
If you recognize the cardboard box pictured above, then you are one of the unlucky souls to have witnessed the Red Ring of Death. While Microsoft continues to refuse requests to publish failure rates, the failure stories show no signs of stopping. We certainly can't cover them all, and Peter Moore has suggested that failures themselves aren't important at all, but rather the service received in the event of a failure. Thus, we bring you this failure story by way of Joystiq. The protagonist of our story is one Officer Craig Ravitch of the New York Police Department.
According to Ravitch, he has gone through three Xbox 360 consoles since launch. His third recently broke down on him, prompting yet another call to Xbox customer support (something he's familiar with at this point). Customer support informed him that his 360 coffin -- the box used to send the console back to Microsoft -- would arrive on Tuesday. Ravitch never received confirmation that his coffin had been shipped, so he called customer support again. The representative informed him "the service department is running very low on boxes, so it will take a little longer than expected to get that box." Ravitch is quick to say that he loves his Xbox 360 and that it is his "favorite system," but he is understandably upset by the whole situation, noting "I hate to badmouth the 360, its one of my favorite systems, but this burns me."
Is it possible that Microsoft has sent out so many Xbox 360 coffins that they are running low? We have to wonder how much longer it will be before MS stops tap dancing around this issue.










Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
6-06-2007 @ 2:54PM
Marc said...
Heh,
360 on launch day, death 1 in feb 2006, death 2 in march 2007, death 3 in may 2007 - just got my new box... such is life.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 2:56PM
Teabag said...
This is an indirect way of saying "Yes we fucked up" by Microsoft. Way to go rich bastards.
I like the 360 too but reading all this burns me too. MS really need to cut the crap, think about it's customers, forget about the money and do something about it. Its been a year and more and such problem still persists. Shame.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 2:57PM
Toph said...
Yeah, they really need to just divulge the information to let us really know what's up. It's been well past time for at LEAST a year now.
I'm on my second unit now and upon calling in February for my 360 coffin, it took three calls to actually secure one. The first time the 'servers were down', second time the woman could not finish my order, and the third time was when I actually spoke to someone that spoke fluent English.
After that it was a smooth finish..got the box within three weeks, got my replacement 360 by the middle of March.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:07PM
John said...
I have to say that I've had my 360 since launch (actually a little before, I won it from that Mt. Dew contest) and I've never had a single problem with it.
Something is F'ed up in the production line where they're assembling these things. There are just too many lemons. After getting all these defective 360s back and examining them I think MS should've pinpointed the problem and solved it already.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:09PM
chageman said...
I really doubt that there is any huge increase in the amount of 360's breaking. I have worked in the shipping department for a smallish manufacturing company and we received pallets of shipping materials at least once a week. The Microsoft repair center must use hundreds to thousands of boxes a week. One shipment being late a day or two would cause a shortage. Companies don't have a huge safety margin for things like this, it is expensive to buy materials just to have them sitting around.
That being said, my system is currently waiting for a box and I haven't received it yet so they are supposedly sending out another. Have I been a victim of a material shipping snafu, bad needs projection or a failure in reordering materials? Maybe, mostly I think its just the lousy support and poor communication between the support and repair centers.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:13PM
Grindstone said...
I've never seen a "coffin", as a matter of fact, i thought they were plastic...
Of the 8 cronies that I habitually play with, only one has had his 360 break down, but the timing was right in that he got an Elite and then sold me the refubished unit (once he got it back) which I gave to my buddy that returned from Iraq.
What good would it be to know what the defective rate is? Would you not buy anymore 360s? Wouldn't that stop other people from buying 360s and then MSoft would fold the Xbox department? I bet they never produce those numbers for the public. Not that I care, my 12/05 360 is still running strong. *knock on wood*
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:17PM
Sam said...
In the uk i don't think you get 'coffins'. I had to provide my own box, stick the label on they provided by e-mail and call up ups to collect it. i think that is the uk standard.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:17PM
Will L. said...
I am cursed with my 360's I have gone thru 9! yes 9, follow all the stuff they say well ventalated area and so forth, mine however aren't always 3 rings of death my lastest issue is my dvd drive stopped ejecting with my copy of spiderman 3 in it!!! Out of 10 friends of mine that have 360's only 1 has not needed to get theirs replaced yet. In my eyes the failure rate is 87% based on my friends and me. Also we all live throughout the US so theres no way that the failures are area based throughout the US. I still stand strong for my 360 and haven't bought a ps3 "Yet". sigh'
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:20PM
lobato said...
If you lived in a place where you couldn't use the company's support, you'd find your own way to fix it. That's what people have been doing here in Brazil. I had a 3RL xbox and it's been ok for 3 months already. It's a easy procedure, and I've did it myself.
There are a couple of online tutorials (in portuguese) that show how to do that using just some erasures pieces under a memory chip.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:21PM
Ciaran Gallagher said...
Here's my story:
Bought an Xbox 360 at launch 2005. Problems, got replaced. Second one didn't work. Got replaced. Then, third one came, and strangely they also sent us another one absolutely free!
All good and the customer service was quite good, as I think.
So, since Summer last year, I've had a blast with both my 360's. Couple of weeks ago, the free Core 360 starts overheating and breaks.
So, we try our own method (took bloody ages) to fix this free 360 (not on warranty or anything). And it works! But I'm led to believe that it will only work temporarily.
It was a free console (and I think it was sent by mistake, the address on one said UK and the other said Ireland - I live in N.Ireland...) so I'm not too bothered.
The other one has worked perfectly since and regardless of the failure rate, I'm honestly quite happy I didn't wait for the PS3 (more than a year later). The PS3 may be more reliable, but it still has a terrible lack of games and the graphics are yet unbeaten (or so the critics say).
And the reason why I was so tolerant to the initial failings of the console? It's so damn good!
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:21PM
dunnypop said...
I haven't had this happen to me yet. My dvd drive acted up a few days ago...
My friend just exchanged his with Best Buy, and my other buddy has gone through 5 machines.
My question is how is your 360 set up in your house? and are you using a fan for the system?
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:23PM
Ciaran Gallagher said...
No that's not the standard in the UK. For all the problems I've ever had, they've sent out a box/coffin.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:25PM
RedRingODeath said...
I don't like to bad mouth the 360 either, but I had my first failure a few weeks ago. After calling MS I was told I'd get my box in 3 to 4 business days. After not hearing a word, I called back almost 2 weeks later to find out that they didn't even ship the coffin out for 9 days. That is not good customer service. Hopefully the turnaround will not be that bad.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:26PM
Will L. said...
On my third system I had used a nyko fan and it fried the system on the back where the power plugged in. good thing microsoft hadn't caught wind of the faulty units or i might have never got it replaced, also i have always used my laying down, I do wonder if standing it up might work better but it sits on a table in the open, and standing it up on a table with my 4 year old son and 1 year old daughter running around could end up in a bad result.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:29PM
Pigeons Pig said...
My work colleague has just been through his 6th 360 (really!). On the last occasion it broke, the packaging labels, needed to return the console, took over 6 weeks to arrive. Very poor.
I bought my 360 a few months later than he did and I've never had a problem with mine.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:29PM
zourskittles said...
I feel slightly responsible for this problem. That man in the picture has been to my house nine times now. But thanks to my local Best Buy I haven't spent a cent on replacements.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:37PM
Viridium said...
I play with a group of five friends inclusive. Three units were launch, the other two were Dec 2005 units.
Two launch and one December unit have failed. The two launch were covered under the 1 year warranty, the December is going under Visa's extended warranty coverage.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:40PM
YoderPiomp said...
I am currently in a holding pattern...waiting for my coffin to arrive. This will be my second time sending my box to Texas. The first time I wasn't even offered a coffin [cost me about $30 to ship]. They sent me a new console which lasted about 6 months before acting slow, freezing up, then crashing completely. Oh...and I have to pay $$$ for this time. Apparently M$ won't give a warranty on a new console they sent to me. But I'm supposed to get a whole year warranty when I get my new one [yeah right...we'll see?!?].
My advise to all 360 gamers out there...stop what ur doing right now and get an extended warranty.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:40PM
drgoon76 said...
I also work for a major shipping company. I agree its not uncommon for pallets of shipments to be delayed for any number of reasons... materials, weather, driver error, and shear stupidity.
With that being said, everyday that goes by (I have a near launch system), I wonder if I m next and am I going to keep my accounts if it does fail.
Reply
6-06-2007 @ 3:44PM
Zac LaCombe said...
The main problem are the cold solder used. The dots disconnect from the motherboard causing a malfunction. This explains the epoxy around the problematic area on the Elite motherboard.
Reply