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Microsoft Acknowledges 360 Issues, Extends Warranty to 3 Years
RamblinLonghorn writes "Microsoft has announced that they are extending the warranty for all Xbox 360s to 3 years. This appears to be entirely retroactive and that 'those who have already paid for such repair charges can expect reimbursement checks for the amount of their console repair.' It seems as though Microsoft is accepting the blame for the hardware malfunctions, but it is worth noting that this warranty modification only applies in the 'Red Rings of Death' situation."
I'd like a 360. I really would. There are games I'd like to play (PGR3, Dead Rising, some others), as well as games coming out I'd like to play (Rock Band and many others). But I keep hearing about failures. I know people who are on at least their 3rd 360. I've seen the estimations recently putting the failure rates as high as ~30% (which, even if is off by 5x is quite high). If you combine that with the noise the things make, I'm hesitant to buy one. I keep waiting for a re-spin of the silicon (moving to a smaller process should help with the heat/noise issues).
The Elite might have got me but instead of pushing the models down, they just put the Elite on top with a new higher price point.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
...and for those of us who have no idea wtf the "red rings of death are", see here
(Posted anonymously to avoid karma whoring)
I'm not normally a fan of MS, nor do I own a 360, but this is a great move by Microsoft - and not something they NEEDED to do. They could have just fixed the problems and made it a year or so but by extending this to a three year warranty (retroactive) they are going to save a lot of people money.
Companies like GameStop who sell extended warranties though might not be happy since I certainly wouldn't buy one now that MS is backing their system up for 3 years.
Assuming they just do full replace and junk, and pay full retail price, that is >2.5 MILLION failed X-Boxes in the next 2 years. Assuming each repair costs Microsoft only $200, they are budgeting for 5 MILLION failed x-boxen!
With only 11 million X-boxen shipped, that 33% failure rate is sounding like an UNDERCOUNT!
Test your net with Netalyzr
Perhaps offtopic, but...
They don't appear to repair 360s. I had a DVD drive failure and I got back a new console in just a couple days. Being in MN and sending it to Texas, there is no way they even had time to look at it to see what the problem was, they just send out a new one as soon a one comes in. Although I was very happy there was so little down time, I can't help but wonder why they would shell out a new console for what is likely a $15 repair. Even with labor, costs can't be that high. In my experience, disk drives don't seem to last much more than 3 years, if they are paying for a new console for every drive that fails in three years time, they are going to lose alot of money.
Because there was no Internet back then* for you to hear about isolated cases of hardware failure. If someone's NES burned up, he went back to Woolworth's or whatever they had back then, got a new one and complained to his buddies. Now, consoles come out and the most freakish problems (hurling your Wiimote through the TV screen, for example) gets spread worldwide.
* Yes, I know that there actually was an Internet back then, with at least 11 users.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
They dont shell out a new console, they ship you a refurbed unit.
Give them a CC# and they'll cross ship (send your refurbed unit out right now, before they recieve your return).
Then they fix yours, and put it in the pool to be sent to someone else.
It's how RMA's work.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
And yet it still outsells its market competitor
> You have three choices, nintendo ... xbox ... and finally the sony PS3,
You forgot one. There is the PS2 as well. It's a decent, fun system and you can still buy games for it. It's not to be totally ignored just yet.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
It would appear from the size of this charge to earnings ($1billion+) that the XBox reliability is considerably worse than average. Microsoft even called it "an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles," marketing-speak for "Houston, we have a problem."
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Microsoft officially apologizing for Vista and offering XP licenses to those unhappy with it. Meanwhile, they work on a new OS that will actually run on modern hardware.
Quality control / reliability is the issue. How they handle it is at best damage control. The most they can hope for is people thinking "They really screwed the pooch there, but at least they agreed to adopt the puppies." As for stepping up with the warranty did they really step up or is this a preemptive step to avoid a large (and expensive) class action lawsuit.
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
The only specific PS3 failure I've read about is where some guy put tape over the vent holes to "keep dust out."
Not that they don't happen, the widely quoted figures I've seen, Wii and PS3 failure rate was about 1%, compared to 30% for the 360.
Your NES still works fine? Lucky you. Most NES units have faulty cart connectors, due to a design defect. Mine is near impossible to fire up...the best solution I found so far is to insert the cart, press down all the way, and then wedge a Game Boy Pocket (?!?!) in between, holding it all the way down. Press Power, then Reset.
The SNES has no such problems and very well should last until now, at least.
I attempted the towel trick to fix it
The only "trick" is burning out the temperature sensors so it runs the fans faster without burning out anything else. You'd be better off just hotwiring the fans direct to the 12 volt supply so it can't attempt to moderate the fan speed.
Seriously, towel trick? You get the "I'm desperate and not too smart" award. I invented it today. Just for you.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
MS have really impressed me with the way the handle most of the issues (with a few noted exceptions which any large company will have). Although they tried to supress the fact that they were having issues, they have now admited it, and in good faith. They extended the warranty to show good faith, not because they were obligated to, or had to....
If they initially lied about the issue and worked to cover it up, then *nothing* they subsequently do can be considered "in good faith".
They tried to scam people, got caught over a massive design failure, and are now doing damage control.
Good faith would have been noticing the issue first and working to ameliorate the damage they caused.
Going into damage control mode after being caught lying is not in any way "good faith".
It's amazing the shit people will willingly lap up these days. Truly bizarre.
The most amazing thing to me is that according to these figures the PlayStation 2 sold 188,000 units during May So the old gen PlayStation outsells the nextgen Xbox 360 and the PS3.
Top selling hardware for may is:
DS 423,000
Wii 338,000
PSP 221,000
PS2 188,000
Xbox 155,000
PS3 82,000
GBA 80,000
Even funnier. Handhelds are more popular then the big nextgen wonders.
So does my Sony Walkman...what's your point? Disc readers are a lot more fragile...should be fairly obvious.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
The PS3 is selling at a rate that is right between the first Playstation and PS2..
That would be fine and dandy, if the market was a static, fixed, number of customers. 82,000 units in a month in todays market stinks. I agree with you that the PS3 is a marvelous piece of technology. The games look beautiful, and a few of them are probably pretty fun. It may even catch on and get back into competitiveness, but in my opinion, based on the NPD numbers and daily press stories, I wouldn't bet on it.
All the games people are going out to buy for the PS2 will run on their PS3s, all the franchises they are buying at a faster rate than the 360 are getting next gen sequels on the PS3. Developers who seven to eight years ago started working on PS2 engines are still being able to leverage that technology they created years ago in the giant and still expanding PS2 market.
Which means they (consumers and developers) will not be spending their money on PS3 related products. Just by looking at the wii versus gamecube, you can see an advantage in not having two product lines in the same market. The Wii is near enough in price to the Gamecube, that it is easy to justify shelling out the extra $150 or so to get the wii. Developers, who shunned the wii for the most part, now see the success of the Wii (in large part due to pricing and timing) and are scrambling to divert money to wii related projects. Unless you expect the ps2 to be there in another 7 years, and the NPD numbers show the PS2 under 200,000 for the first time since initial launch, you have to get the consumers and developers on the newer technology.
I work for a high tech company that makes expensive hardware, far pricier than the xbox, and I've come to understand a lot more about the cost of warranties from the supplier end. Extending warranties is essentially a loss for the the manufacturer - you're essentially betting when what you made will fail. That's weighed against the cost of making more durable components and the cost that a customer would not buy your product in the first place.
When the 360 first came out, someone made a decision that beyond one year it would cost the company too much to repair the consoles relative to the increased sales than would be had by having a longer warranty. They also had to take into account the bad publicity that could (and did) occur.
I'll be pure engineer here - someone at Microsoft redid the formula, given the knowledge of failures that have happened since release. This time around, the math said that enough future sales would be lost to outweigh the cost of extending the warranty. It's really that simple. It's also interesting to note here that they didn't make it a lifetime warranty (20 years or something). They probably ran that formula too, and decided that the math tips the other way if you let it last forever.
So did they NEED to do this? If by need you mean "saving face", then no. Being the retrospective hero doesn't help anything, only in the sense that it might affect future sales.
Because of DRM issues they stopped doing that a while ago. Now they make an effort to return your repaired box to you. If it's broken beyond repair, only then do you get a refurb.
Is there any information about customers who have purchased an extended warranty from MS? (as I did after a RRoD prompted a replacement, and my 1 year retroactive warranty was about to expire) Any guesses as if that part of the "repair costs" that they indicated would be refundable?
That was actually the reason behind the redesigned NES that came out towards the end of the console's life (that and milking it for everything it was worth). The original Famicom and the NES 2 were top-loaded and didn't suffer the same problems.
This poo is cold.
I've recently had problems with the USB ports on my PS3, but Sony won't touch it for free since I no longer have my receipt (nevermind that it's impossible for the warranty to have expired by now; I guess the policy saves them some money). So with Microsoft retroactively extending the warranty like this, what happens to those people who voided their warranty, thinking that it was expired?
I'm astonished to read so many "mine is okay, except a game doesn't work" or "no problem so far, only a broken dvd drive" comments. Don't be so forgiving! This is a game console, not a PC. There's no reason why it should break within such a short timespan! I've bought dozens of consoles, and all of them still work. Some of them are over 20 years old!
No, that's actually not the reason. The reason is optical drives. Go to a garage sale. You'll see countless N64s, but you almost never see PS1s. Why is that? Because PS1s break easily, while N64s don't break at all. I own dozens of consoles, some of them over 20 years old. Not a single one of them has ever had any kind of issue, except one of the Dreamcasts; I never bought a PS1 or a PS2.
My original Pong still works. VCS 2600? Still works. NES, SNES, Turbografx, all still work.
Nothing to do with the Internet. It's the moving parts that make consoles prone to breaking. Except with the 360: That's just bad engineering.
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/console/microso ftconfessandfixrrodepidemic.shtml has gone all the way to say:
[quote]Some people would believe that Microsoft have just discovered the issue and fixed it, as expected from a reputable multinational company. But when asked, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division for a "little over first year" the "set of issues wasn't visible at all," but during the last couple of months the company has seen "significant increases, significant call volume, and significant attention" to the problem. During those "couple of months" Microsoft actively denied the problem several times. [/quote]
The formulas used to calculate warranties are meant to cover manufacturing errors. Every once in a while, a defective unit will get past quality control in the factory due to human error. The warranty is designed to protect customers if they get one of these units.
The "Red Ring of Death" is likely from a design flaw, not a manufacturing error. A manufacturing error would not account for the abnormal failure rate. It is literally built into every unit that leaves the factory. The only long-term solution to a design flaw is a product recall.
Extending the warranty is just a temporary solution because Xbox 360s will continue get the "Red Ring of Death".