After 18 months of continued horror stories from Xbox 360 owners regarding the poor manufacturing of the Xbox 360, Microsoft today announced it would retroactively extend the warranties to all Xbox 360s.
In a open letter and audio release, Peter Moore of Microsoft's games division in the United Sates announced that any 360 which suffers failure and displays the infamous 'Red Ring of Death' will be covered by an extended warranty. This warranty is also applied retro-actively in two ways: if you have had a unit fail before and have had to pay to have it repaired (due to the expiration of the previous warranty), Microsoft will reimberse you the repair invoice; further, all existing Xbox 360s will be covered for the extended warranty should the unit fail in the future.
In many ways this is good news, yet questions must be asked. Why did Microsoft take so long to acknowledge this problem, despite overwhelming consumer complaints to both Microsoft, the gaming community and even consumer groups? As recently as a month ago, Microsoft were still denying the scale of the problem. And what about owners who have had to throw out broken units because were outside the initial warranty and were un-economical to repair?
We probably won't receive answers to these questions, let alone an acknowledgement regarding them from Microsoft. But at least those of us with units which were approaching the end of their 1 year warranty (or were outside of them), can sleep easy knowing that our beloved heat and noise boxes are covered.
Peter Moore's open letter in full:
To our Xbox Community:
You've spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we've not been doing a good enough job.
Some of you have expressed frustration with the customer experiences you have had with Xbox 360; frustration with having to return your console for service after receiving the general hardware error message on the console.
The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles have had a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out. But when anyone questions the reliability of our product, or our commitment to our customers, it's something I take very seriously.
We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console.
We are also implementing some important policy changes intended to keep you in the game, worry-free.
As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.
If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.
This will take a few days to roll out globally, and I appreciate your continued patience as we launch this program. I've posted an FAQ that should address some additional questions, and we'll update it over the next few days.
I want to thank you, on behalf of all us at Microsoft, for your loyalty.
This announcement is likely to cost Microsoft's gaming division hundreds of millions of dollars, and as such how will it effect their long term goals in the 'next gen' console wars?
We would love you to share your thoughts on this contentious issue in our forum.
Dylan Y – NextGG.com
6 July 2007
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