Red Ring of Death

Nope, this isn't a story about a bad curry.

I switched on my 360 on Monday evening to be greeted with a frozen screen and the 3 blinking lights that represent every Xbox owner's nightmare - catastrophic system failure.With winter on the way and a lot of solitary evenings, I was none too happy at the prospect; doubly so as I hadn't played it at all during the summer months, something the caked layer of dust on the controller could clearly attest to.

With little else to do that evening, I decided to read up on the problem. It's shockingly widespread, affecting (depending on which rumor you regard as most credible) anywhere between 20-30% of the early batches. Apprently Microsoft decided to cut a few corners on the chip design, saving a few tens of millions of dollars. The cost of repairing and replacing defective units, however, has cost the company a reported $1 billion. Am sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Recognising the prevalence of failure, and not wishing to piss off a loyal and profitable fanbase, Microsoft now guarantee the console for a full 3 years against this specific type of fault. I decided to avail of their newfound generosity and yesterday, a long call to Korean customer support later (God bless my kindly supervisor who had to translate), arranged for a courier to pick up my newest $300 doorstop for replacement. T The new unit should take about a week to get here and then normal service will be restored. The guys are also relieved, as they'll soon be able to carry on the Friday night winter tradition of rocking out to Guitar Hero with minimal disruption.