It's no secret that Microsoft at least appears to have
serious hardware problems with the Xbox 360. Of course, Microsoft claims that failure rates are within acceptable limits. When pressed about the issue, Peter Moore tells 360 owners
not to focus on the problem, but to focus on the level of service received in the wake of that problem. Oh, and they won't comment on things like
new heatsinks in refurbished systems, which seems like the kind of thing you'd install to stop a recurring overheating problem. On top of all this is yet another web of flamewars (many of which occur right here on the comment threads of X3F). Every time a story is run about customers receiving multiple
Rings of Death, two things happen. One, loads of commenters relate that they have had similar problems, and two, loads of different commenters don't believe them. Some even go so far as to suspect that those with problems are nothing more than Sony shills, paid to spread lies throughout the intertubes.
Enter Justin Lowe of
Aggravated Gamers with his total of 11 replaced Xbox 360s. Yes, he's had 11 of the buggers replaced (he's on his twelfth) for disc read errors, the Red Ring of Death, and a few experience-ruining audio/visual problems. Knowing full well that no one would believe his outrageous claim, he decided to call Xbox customer service and record some evidence. Below you can hear Justin recount all 11 of his Xbox 360s with a customer service representative. 1UP carried
Justin's story and received all the standard replies from MS regarding failure rates and new heatsinks (it's a vocal minority, we don't comment on hardware revisions, etc.). Amazingly, Lowe admits, "I still like Microsoft, as much as that may astound people."
With the failure stories seemingly escalating, we have to ask: is this issue coming to a head?
Lowe Recording: 
