'warranty' story as well.

It might sound odd that I would bother calling but I often do this for my friends because I work in an area where I sometimes get customer issues with our products. I know to keep a cool head but to expect something to be done. It didn't work this time around.

Heck my company has replaced product for elderly folks that mail in stuff they purchased years ago. We don't have to do that, but we do because it's important to us to show that we care. If we can't do anything about it we always communicate with a letter back. And this is a large company I work for. If we can take the time, I expect others to do the same. Even if I have to follow up time and time again until they do the right thing.

[blizz419 @ Sep 8th 2008 10:44AM]

Agreed Patrick, although it may have been wiser to have released 6 months later with a built in HD-DVD player and better cooling capabilities.

[Almadi @ Sep 8th 2008 11:15AM]

So you reckon that it was Microsofts fault that the HD DVD format failed? Had they incorporated it into the 360 then SONY would be selling its assets by now?

[chefgon_ign @ Sep 8th 2008 12:14PM]

@almadi

You're kidding yourself if you think the PS3 isn't the reason why Blu-ray won. If the Xbox 360 had HD DVD out of the box and still accomplished similar sales numbers, the HD movie market would have turned out completely differently.

I'm not saying that HD DVD would have won for sure, nobody knows that, but it certainly would have done significantly better than it did.

[farfisa @ Sep 8th 2008 10:46AM]

I agree--getting in there before the PS3 definitely helped their market share and their success with software sales. Sony, who didn't rush, is down 3 billion on the PS3 hardware (though they managed to pull off the Blu-ray victory largely because of their console).
And let's face it, nothing could have helped the 360 beat the Wii.
So I figure it was a calculated risk, and it seems to have paid off.

[Jagster @ Sep 8th 2008 12:06PM]

Actually, Sony did rush theirs also. HD-DVD players were out and they rushed the PS out the door in what most people would say was an incomplete state. The Blu-Ray spec was not even finished when the PS3 was launched. The PS3's features were very lacking compared to what the 360 could do and their SDK's were immature and devs did not have them in their hands long. Realistically, Sony should have launched the PS3 1 year after they did but they were fighting 2 wars, the console war and the HD DVD war so it forced their hand to release before they were really ready.

[LT73 @ Sep 8th 2008 10:49AM]

I had mine go RROD. I sent it back, got it repaired (at my inconvenience) and sold it immediately.

I then bought a PS3 and never looked back.

(Something tells me I'm not the only one who went through that whole process)

[maveric101 @ Sep 8th 2008 1:30PM]

i didn't. january '06 console and still going strong.

[Cat Beater @ Sep 8th 2008 1:47PM]

LOL Those who never look back to 360 are the casual gamers...if you can own both systems more power to you, and that is nice as well. But TURNING away from the 360 is more ROFL, than RRoD...


Cant wait for that fall line up of Awesome game content and features for the PS3!...Little Big Planet or Home? Unrivaled Fail !

LOL Cant wait till it really picks up steam and starts churning out droves of Generic Japanese RPG's....

[John @ Sep 8th 2008 10:50AM]

I'm guessing Microsoft knew exactly what it was doing. They rushed it out in order to be the best console on the market before anyone else had a chance to answer with their own next gen system. Microsoft just wants you to be committed to the Xbox brand, and if you bought faulty hardware, you also bought games for it first, giving you a vested interest in staying with Xbox, and then they offered free repairs to minimalise the backlash. It's like the Zune - they don't expect to make money, they don't care about making money, they just want to expand their market share to the point where they will be able to make money hand over fist. And unlike with the Zune, it seems to be working.

[CraigJ @ Sep 8th 2008 10:50AM]

In other words, they treated the launch of the Xbox like the launch of Vista.

If they had done a better job up front, (a little QC, maybe?) they could have spent a good portion of the (estimated) $1B spent fixing problems on building market share, instead they gave Sony an opportunity to catch up. Just like they handed Apple a golden opportunity with the botched Vista launch.

Microsoft seriously needs to examine their bloated, bureaucratic methods. The primary reason that competitors are chipping away at Microsoft's market is that Microsoft handed them the opportunity to do so, and it could have been prevented for a lot less than they are spending to fix the problems.

This is why I'm an _Ex_ shareholder.

[chefgon_ign @ Sep 8th 2008 12:20PM]

I agree with you to an extent, but timing is also very important. Vista had already been delayed for *years*, waiting even longer could have ultimately been even more costly than launching it unfinished.

Microsoft has to get their product to market at a time when it can be successful, if you delay every product until its perfect then you will be late to market every single time and people will have moved on to a competitor's product. Between their significant marketshare and the number of game sales it has brought to them, I'd wager they've probably made up that $1B, and they owe it all to launching a year before the competition.

The problem, of course, comes around next generation when the slate is wiped clean and people have to decide whether or not to trust Microsoft again. It may very well still blow up in their face in the form of losing consumer trust, but for now I think they're doing pretty well for themselves despite the issues.

[Frankenstein Black @ Sep 8th 2008 11:02AM]

The damage MS caused by rushing an inherently flawed Xbox 360 to market goes well beyond RROD (and all of the other documented issues). They may have potentially molded the console gaming psyche by somehow making flawed hardware “acceptable”. The formula use to be PPP (pay, power-up and play)! Hopefully the 780 will return to these simple principles. If not, FMS!!

[Cossa @ Sep 8th 2008 11:21AM]

What's even stranger is that they would dub their next console the "780". You'd think it would be "720".

[JAmerican @ Sep 8th 2008 11:07AM]

I used this method by RBTech: http://www.jamerican.net/?p=48 but posted my process of applying it on my site. My console only freezes from time to time but no RROD.

[GreezyG @ Sep 8th 2008 11:19AM]

I've had two 360's. Neither one RROD'd. Keep that power converter up off the carpet and you should be ok.
btw I sold the first one to buy an elite.

[nxtiak @ Sep 8th 2008 11:32AM]

Keeping the power supply off the carpet does not solve RRoD problems.
You're the few lucky 360 owners.

[Gandhi @ Sep 8th 2008 11:26AM]

It helped me make my console buying decision easier - to go with a PS3. Thanks Microsoft!

[JAmerican @ Sep 8th 2008 11:29AM]

Too bad you chose the looser :). Most games this generation are exclusive to 360 or on multiple consoles.

[Ed @ Sep 8th 2008 11:55AM]

@ JAmerican

Too bad you can't spell. Your 360 may have the majority of the exclusive titles ... but it's still losing to my Wii.

PS - keep your fanboi to yourself.

:)

[Cat Beater @ Sep 8th 2008 2:00PM]

Boo! ED off this chat board...How dare you come in into a room full of men, and vomiting up shat about anything losing to the Wii...
Good grammar or not, that kids plaything ( cheap price, weak GPU = no longevity).
The Wii is a fad. Like a tickle me Elmo, Its cheap so it sells, You cant find or get one, so its coveted.

In the media and from my own observations, just walk into any gamestore and stare blankly at the Wii rack....95% for the games are TRASH. Please EXCLUDE japan, for they're taste in everything is too Engrish for my liking.

Mamas Cook Off being 1 or they TOP SELLERS.. : /

[RUGRLN @ Sep 8th 2008 11:30AM]

Well I guess it all started when the demand for the 360 began to soar, and M$ couldn't meet the demand and had to have a helping hand from other companies, and in doing so to reduce costs and increase profit [$$$M$$$$], they reduced quality and also possible design flaws was a result of it. But it was overlooked or simply ignored, and then it came back to haunt them after a few months! It's great console, which can give hours of entertainment, and M$ knowing so should have made sure the device was able to cope with long hours of runtime and never ending heat production jsut like PCs do everyday; unfortunately they didn't!

If only they were smarter, X360 would have sold even more in the coming years from launch, and would not have a great downside over PS3, giving gamers and even better reason to buy it..

Will M$ ever learn! You need to spend money to actually earn it!

[CM @ Sep 8th 2008 11:33AM]

I'm looking to get one with the recent price drops. Do newer units have the same RROD problem? Thanks!

[nxtiak @ Sep 8th 2008 11:34AM]

Did any of you even read the article or did you read it when Gizmodo posted it 2 days ago? I know I did.

[tekdroid @ Sep 8th 2008 11:44AM]

Over-all, a well-written article, if somewhat unverifiable by the average Joe and sometimes clinging to straws to make a point (prices haven't gone down as much as last gen console). Hmmm.

What amazes me is:
1) just how low the yields allegedly were (even in 2008)
2) the fact that they had stopped production for 6 months in 2007 and sold only 1.2million in that time at one stage
and other juicy bits.

I am surprised I read the whole thing, but this sort of manufacturing stuff interests me, I guess.

Fascinating stuff, if true. I am probably generalising but I wouldn't think hardware problems like this would be left so long unfixed with Japanese companies like Sony and Nintendo. I am quite amazed at how long Microsoft (allegedly) let things slide on hardware quality-control.

My respects to the named source there who spoke up about Microsoft at the risk of losing his job.

[thedesolate1 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:46AM]

Thats a good analogy. I think it was done in true Microsoft fashion. Because hey don't take a lot of care and pride into what they do. Thus sloppy product launches all across the board in everything they dig their mits into. I wish a company with pockets this deep would pay more attention to detail and create truly awe inspiring products. Im giving in my own humble opinion and I am not a fanboy of anything btw. I think they are riding high on all that power and just don't care.

[BigD145 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:59AM]

Microsoft? A software company? You don't say.

[Ethan @ Sep 8th 2008 12:04PM]

I do honestly think the xbox 360 has a much better selection of games. However, I would never have bought one before they fixed the myriad of problems with the machine.

[Gandhi @ Sep 8th 2008 12:46PM]

@ JAmerican:

LOL! Can you name some exclusives that are not coming out on the PC, besides Halo 3 and Gears of War 2? Fable 2?

I can name quite a few PS3 exclusives - LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet, Uncharted, Gran Tourismo, Resistance 1 & 2, Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Folklore, Disgaea 3, God of War, White Knight, Siren, Valkyria Chronicles, and others.

Can you do the same for the 360?

At least I am busy enjoying my games, not being on tech support begging some telephone jockey to fix my console for the third or fourth time.

[Forrest @ Sep 8th 2008 12:28PM]

Tales of Vesperia? I'm playing it right now and loving it. In fact I finally decided to buy a 360 because of it. If it was exclusive to the PS3, I might have actually considered buying one of those. It would've been a much harder decision to pick up a PS3, though. I don't need a BlueRay player, and Live (despite it having a cost) seems like a much more developed online component.

[Gandhi @ Sep 8th 2008 2:48PM]

I concede that Live is better experience than PSN online, but JAmerican saying PS3 has no good games is just plan stupid.

[lindsaypace @ Sep 8th 2008 12:41PM]

I bought my first 360 at Best Buy. For the first time in my life it paid off getting the extended warranty. No question ask after the first RROD. They didn't even check what was in the box. The manger said just get another one. The next RROD really made me mad and Best Buy let me upgrade to the Elite. The third RROD shocked me. I did not expect it with the Elite (the hardware was different). Once agin back to Best Buy and a easy exchange. I sold it to my son in law and bought a PS3. I miss the media extender and the interface on the Xbox. I feel really burned by Microsoft, they have lost me as a customer