The Red Ring of Death
January 20th, 2008 | by rey |
Those of you who own an Xbox 360, the gaming console from Microsoft, probably already know what the Red Ring of Death is. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s sort of like the hardware equivalent to the Blue screen of Death which most if not all Windows users have seen at least once (very likely more than that) in their Windows-using lives. It simply means something has gone “majorly” wrong with the system.
The original Xbox 360 which Microsoft launched early part of 2005 was prone to hardware failure. In fact failure rates of more than 30% have been estimated for the first iteration of the gaming console which had the Xenon (internal codename) motherboard. Which means more than 30% of the consoles sold eventually find themselves being returned, replaced or repaired. You better pray your console doesn’t go belly up just as you’re about to crack the last level in Halo 3.
This interview with a Microsoft insider by Jack from 8bitjoystick.com might shed some light as to why this is so. Click here for the interview.
