Critical mass has finally happened at the offices of Microsoft. Peter Moore, Corporate Vice President of Interactive Entertainment has finally addressed the widespread problem of the "ring of death" on Xbox 360s. This status message on the front panel indicates that the 360 is, for all intents and purposes, dead as a doornail.
In an apparent shift in policy and demeanor, John Porcaro, Senior Group Manager at Microsoft mimicked Peter Moore’s statements and apologized to the Xbox community on GamersScoreBlog.com, the official blogsite for Microsoft employees.
"I want to join Peter in offering our apology, on behalf of all of us who spend our time with community members every day."
"We are taking responsibility by enhancing the Xbox 360 warranty for consoles that experience general hardware failures, indicated by three flashing red lights on the console, to cover repair costs and shipping for all related repairs for three years from purchase.
"The existing console warranty remains in effect for all other issues. We are retroactively arranging refunds for anyone that paid for out-of-warranty repairs of a console that had three flashing red lights."
Hopefully these new warranty changes will combat the seemingly renegade crowds who have been experiencing hardware failures — the projected failure rate may be around 33%. Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment/Devices at Microsoft said that he’s confident that the Xbox 360 hardware design issues have been resolved.
The incidents of the dreaded "red ring of death" have been reported with increased frequency by Xbox 360 owners and have also been investigated by several consumer related television shows. Today’s announcement is certainly welcome news as the rising tide of complaints from 360 owners has finally mobilized some action at Microsoft HQ.
[with additional reporting from Billy Wang, GN Staff Writer]
