3 year warranty for all X360s.

[Cheezdoodles]

Gamespot Reports

An apologetic software giant to replace any console suffering "red ring of death" for free; extension applies to every console sold since launch; company will take $1.05 billion charge.

Today, Microsoft announced that is once again revamping its warranty scheme for the Xbox 360. After mounting anecdotal evidence of the system's failure rate due to the dreaded "red ring of death" (three flashing red lights on the console's front panel), the publisher is changing its warranty to cover systems affected by the red ring for three years from the date of purchase. Any console which suffers the aforementioned failure--and only the aforementioned failure--can be returned to Microsoft for repair for free, as the warranty also includes shipping charges.

"As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures," the company said in a statement. The three-year extension is for all 360s, and will be retroactively applied to every console bought since the 360 launched. That means anyone who bought a console in November 2005 will be covered until November 2008.

 

[valioso]

wow...

 

[SugarCoat]

Red Ring only, so drive failures/everything else would be under the origonal 90 days? Well its start.

 

[Todd33]

Red Ring only, so drive failures/everything else would be under the origonal 90 days? Well its start.

No, the 90 days was bumped up to a year for similar PR reasons a while back.

 

[Skrying]

Red Ring only for the three year or is this simply a bad wording in the article? Makes little sense if you ask me.

 

[rusty]

bugger, my 360 recently just stopped reading discs at all - it refuses to recognise that there is a disc in the drive.... it's about a year and a couple months old now i think (it was a replacement for my launch one which died after a few months).

Probably still worth calling up and seeing if the extension applies.... if not, anyone got any idea as to how to "encourage" the three red rings to appear lol?

 

[Carl B]

Probably still worth calling up and seeing if the extension applies.... if not, anyone got any idea as to how to "encourage" the three red rings to appear lol?

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!

 

[AzBat]

Red Ring only for the three year or is this simply a bad wording in the article? Makes little sense if you ask me.

Yes, the way it's worded there is a new 3-year warranty only for the 3 red light problem. It's retroactive too, which also means if you already paid for out of warranty repairs you'll be getting a refund(includes shipping to).

I don't know about you guys, I think that's more than I thought they would do. Pretty upstanding if you ask me. IMHO, Peter Moore's open letter was pretty classy too.

Good thing I hadn't paid for the extended warranty yet. Now I can be self-assured about any problems they may happen with my system. Nice to feeling to have.

Tommy McClain

 

[Tap In]

yep

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.

 

[AzBat]

yep

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.

Amen to that brother.

Tommy McClain

 

[scooby_dooby]

so...when do I get my $60 back for the two year extended warantee I bought???

Or am I covered until 2010??

 

[AzBat]

so...when do I get my $60 back for the two year extended warantee I bought???

Or am I covered until 2010??

From the FAQ....

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/resources/warrantyfaq.htm

Q: How does this affect my extended warranty bought from my retailer?

A: You’re still covered under your existing warranty for issues outside the scope of this specific three-year warranty.

I suspect your 2-year extended warranty still picks up 1-year from the day you bought it. So basically you've covered yourself for 3 years for everything that could go wrong, not just the 3 red lights issue. Peter Moore in his open letter said they still had some things to add to the FAQ over the next few days.

Tommy McClain

 

[expletive]

Well, its about time and hopefully they've actually resolved the problem. I can't help but feel that the media attention prompted this but i suppose at least give them credit for responding with such a liberal policy.

I wonder if the hardware guy (Todd Holmdahl?) loses his job over this? 1 Billion is a LOT of money to lose on a bad design (or badly tested design).

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the new heatsink design we've seen is the primary, if not the sole, improvement to the 360 which addresses reliability. I'd love to know when these updated designs will hit retail and how one can tell from the serial which revision the hardware is.

 

[mrcorbo]

Here

EDIT: I thought this was going to be an E3 announcement actually...

I expect that it was supposed to be, but when that Anandtech article came out they felt that they had to respond.

Additional speculation: I think this points to the fact that they believe that they have solved the red-ring issue going forward. Otherwise, it's going to be awfully hard to be profitable given all the expenses that this program would incur over the console's life. If you see them follow this announcement up with a price cut announcement (at E3?), I think it's pretty much guaranteed.

Anyway the mea-culpa is cool, if a bit belated, and the refund offer is pretty much the most effective gesture they could make as an apology. It doesn't excuse all the efforts they made to downplay what they are now admitting is a serious issue, but at least now I can recommend the 360 to friends and family without reservation.

 

[digitalwanderer]

And this little problem will cost M$ one billion dollars.

 

[one]

Some more figures

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKB7YdQr1id4&refer=home

Microsoft to Incur Xbox Cost of Up to $1.15 Billion (Update3)

By Dina Bass

July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. will incur pretax costs of as much as $1.15 billion related to repairs of its Xbox 360 video-game consoles and said sales of the machines missed its forecast for the year.

...

Microsoft missed its forecast for Xbox unit sales for the fiscal year just ended, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices unit, said in an interview. The company has sold 11.6 million machines since the Xbox 360's release in November 2005, missing Microsoft's target of 12 million. It initially forecast sales of as much as 15 million.

Profit Goals Intact

Bach said the company is still shooting for Xbox profit in the year that began July 1. Microsoft has forecast total profit of 37 cents to 39 cents a share on sales of $13.1 billion to $13.4 billion for the quarter that ended June 30. The company reports earnings on July 19.

``You have to wonder how expensive the Xbox business is going to be,'' Rosoff said. ``This is another billion in the hole.''

The expense is enough money to fix 2.5 million consoles, Rosoff said. Bach declined to say how many have failed so far.

``It's a meaningful number and it's got our attention,'' Bach said. ``When you look at the financial implication, obviously it's not a small number.''

BTW are new units in stores with the new heat sink? Is the Elite model less likely to break?

 

[expletive]

And this little problem will cost M$ one billion dollars.

Its not so bad, its one billion PRE-TAX dollars!

EDIT: I thought this was going to be an E3 announcement actually...

Nah, get the bad news out of the way now and answer all the major press questions now. Otherwise Moore would spend next week answering questions about the kid who returned 11 xboxes instead of the good stuff.

 

[AzBat]

And this little problem will cost M$ one billion dollars.

"ONE BILLion Dollars!"

Tommy McClain

 

[mrcorbo]

INah, get the bad news out of the way now and answer all the major press questions now. Otherwise Moore would spend next week answering questions about the kid who returned 11 xboxes instead of the good stuff.

That's a very good point.

 

[AzBat]

Not sure if anybody cares for Major Nelson, but he has an 8 minute podcast interview with Peter Moore over the new warranty. I'm listening right now to see if he adds anything, though I doubt he does. Seems he had all kinds of interviews today(Kotaku, GamesIndustry.biz, GameSpot to name just a few).

www.majornelson.com

Tommy Mcclain