The Red Ring of Death

I’ve had an Xbox 360 for about 9 months now. In general I feel that of the three next-gen consoles, the 360 has, at the moment, the best selection of quality games, and I certainly wouldn’t wish for one of the other two instead (although definitely as well). The only problems I’ve had with it are a propensity to occasionally throw an error stating that “The disc cannot be read, please clean it and start again”. While this is annoying when it occurs, rebooting the system fixes the problem, and it didn’t happen that often.

Today, I have a bigger problem. My system was working fine last night, but today, booting up would cause the system to freeze right away, sometimes overlaying the Microsoft start-up logo wherever it happened to freeze with a blue checkboard pattern. The situation has since devolved to the point where turning the system on causes nothing to happen but three blinking red lights on the ring of light.

Much has been made of this problem in the last few months, and while Microsoft claims that this problem occurs far below the consumer electronics average of 3-5% failures, the noise in the community would suggest that the problem is much more prevalent than they claim.

Certainly regardless of what the stats say, the number of hardware failures are much, much too high. When Wikipedia has an entire page devoted to the problems that happen with your system, your product has issues. When people have come up with a nickname for an error, calling it “The Ring of Death” or 3RL (Three Red Lights), and error which indicates that the system has suffered an irrecoverable hardware error that requires manufacturer repair, your product has serious issues. When the BBC publishes a consumer report citing the fact that your product is known for having total hardware failure issues, usually around the time the warranty is running out, you have a crisis on your hands.

There are three things that peeve me about this problem. Firstly, that it’s so common, and not only on a first 360, but many have to return their systems multiple times. If car manufacturers did that, they would flat out go out business. Haven’t you guys ever heard of Quality Assurance? Secondly, that the customer support is reportedly terrible. This is a major PR issue which could have serious repercussions on your future ability to move product. This will especially be true in the future when the offerings for the Wii and PS3 catch up. Your customer support staff should be bending over backwards to do damage control, not pissing off the people who forked over half a grand to play games on your system. Lastly, as someone who’s lived in the computer industry for some time, the general rule is that hardware usually dies after a long time, when it’s lived out it’s useful life, or within a month of purchasing it (Infant Fatality Syndrome). Much of the electronics warranty structure revolves around this assumption: The purpose of the warranty is to catch the ones which die quickly due to the product being faulty. What we have going on here though are Xbox units dying months or nearly a year after purchase. These units are not being mishandled, they simply stop working one day, and the reasons for that are poor construction on Microsoft’s behalf. This is exactly the scenario in which the warranty is intended to apply, but because the failures are often so close to the expiration date on the warranty, many consumers are getting screwed by the support staff into paying for the repair.

I own an NES and Super NES, these systems still play just as well as the day I bought them (and in the case of the NES, even better, although I did have to change out the connection pins, for a mere $10). I have no doubt that if I wake up one morning and want to play Chronotrigger, or Earthbound, Secret of Evermore or Mario RPG, I can march downstairs and flip on my system, and all will be well in the world. This is 15 years after the system was purchased, certainly beyond the expected lifetime of most other consumer electronics. With my 360, I now have to question whether it will work on any given day, during the active life cycle of the system. Will I still be able to play Gears of War in 15 years?

Video game systems should not be lumped in with other consumer electronics. A Sony Walkman may not work two decades later, but any of the media you might have wanted to use it for are still available in some format. A television of 2007 can play any signal a television of 1991 could. This is not the case for video games.

So Microsoft, I’m fully aware you have a lot of really smart people in your organization. I’m sure this issue has been floating around the engineering team for a while, but you’ve had a year to your advantage. The solutions to hardware issues like this are not always simple, but in this case, they are necessary. If you don’t get this under control, people will stop buying 360s, and they will not trust you in the future to build a system they’re willing to pay for.

Fix your shit, or suffer the consequences in the market.