As an Xbox 360 owner, I am grateful. Microsoft has finally owned up to their infamous hardware problems, signified by the three red lights, i.e. the Red Rings of Death. Instead of dealing with the system's overheating problems during the system's design phase, as they should have, they chose to rush the matter and put a machine with an unusually high failure rate on store shelves.

I enjoy my 360, but every time I turn it on, there's always that nagging fear in the back of my head that today will be the day it fails. It shouldn't be that way. We as gamers should have every expectation that our consoles will be reliable, especially in light of how much money they cost.

To that end, the fine folks in Redmond have extended a 3 year retroactive warranty for hardware failures resulting in the dreaded red rings. That's a generous move on their part, but it shouldn't have been necessary in the first place. Still, kudos to them for admitting the problem (not that they could deny it any longer) and doing something about it.

Tags : microsoft : red ring of death : redmond : Xbox 360

Comments

By: Dragonfly On: 11:11 Jul 6th, 2007 Online	Although this is a good thing, this is in no way going to encourage me to go out and buy one just yet. The failure rate for 360 consoles is just downright crazy, and there's no way in hell I'm going to take that risk until I can be assured my purchase will be reliable. Here's hoping the 360 Elite's hardware refinement will do the job. If it does, I can honestly see them replacing the standard model with the Elite.