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Microsoft and retailers still keeping broken 360s in the dark

Posted Jun 1, 2007 at 1:40PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: customer service, Microsoft, Peter Moore, UK

Microsoft decided to keep quiet about Xbox 360 failure issues, but even UK retailers have their mouth zipped regarding the matter. Technology Guardian asked UK retailer giant Game but couldn't get anything on the "commercially sensitive" matter.

On the other hand, our gaming mates out there in the UK are still experiencing hardware problems. Some claim that they're on their 6th or 7th consoles, while others just downright don't want anything more from Microsoft when it comes to gaming systems.

Peter Moore said that customer service should be more important in dealing with faulty machines, but it seems like they're lacking on that department too. Customers have a problem with downloaded content being tied to their original consoles - they have to go through logging in on Xbox Live just to access what they've purchased before.

With a smashing success on their hands, it looks like Microsoft is turning a blind eye to this one. 18 months have passed since the UK release, but the 360 owners are still grieving over support they're yearning for. An alternative to fixing malfunctioning units is going to third-party retailers, but that would cost money and defeat the purpose of warranty.

When will humanity ever defeat the great enemy known only as the "red light of death"? Hopefully, not before this generation ends.

Via Technology Guardian

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I bought it at bestbuy, but I had so many problems with it (like dark screens of death, the fact that the play and charge kit doesnt work when the console is off, the fact that when I tryed to download all night since I didn't wanted to see the bar move to 100% for every downloads (demos), it only downloaded a part of it and "blackscreen"... I really hated myself for having spent all that money for this... (I had also bought Gears of War, wich I hate, I'm more halo style)) so I finally returned it after a week and got my money back! (I was really happy when my money was back in the bank).

I'll buy a ps3 instead, and this time, with a WARRANTY of at least 2 years, lol.

# 4th Xbox 360 — Guest 2007-06-01 16:44

Yeah I'm on my 4th Xbox360 now, I gave in after my 3rd premium died and bought the the elite model (not sure why). First one would tell me that the game disc I inserted in it wasn't a 360 game =(. Second one Didn't want to go through the boot process and finally died, the E64 Error. Third one just plain old quit working... (still trying to figure that one out.) And now my elite is alive, but I'm keeping track of the days. All I can say is thank god for Circuit City's service plan, otherwise I would have had to send it to Microsoft to get fixed. On the other side, my friends Premium is one of the launch consoles, its sounds like a jet taking off but it still works.

# hmmph — Guest 2007-06-01 16:53

It seems like MS is censoring the media about this matter, I wish someone could do an independet study.

# hmm — AoxomamoxoA 2007-06-01 17:23

I have a launch Premium console and its still up and kickin!

# z — Guest 2007-06-01 18:04

I honestly have No idea what these ppl are doing to their systems... i have a premium from launch and not a thing has happened to it.

But you know the internet MANy ppl will LIE to make small problem a bigger deal...

And many ppl who BREAK thier stuff will lie to have it replaced for free..

# That may be so. — Guest 2007-06-01 18:17

but if many ppl really did what you describe? than a big number of 360 gamers must be idiot. Now they chose 360 didnt they, must be doing something right. How can you put down your fellow gamer who help you defend your fanboy crusade.

# Agreed — AoxomamoxoA 2007-06-01 18:28

I agree with you >_>, its the internet. People will lie because there is no way to prove who is telling the truth and who isnt. Its basically a worldwide faceless community, so anyone can say anything and it goes unchecked.

I dont believe the numbers I hear on the net about failed 360s, since my real life experiences with a 360 failure is almost zero. I have only had one friend on my friends list who has had a problem with his 360 and had to get it repaired. None of my real life friends have had problems either, and most of us have launch consoles.

Of course, people are going to say the 360 has a large failure rate on the net. The only thing you can do is make that judgement with your own experiences.

# 3rl — Guest 2007-06-01 19:12

I know someone who works as a trainer and supervisor for a xbox 360 technical support center. He told me that they and ms knew about the 3 red light problem way before he launch date.

# The Dutch have done it again....... — Guest 2007-06-01 19:38

"

Europe Investigates Microsoft Xbox 360 Scratching Disk Problem

>> From theinquirer.net:

[QUOTE]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER for Consumers has asked Microsoft to explain why Xbox 360s have so many faulty hard drives.

According to this Dutch web site, Commissioner Meglena Kuneva wants answers from Microsoft. Fast.

There are, apparently, 1,000 complaints from The Netherlands alone. She wants and expects Microsoft to respond to worldwide complaints about the problem.

There's a radio interview with the Commissioner, here - much of this is in English. She wants Microsoft to respond in a week. She mentions this in her bog, which can be found by clicking on her EU page."

# more info — Guest 2007-06-01 19:40

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/kuneva/news_en.htm

" Commissioner Kuneva visits The Netherlands

Commissioner Kuneva visited The Hague on 1st June to meet with the Dutch Consumers' Association Consumentenbond and to participate in a round-table discussion on consumer issues. Participants at the round table included representatives from the Board of Consumentenbond , from the Organisation of Dispute Committees for Consumer Issues (SCG), the Consumer Authority and representatives of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Commissioner Kuneva also had a discussion with international students of European Studies at The Hague University. During her visit Commissioner Kuneva spoke with the Dutch Radio Consumer Programme "KASSA". Following concerns raised by the KASSA programme in relation to the use of the Microsoft X-Box by Dutch consumers, Commissioner Kuneva confirmed that she had written to Microsoft to ask for more information concerning: (1) details of the actions Microsoft has taken in The Netherlands to resolve the problems relating to the use of the X-Box there; (2) details of whether the same problem has occurred on other markets.

Commissioner Kuneva met with Bjørn Erik Thon, Norwegian Om"

Btw im on my second 360 (first 3 rings of death) and now this one is starting to scratch my discs)

# xbox rules — Guest 2007-06-01 19:43

ok now I know that this is a lie because I only been though 2 360s. but my bro been through 3 ps3s. 1 fell off my desk, 2nd my bro spilled juice in it,3rd droped a hammer on it. the last one still worked but the plastic broke.

# Typos. — Guest 2007-06-01 19:49

Oke there are some typos because the text went through babelfish.

So the hard drives are ment to be the optical drives...

And i dont wanna translate the entire dutch text...

# ...So the Ps3 — Guest 2007-06-01 20:05

...So the Ps3 didnt fail! What happend to ur xbox 360?

# my friends.. — Guest 2007-06-01 21:09

I have two friends who have experienced the 360 having the 3 red lights of death as soon as they took it out of the box, i witnessed one of them. They both got new ones and both eventually died again, all of this happened in a 3 month period. They both ended up dieing the same way again, but at different times.

I'm not being biased, I own a 360 myself(launch day system) and it's still running decent, it scratches games to hell though. My PS3 has no problems, and is the far better system of the two.

But seriously people, why should someone have to log in to xbox live to access a saved game? Isn't that a bit much for MS to demand?

My 2 cent.

# Me too ish — Guest 2007-06-01 23:13

Yeah! My launch console had no problems whatsoever! That is until lightning hit it......

But the replacement if fine too!

Never really known anyone who had a problem without something stupid causing it. lol

# you — Guest 2007-06-01 23:19

really think that many people are lieing??? honestly if I compared xbox360 history to xbox,ps2 I would not have got no as many similar stories percentage wise.

How about the articles on gaming sites about the "red ring" are you saying there lying too? you could argue by say its the media blowing it out of proportion, but really don't think it is when you see the connection between the sites and what people are saying on forums. And my own experiences.

I don't know about you but I didn't see too many people(actually i can't recall any) in the past complaining that they were on their 4th xbox or ps2.

I've owned a ps2, xbox, ps1, and a Super Nintendo and I have never had 1 of them die on me in since their purchase.

# re — Guest 2007-06-01 23:54

That's why I have a ps3, there are no problems with that console and on the end of this year some good games will come out. And playstation online is free.

# warranty two years — Guest 2007-06-01 23:57

Ps3 doesnt have any problems what 360 has, so you dont need warranty.

# Second console for me — Guest 2007-06-02 00:30

The first was an engagement present from my fiancée so I was double gutted when that decided to red ring for no reason... The towel trick worked for half an hour which proves its dodgy build quality and not the chips that's causing the failure.... My second console has an extended warranty. I'm not making that mistake twice. A quick tally of my friends who own 360s shows that in about 15 people I can think of only one has a functioning first unit... His was a release model at that.... One of my friends is on his 4th and another on his 3rd. Yeah, my PS3 has no problems... But then I only have 3 games for that and haven't seen a new release I fancy for the last 2 months.

# ! — Guest 2007-06-02 00:38

RE: 'a' - the exact thing happened to me on my 1st launch XBOX 360 - now on my 2nd + everything is going great :D.

and btw, i'd rather pay £35/ year for the great service of XBOX LIVE [great online play, tonnes of demo's, game videos, trailers etc] than have the Free PSN [where you dont get close to the same amount of content because Sony makes developers pay to put content on the PSN - XBL does it for free :D]

# red light — Guest 2007-06-02 00:54

i was in virgin, and i witnessed a ring of death. It was just sat in its booth....with the lights....it was dead. not very good for that to happen in a retailer!

# lol — Guest 2007-06-02 01:32

360 sucks .....no wonder why xbox 360's have reached 10 mill figure in salesie faulty consoles.....lol

# interesting — Guest 2007-06-02 01:55

It seems MS hasnt solved the problem. Why Bother buying that system if its just going to crap out. Ps3 hasnt no problems whats so ever. and internet is free. And XBL makes you spend 10 dollars on new maps, screw that crap. Xbox sucks and these complaints prove this.

# not me — Guest 2007-06-02 02:07

i bought my xbox 360 the feburary after it came out feb 2006 and it runs perfect not a thing ever goes wrong it never overheats even though it getts pretty hot on the back it says manufactured 11-29-05 so i guess it was sitting for a while on the shelf i have had problems on my ps2 and psp im on my 7th psp partially cause of modding thanks QJ and Dark_AleX and i am on my 4th ps2 look at all the ps3 hardware failures there were too with the red light not going green or the folding home problem where new ps3's could not run it cause it would make a funny sound so shut up and dont put ur 360 where its not suppose to like a carpet mines on a glass top

# fool1 — Guest 2007-06-02 02:12

yea baby your right, you tell them fools.

# Talking crap — Guest 2007-06-02 02:31

Bull***** if your 360is less than a year old it will be fixed for free, if its over a year you will have to pay just like you would if it were a PS3,washing machine,dvd player etc

# The most bricked system is made by Sony — Guest 2007-06-02 02:42

Its quite funny when you get PS3 owners to try and convince you to pay out a fortune on a system that is failing, Firstly there are no games on the PS3 worth playing for more than an hour so I doubt your movie player ever gets hot anyway.

Im now on my 3rd PS3 and if it breaks again im getting a second xbox instead and proberly the WII.

Funny how of all the people I know None have had any problems with their 360s BUT when you are on the internet they all tell you that their 360 and everyone else they know has gone wrong,why do PS3 owners need to write that crap so your system is not selling very well but do you think by trying to make the xbox look bad they will buy a PS3 or something?.

The most bricked games machine is actually called the SONY PSP and like the 360 it gets bricked/red lights because people are messing with their firmware thinking that if it goes wrong they can tell MS it just broke becuase they havent broken the seal..

# utyu — Guest 2007-06-02 03:00

Man shut up your as stupid as xbox fanboys. And for the love of god, stop posting the obviously ppl like you make my eyes bleed. Anyway, xbox systems is filled with complaints and MS should take care of that. MS is a money sucker company.

# ... — Guest 2007-06-02 03:18

Unfortunate but true.

Every 360 owner will get the ring of death once in their life with their 360 console. I doubt that many 360s would last over 3 years personally. I know that most of my friends (I would say more than 3/4) have experienced the ring of death.

# xbox — Guest 2007-06-02 04:29

just stopped working (red lights)

# ok — Guest 2007-06-02 04:40

well dont mess with the firmware!!! problem solved! with the 360, there are 10 mil proud 360 owner out there and if this artical wasnt true then why would people say it is. this has been a problem sence launch. if ps3 had the problem we all know that trashing the ps3 is the "in thing", it would be all over the net. but its about broken 360s. i dont know how you went trough 3 ps3s. or did you do like "xman" and take a hammer to it.

# » The most bricked system is made by Sony — Guest 2007-06-02 05:19

"The most bricked games machine is actually called the SONY PSP and like the 360 it gets bricked/red lights because people are messing with their firmware thinking that if it goes wrong they can tell MS it just broke becuase they havent broken the seal.." by tyutyu

dude wat are u talking about u get the ring of death is because it over heats u stupid f##k.... i think i am goin to buy a PS3 for sports games because i am used to the controls for madden,live,fif a, MLB. i love the control for PS

than xbox 360

# the 3 ring lights of death — Guest 2007-06-02 05:23

i totally agree, we own a gaming store and some of the Xbox 360 we have sold are coming back to us with the dreaded 3 rings lights of death. The things knowing the the 360 has a overheating problem we tell all out customers to limit there playing time like say 3hours and yet most of it still come back with the 3 ring light of death. Some of our customers even claim that they rarely use it. Regarding the psp its one of our top sellers, the problem i think is that people who buy the console dont really know much bout the firmware updater risk, so what we do is take time and tell each customer about the risk and firmware update and i am glad to say that not one customer has came back with a bricked psp. I think the xbox would have been a great console if it didnt break down all the time, it has lots of games, xbox live which would be really great for hardcore gamers. I wish that microsoft would take care of this the 3lod problem then this would be a great console. I also think that the reason for the overheat is that its hot and humid in our place, if an owner let says was living somewhere with a cold weather that that might be the reason why their units last longer.

# this is part of they marketing... — Guest 2007-06-02 05:30

just look at da facts and da genius of micro***** they sell broken goods (5milion broken ) and so these loyal 5 milion xbots keep buying a 2nd xbox dats 10 mil consoles man why didn't sony think of this strategy

# BULL — Guest 2007-06-02 06:27

Please thats your comeback sad. i have a launch ps3 an is still working better than ever an i do leave the folding for a good couple of hours. i have play for 12 hours long an no problem. were is your prof about this. mean while there is prof about the ring of DEATH. oh an another thing it makes less noise than the 360.

# ring of death in virgiin — Guest 2007-06-02 10:47

lol ... was it inside one of those enclosed cabinet where it would be sweltering in the heat 12 hours and day 7 days a week lol

# yeah — Guest 2007-06-02 11:24

sony PSPs brick because people mess with the firmware and try to hack it

360s break because people were playing games on it.

# Xtards — Guest 2007-06-02 11:44

You all should have got a PS3. XBOX 360 is one *****ty ass console. All hail the PS3!

# my launch is still working perfectly. — Guest 2007-06-02 13:20

Yeah, North American launch console.

My power lines crossed out side and the power surged and I was playing my 360 at the time and it turned off with the 3 lights, but when i turned it back on it works perfect now and that was like 2 months ago.

send me a fr. "armedndanger0us "

# Lets do this... — Guest 2007-06-02 13:56

I know a lot of us are having problems with our Xbox%u2019s and it seems as though it is either a never ending cycle or Microsoft seems unwilling to truly assist us in addressing these issues.

I feel that if we all unite as a single force, we can open someone%u2019s eyes! We need to get all the people together in one place! My suggestion is, let us grab all the gamers, friends, posters, bloggers, IMers, whoevers and get them all onto the Myspace page that I have created just for this reason. Send everyone you can! WE HAVE POWER IN NUMBERS!!!

Remember to post your story. Be professional, courteous and mature in your postings please. Let%u2019s take the high road and be civil.

http://www.myspace.com/my360sux

# Wow you are the stupidest person on the Net — Guest 2007-06-02 14:12

Actually, second stupidest next to your brother. How the hell do you break three PS3s? He dropped a hammer on one and spilled juice on another? Please tell your brother to never have children

# u r sad... — Guest 2007-06-02 15:31

"Funny how of all the people I know None have had any problems with their 360s "

>> Dude, Get MORE friends, loner

# here — Guest 2007-06-02 15:42

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q+red+ring+of+death+hl+en+client+firefox-a+channel+s+rls+org.mozilla:en-US:official+start+60+sa+N

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/24/xbox-360-red-ring-of-death-visits-weekly-geek-show/

http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1651/The-Red-Ring-of-Death/p1/

http://digital-lifestyles.info/2007/02/14/red-ring-of-death-bbc-watchdog-highlight-xbox-360-issue/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/games/story/0,,2087513,00.html

http://www.jonespc.com/red-ring-of-deathan-xbox-360-tragedy/2007/05/06/

http://ghostrazor.com/2007/05/01/the-red-ring-of-death/

http://www.jonespc.com/red-ring-of-deathan-xbox-360-tragedy/2007/05/06/

http://www.highdefforum.com/showthread.php?s+26fdd44e7fb7cd2639a55107608a847f+t+43685

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/24801/t794864-red-ring-of-death/11.htm

and thats only a few, the list keeps going

# disagreed — Guest 2007-06-02 17:18

I agree with you >_>, its the internet. People will lie because there is no way to prove who is telling the truth and who isnt. Its basically a worldwide faceless community, so anyone can say anything and it goes unchecked.

I BELIEVE the numbers I hear on the net about failed 360s, since my real life experiences with a 360 failure is almost 60%. I HAVE HAD a few friends on my friends list who has had a problem with their 360 and had to get it repaired. MOST of my real life friends have had problems TOO, and most of us have launch AND NON-LAUNCH consoles.

Of course, people are going to say the 360 has a large failure rate on the net. The only thing you can do is make that judgement with your own experiences.

you have your experiences....and i have mine

# how can we be professional, courteous or even mature... — Guest 2007-06-02 17:53

when fanboy can accuse user of lying and running of propaganda. like they said always, we dont have proof of 360 breaking like they dont have proof of us lying.

what I believe is that these report of 360 red light of death are mixed with both real and lie reports.

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/hoi1ma/

in my profile contain pics letters i get back with my fixed 360. no proof of actually using 360 normally when i break. also have pic of my 3 console, which means i am not taking side since I have all 3.

# Dumbasses — Guest 2007-06-03 10:57

If you have a 360 replaced, they'll give you your original hard drive should you so wish.

This is NOT part of the problem.

# Hey — Guest 2007-06-03 13:20

I work for a games company here in aus, we get about 4 xbox360's come back a week. However i still choose to play 360 because if you get an extended warranty there is no big deal.

P.s mine is a launch console and is still fine

XboxLive Name: KongsNutz

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Microsoft and retailers still keeping broken 360s in the dark

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