3 year warranty for all X360s.

[Cyan]

Teach customers about transparency, MS showing fallibility. That's good. Honestly, they have been humble (and accessible) in admitting mistakes they have made down this two years and that's great of them.

Peter Moore seems to genuinely care about the Xbox userbase. No one expects him to be perfect but I finally can see his human side and he has won back the lost trust of the users. I for one am very happy to say, that he is the most thouroughly decent bloke who has been an asset to Microsoft for quite a time.

The fact is that I think, after this announcement, I'm slowly recovering my trust in MS lastly, not as a fanboy -thank god- but as an user.

Many times I wonder myself, what if the X360 had had the reliability of the Xbox? That was a great console, ugly yes, but powerful and very reliable.

Furthermore, at first the Xbox 360 had it all. It had the potential, while maybe not to be the 1st this generation, at least to compensate the pronounced market share imbalance of last generation and equal things a bit. It was a great console for its time, with pretty decent software.

Currently it has got the best catalog of games; XBLA Arcade games (some of them great for casual gamers), plenty of genres -even JRPGs- to suit different gamers needs, powerful enough, best online, like its predecessor it has the best racing games.... :smile:

This is a logical vision of what it could be and what it is not. I don't know, perhaps it's too late (or not). Time will tell.

Thanks for the news, mate.

 

[rusty]

Well, without the drive working it'll be hard, but cover up the exhaust vents with a warm towel or something, crank up your most graphically intensive XBLA game, and let it run for a couple of hours. I've got a good feeling as to your chances!

might be worth a go...


Someone did however mention to me that the thing should be subject to a 2 year warranty in the UK under EU legislation, so I might try that approach first. I have heard various rumblings about that before... can but try anyway.

 

[Carl B]

Oh well if you're in Euroland, you're good to go. MS even mentioned that in their analyst conference call (though not in so many words), so don't sweat it.

 

[cthellis42]

great warranty... finally

way to get that crap over with MS and move on so we can all play some games now instead of bitch about red rings every other day/thread.

What, like people EVER stop bitching about issues they've had with any console going back forever, whether they got a warranty repair or not?

It's just now they're acknowledging that it's a serious problem and taking responsibility, which is good. I wasn't expecting the 3-year warranty until AFTER the class-action lawsuit. Heh...

 

[Silent]

People that complained where called liars, fanboys,... Hell we even saw people making big statistical stories about how it was one big complot.

Now that they finally admitted it some people even suggest that we need to applaud Microsoft for this action and stop "bitching". Do I need to cry or laugh ?

Microsoft didn't had any other choice than doing this. I find this whole mess very upsetting. Especially knowing through which crap I needed to go four replacing 4 360 !

But hey "bravo Microsoft" (yess that is sarcasme)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Microsoft didn't had any other choice than doing this. I find this whole mess very upsetting. Especially knowing through which crap I needed to go four replacing 4 360 !

Isn't the reason you went through 4 XB360s because you smoke too much and never open your windows and never clean up so dust totally clogs the machine? I thought that was the only rational explanation for people getting multiple console failures.

 

[Sis]

Isn't the reason you went through 4 XB360s because you smoke too much and never open your windows and never clean up so dust totally clogs the machine? I thought that was the only rational explanation for people getting multiple console failures.

There was that guy on GAF who set his Xbox 360 on a subwoofer (he was on his 3rd or something like that). He posted a photo and when other members called him on it, he lied and said it was a "fridge", not a subwoofer.

People lie on the internet. They exaggerate. I found it much easier to believe that a hardware manufacturer was seeing perhaps slightly beyond normal defects than 25-30% defects; that number borders on the unimaginable.

 

[croc hunter2]

There was that guy on GAF who set his Xbox 360 on a subwoofer (he was on his 3rd or something like that). He posted a photo and when other members called him on it, he lied and said it was a "fridge", not a subwoofer.

People lie on the internet. They exaggerate. I found it much easier to believe that a hardware manufacturer was seeing perhaps slightly beyond normal defects than 25-30% defects; that number borders on the unimaginable.

If MS was seeing slightly beyond normal failure rates they would not have done this. This is not so tacit admission that the Xbox360 hardware has a significant design/manufacturing flaw. To write off $100/console manufactured is no small amount or another way 2.5 million new replacements. That is closing on 25% of the manufactured and shipped base.

So given that, the failure rates they are seeing are running much closer to 20% than 5%. Even MS don't eat $1.15 Billion for no reason, it is still a huge chunk of money.

As to that GAF list, many of the people on that list are Xbox fans, Dopeyfish, Denogg, First in Hell, Hokie Joe, etc etc etc have no reason to inflate their figures and most of those guys have had multiple failures.

 

[Silent]

Isn't the reason you went through 4 XB360s because you smoke too much and never open your windows and never clean up so dust totally clogs the machine? I thought that was the only rational explanation for people getting multiple console failures.

No I even changed furniture (http://www.simplicity.be/temp/IMG_0564.jpg ) and bought me a very cheap (30€) cabinet with allot of open space

 

[Sis]

If MS was seeing slightly beyond normal failure rates they would not have done this.

I was using the past tense form of the word "find" meaning I no longer believe it is slightly beyond normal.

 

[Silent]

It seems allot of news program are picking this up. I have seen it on the Belgian and Dutch news.

Also on some big belgian news sites

http://www.vrtnieuws.net/cm/vrtnieuws.net/nieuws/economie/070706_Xbox

Microsoft will need to invest heavy on PR I think.

 

[gokickrocks]

People that complained where called liars, fanboys,... Hell we even saw people making big statistical stories about how it was one big complot.

Now that they finally admitted it some people even suggest that we need to applaud Microsoft for this action and stop "bitching". Do I need to cry or laugh ?

Microsoft didn't had any other choice than doing this. I find this whole mess very upsetting. Especially knowing through which crap I needed to go four replacing 4 360 !

But hey "bravo Microsoft" (yess that is sarcasme)

i thought most people accepted the fact that 360s were dying, if people were called liars or fanboys it was probably during the launch

as for the stop "bitching", i think you took it the wrong way, people would rather hear about something new rather than what we already know

also, microsoft admitted to the problem last year by extending the warranty to a year, but are now taking even more notice, probably due to more failures and more reports of em hitting the net, and extending it to 3

 

[Shifty Geezer]

also, microsoft admitted to the problem last year by extending the warranty to a year

No, not really. They said there was no problem, but they were being nice. Since then they've consistently said there's no problem, or denied the issue and moved on. This is the first time they've admitted that there are issues and they'll address them.

 

[Rolf N]

At one freakin' billion dollars tall, this is practically a recall without a recall. And a smart move, now that a significant number of XBox 360s are (were) out of warranty. If you want to mount a class-action lawsuit, it's tremendously helpful to show how there has been a damage (monetary or otherwise) to you. 140$ for repairs every couple months is pretty much an inacceptable financial burden, or if repairs aren't your thing, likewise the loss of what had once been a 400$ value. You could almost smell the air getting thick with lawyer's sweat after that Todd Holmdahl Q&PR on Mercury News.
By making the repairs effectively free again, it has just become a lot harder to convincingly show any damage being done to individuals, hence I feel a class-action lawsuit has just become very unlikely, which is of course what Microsoft would want the situation to be like.

So given that, the failure rates they are seeing are running much closer to 20% than 5%.

Why still estimate so low? Think big.
When an XBox 360 breaks it's not because of imprecise manufacturing when the low-wage workers are having a bad day. There's a very vocal minority that claims to never have experienced technical issues with their XBox 360, but it's just about time now to face the truth. There's a fatal design flaw in every single XBox 360 that has ever been sold, not just in 20% of them. Due to the component design choices that have been made, the materials and dimensions, the components on the PCB go through enormous mechanical stress for each thermal cycle of the machine. You could say they erode. That process of mechanical degradation is not limited to a subset of the XBox 360 population. It happens to all of them, and it will damage all of them to some degree.

 

[<nu>faust]

ms execs come out of their omerta silence
smarthouse link

Peter Moore, the global head of Xbox in the USA told Wired Magazine, "I think the 3-5%[failure rate claim of ms] came within the first twelve months of launch. I don't remember the timing, I can find out, in fact. So the possibility is that as you get these things in the field and you start to learn -- we've only been in the field a year and a half, eighteen months, with this product -- the learning that we have about failure rates in the field based on all the information we have now that is coming through has given us the substance to be able to be sure we fix these things, and to capture all of the cost, to be sure we knew entirely what we were going into: from fixing, to repairing, to reimbursing, to an investment in the hardware to make sure that we have got these problems under control"

He added, "So I'm not going to comment on specific failure rates, but I think that the 3-5% is a pretty old statement and that clearly as we learn more about things, that things change. And hopefully people will see that we're trying to do the right thing here. All anybody needs to understand is that we're recognizing these issues, we're fixing them. We're continuing to make more reliable hardware, and at the same time, cost reduce the hardware moving forward so we can be competitive in pricing throughout the lifecycle with the consumer".

it's finally good to see ms execs trying to come out clean .

 

[Dave Baumann]

There's a fatal design flaw in every single XBox 360 that has ever been sold, not just in 20% of them.

I must have missed it - where does this claim come from?

 

[Todd33]

So I wonder if they expect to replace 50%, 75% or ore of the first 12 million 360s that fall under this 3 year deal? It does sound like it could be a recall-over-time. They sound proactive and generous instead of defensive, but the cost are the same. Smart PR.

 

[Sis]

At one freakin' billion dollars tall, this is practically a recall without a recall.

According to some website, half of that is for fixing the current problem, the other half in liability of future issues.

In terms of the ~$1 billion charge, roughly half will be taken up front to account for existing consoles in the consumer space affected by the issue, as well as to absorb losses due to existing inventory Microsoft will write-off as a result of the failures.
...
The second half of the ~$1 billion charge covers what Microsoft feels will be liability exposure over the next 18 months or so as a result of the extension

I take this to mean that the second half may or may not be needed.

 

[expletive]

According to some website, half of that is for fixing the current problem, the other half in liability of future issues.


I take this to mean that the second half may or may not be needed.

Likely. My guess is that they wanted to take the full brunt of the charge in FY07 so that they still can remain positioned to have a profitable FY08. I think the FY ends June 30 so I'm assuming they squeezed this little charge in at the 11th hour to get it over with.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Heh it seems MS is willing to spend some extra money on the X360 design... I personally would have rather had fourth core implemented to the Xenon processor from the get go, but taking responsibility and finally admitting the problem is a good way to go too. Of course the breaking units are still a problem in many ways, but atleast the warranty aspect is now covered and people don't need to be afraid when making the purchasing decision.