I’m sure you get stories like this all the time, and I’m sure the news is old (Xbox 360s break, they suck, haha), but this isn’t so much a story about an Xbox being broken as it is a story about Xbox support failing to repair and identify the problem after a few months and three repairs. I can’t get anyone at Microsoft to even apologise for them messing up over and over time and time again, so I thought I’d take to the internet to see if anyone wants to write about a true Xbox Support horror story. I’m 25 years old, work in a professional office building as a newspaper designer, am married, have a son and am not very dumb.

Xbox got four red lights back in July. My Xbox is still under warranty, but warranty doesn’t cover four red lights. I happily send them $US100. [Ed note: 4 red lights is code for a missing AV cable, but can be caused by other issues. 3 red lights is the famous RRoD and is covered by the warranty.]

Four weeks after putting in the repair order, the Xbox was sent back fixed. It is now August. It took four weeks for the repair to complete in part because of shipping problems, including five boxes being delivered to my door and two instances of undeliverable addresses. Really, the repair only took a week. Getting the correct box to my house took three weeks.

Three weeks after I got it back, on August 27, I got three red lights about ten minutes away from beating Shadow Complex with 100% items found.

About 2 weeks after repair was ordered, Xbox was returned to me – three red lights remained.
About 2 weeks after repair was ordered, Xbox was returned to me – three red lights remained.
About 2 weeks after repair was ordered, Xbox was returned to me – three red lights remained.
(that’s not a typo. I sent it in three times, and it was sent back still broken three times)

It is now October. I took to Twitter to rage about Microsoft and a friend asked me if I checked the lights on the power supply. No person at any point in this repair process going all the way back to July has ever asked me or told me or hinted about or mentioned the light on the power supply indicating the power supply might be faulty. I checked it, and the power supply was orange. I’d bet the very first time I got the three red lights, this might’ve been the problem. Why no one in the process, after the Xbox came back to me “unrepaired,” asked me to check the power supply I do not know.

After much convincing, a new power supply was ordered sent to me by Microsoft. It arrived after a week. The male power supply didn’t fit into my female Xbox port. Apparently, Xbox has used a few different kinds of power supplies over the years.

Today, October 7, the new power supply has been ordered and might arrive in 2-3 weeks (they have to process the request, 7 days they say, and then ship it, 5 days. Add weekends off and time to deliver, and it’ll be 2-3 weeks).

So after all that, I’ve been able to play my 360 for about three weeks total since July… Am I at fault? Maybe 1% of this is my fault – I could’ve looked online for more reasons the three red lights might happen, at which point I would’ve found out about the power supply problem… but still, that’s no excuse, because it isn’t my friends job to fix my console, it is Microsoft’s job, and they have failed.

Andy Phifer
Houston, Texas

I don’t think anyone can blame Andy for not self-diagnosing his Xbox issue. Anyone who’s dealt with any sort of technical support before knows that nothing gets the operator riled up more than a valid self-diagnosis. These calls are heavily scripted to cater to the lowest common denominator.

But when that script clearly can’t diagnose a common problem (more than once) and the customer is punished for months because of it, I mean, come on. Given Microsoft’s apparent fundamental troubleshooting flaws at work in this story, we have a tough time believing that there’s only one “Andy” out there. [Image]

FairTrade, the company that’s making this claim, bases their little theory on failure rates correlated with purchase date. Before the Jasper chipset, they were atrocious. But after? Not too bad!

In Q4 2008, Jasper units started arriving, although we believe units purchased during this period continued to be a mix of Falcon and Jasper models. Even with this mix, we projected the 1-year failure rate to drop below 4%. Furthermore, when looking at over 500 units purchased in 2009, fewer than 1% of customers have reported a RROD error as of Aug 2009. It is still too early to definitively assert that Jasper has given RROD a knockout punch, but such an argument may be pronounceable in the coming months.

That’s down from an (admittedly) conservative RRoD rate of about 12 per cent, which accounted for more than half of the console’s overall failures, which stood at 23.7 per cent. They explicitly say it’s too early to call this one, but early signs—even if all the numbers are skewed a little low—are definitely promising.

The best case for not believing these figures, though, is (weirdly) made earlier in the report when SquareTrade theorises about how consumers might be approaching the Xbox failure problem now that it’s so well known:

Microsoft’s policy may result in an underreporting of failures by Xbox 360 owners to SquareTrade, relative to the other two consoles. Because the RROD problem is so widely known to be covered by Microsoft’s warranty, we believe that more customers bypass SquareTrade and reported failures directly to the Microsoft.

So on this side of things, third-party warranty stats aren’t infallible, and on another, user surveys about a frustrating hardware problem are naturally stacked against the product. The only people who really know how many Xboxen run off the cliff every year work in Redmond, and I doubt they’re in any rush to get too specific on this one. [GameInformer via Kotaku]

Here’s the response:

Microsoft stands behind the Xbox 360 as a superior entertainment console with one of the best warranties in the industry. We are constantly improving the design, manufacture and performance of the console through extensive testing of potential sources of any problems. Xbox 360 is pleased to maintain the title of ‘most played console’ and the vast majority of Xbox 360 customers have enjoyed a terrific gaming and entertainment experience since their first day, and continue to, day in and day out.

Just because they failed to contest the figure, however, doesn’t mean it’s legit. That Game Informer survey was of its readers, which is surely not a truly representative sample of all Xbox 360 owners. Those nerds surely play their consoles a lot harder than your average gamer. But still, it’s telling that Microsoft didn’t want to get into a numbers fight over the failure rate. After all, if it isn’t 54.2 per cent, what is it, Microsoft? It’s not like them saying, “No, it’s not that! It’s only 35 per cent!” would be a great move. [TG Daily via Kotaku]

As someone who just got his second red ring in as many years, is it really that surprising that about half of all Xboxes have shit the bed? Personally, I don’t know a single person with an Xbox 360 who hasn’t had to deal with it, so hell, maybe the 54.2% figure is generous.

Comparatively, the PS3 has a failure rate of 10.6 per cent and the Wii is at 6.8 per cent. But despite these numbers, gamers play the Xbox the most; 40.3 per cent play it 3 to 5 hours a day, with 37 per cent of PS3 owners doing the same. And unsurprisingly, a full 40.4 per cent of Wii owners turn that console on less than an hour a day.

And that’s really the big takeaway here. It’s not news that older Xbox 360s fail almost inevitably, but it’s interesting that gamers have almost accepted that fact and still play the Xbox despite it. In fact, a mere 3.8 per cent of gamers said that hardware failure will keep them from ever buying another Xbox. I guess people just really like their 1 vs. 100. [Consumerist via Kotaku]

Among the list of potential uses for the broken 360, we’ve got:

- Door Stop
- Novelty Key Chain
- Book Stand
- Chopping Board
- Car/Bike Stand
- Paper Weight
- Game Console Stand (Use the 360MFC to keep your gaming consoles off the floor)
- Dog Tie -Out
- Childrens High Chair
- Ironing Board
- Bike Ramp

Even better are the included photos, like the ‘dog tie-out’ pictured above, or the bike ramp below.

The Adelaide based Xbox has a starting bid of $15 plus $10 shipping, and the auction ends on August 22. But if you’re interested, you should get in quick… As the eBay ad says – there’s only one available.

[ebay – Thanks Mcgoo!]

From Redmond, via Kotaku:

While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays “E74″ on their screen. After investigating the issue, we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console. As a result, we have decided to cover repairs related to the E74 error message under our three-year warranty program for certain general hardware failures that was announced in July 2007.

Apparently the program will also reimburse anyone who previously paid for E74 repairs. Having to address another hardware fiasco may further solidify the Xbox 360’s reputation as a comically goof-prone console, but at least Microsoft is doing their users right on this one. [Kotaku]

Note: Don’t take it seriously. It’s just a funny image I thought I’d pass along.

I’m tired of this. This sense of permanent discomfort with the technology around me. The bugs. The compromises. The firmware upgrades. The “This will work in the next version.” The “It’s in our roadmap.” The “Buy now and upgrade later.” The patches. The new low development standards that make technology fail because it wasn’t tested enough before reaching our hands. The feeling now extends to hardware: Everything is built to end up in the trash a year later, still half-baked, to make room for the next hardware revision. I’m tired of this beta culture that has spread like metastatic cancer in the last few years, starting with software from Google and others and ending up in almost every gadget and computer system around. We need a change.

Results from “Which Missing iPhone Feature Would You Like to See Most?“

Picture messaging 19%
iChat 4%
Landscape mode For email 5%
Ability to use the iPhone 3G with other service providers (not just AT&T) 8%
Downloadable ringtones <1%
User-replacable battery 3%
More storage 2%
Search function with contacts <1%
Ability to edit documents 2%
Flash/Java 20%
Cut and paste 20%
GPS turn-by-turn directions 11%
Video recording 6%