Xbox 360 boss apologises for Red Ring of Death and Xbox Live
By Dave Parrack
The Xbox 360 has been beset with problems since its launch. Now the UK boss for the console has apologised for the worst of these: the dreaded Red Ring of Death as well as the Xbox Live outages experienced over Christmas.
The Red Ring of Death continues to blight gamers experience with the Xbox 360, and millions have now seen those three flashing red lights come on signalling their console is as dead as a dodo.
If it happens, they’re left with no option but to send it back to Microsoft HQ and be without their beloved machine for weeks at a time. Not to mention the frustration caused when it happens.
But at least Neil Thompson, the boss of Xbox in the UK has seen fit to apologise, although his assessment that the problem is merely “disappointing” probably won’t satisfy the people who have experienced it.
In an interview with The Guardian, he said:
“There is a certain percentage - not a massive percentage - of consoles that were experiencing disk failures or CPU failures, or whatever word we want to use,”
“My personal understanding of the precise technology isn’t sufficient. But I do know that we’ve isolated certain elements that, for certain products that were produced, made them fail.”
“The first thing to say is I’m sorry that you’ve had a bad product experience, and hopefully we’re doing what we can to solve that. The bottom line is that you want a product that is reliable.”
Thanks for apologising, but I find the lack of understanding of the technology a little hard to bear when this man has the official title of ‘Senior Regional Director, Northern Europe, Entertainment & Devices Division, Microsoft Corporation’.
Also, I would call the estimated 16% of consoles which succumb to the problem massive enough not to dismiss it.
He also spoke about the problems with Xbox Live outages over Christmas:
“Incredible success brings some operational issues that mean we haven’t scaled in the way we should have. As we said at the time, we apologise for that. It isn’t the way we want to do business.”
“When you look at the scale of what we’re running, I think we are actually quite good at it - we’ve got millions and millions and millions of people playing online across the world every day.”
“It’s not an insubstantial task to keep that going. Now that’s not an excuse, that just context … but we are breaking new ground with this - unfortunately, at Christmas, we failed the test.”
Again, thanks for apologising, but I’d rather you just concentrated on the problam and not let it happen again. What short minded company wouldn’t realise that there would be a massive surge of new users around the holiday season?
Thompson also discusses Xbox Live Arcade, HD DVD, and Digital Downloads in the interview, all of which he’s slightly more positive about.
The Xbox 360 may still be leading the way in overall sales against Sony and the Playstation 3, but it’s only a matter of time, and with current sales as they are, before the roles are reversed. Maybe it’s time Microsoft did more than sit around making half-hearted apologies and actually did something of worth.
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April 3rd, 2008
I don’t know about other places in the world but here in Canada it is lighting fast the the time it takes to get your Xbox back. I believe it is because in Canada they tell you they are not going to fix your box and they it will be replaced with a working one. When mine went down (not because of the RROD) it came back in 1 week. I have a couple of buddies with the same story. My tennant got his back before 1 week. Amazing!!
April 3rd, 2008
has ms all yoiu want, but it’s still better than sony’s stance of ignoring the problem and having to be sued to fix it with the ps2. It’s odd that when gamers are treated like dirt by companies (sony) you lap it up, but when a company owns up and works to rectify the mistake they get crucified. we get it, dave. you hate ms and the 360. but you appear to be in the vast minority this gen.
April 3rd, 2008
i meant “hate ms all you want”…
April 3rd, 2008
Actually I don’t hate Microsoft or the Xbox 360, but you go ahead and make your own assumptions.
April 3rd, 2008
Same here (Montreal), I got the RROD and from the moment I received the mailing box it took 8 days to get another Xbox back with a free month on Xbox Live. In my experience this is pretty good customer service.
April 3rd, 2008
@ kevin, you talk about this “sony being sued” a lot over these supposed problems with the PS2, but all you do is blow it out your ass, It’s high time you showed a link with proof.
As far as I’m aware the only problem with the PS2’s (that was widespread) was that thing that left a circular scratch on the disc, and all those units were launch units and were replaced by sony within a month, but MS owns up to it 2 years after the fact and their the god guys? hmmm, seems like flawed logic is your friend
April 3rd, 2008
Mou- it’s common knowledge in NA. the ps2 suffered from DRE and DDE due mainly to a faulty dvd drive. if you want to go down this road, you’re not going to like it as you’ve made accusations of the 360’s quality based nowhere in fact. btw; ms owned up to it 1 year into the 360’s lifecycle. Sony refused to acknowledge the problem prompting a class action suit, much like theirs with Immersion for rumble technology. If you don’t know the facts and history, you have zero basis for attempting a debate. Sorry DaveP; if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck….
April 3rd, 2008
here mou- this took me 2 seconds on google. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news03/playstation.html. Now it’s your turn, post links saying developers feel FORCED to include achievments and to the “33% faulty” you keep repeating. For a gamer you really don’t know much about this industry.
April 3rd, 2008
@ Kevin.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gaming/xbox-360-failure-rate-30-says-retailers-271487.php
http://www.xbox360rally.com/xbox-360failure-rate-at-30/
http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13201/Retailers_Claim_360_Failure_Rate_Is_Over_30.html
You keep talking about it being all about PS2… but we’re with the PS3 now. Sony did their job and made a system that worked after that. Why can’t you say anything about the PS3 having problems… oh wait… you can’t.
Stop living in the past and get over the fact that MS made a horrible console and is still having problems with it and the PS3 is fine. I love how I don’t pay for PSN and can always play on it but with your Live you pay for… it stops working during the Christmas holidays. You’d think it’d be the opposite.
April 3rd, 2008
@kevin, look you at it again, putting words in my mouth, hey where did I say that 33 per cent remark, come on where, and also since your such a “history buff” then you would know that MS also stole the rumble tech from immersion and was involved in a similar suit.
I didn’t say devs feel forced to include achievements, I said MS forces them and that is true, you can’t make a game on the 360 without putting in acheivements, nowhere did i ever say that devs were saying that, get your facts straight.
You know kevin for a human being you seem to have no clue about debating at all.
I don’t need to post links to back up things I never said, but you do for the things you said, try to keep up
Stop putting words in my mouth.
April 3rd, 2008
The burden of proof is on you kevin, not me, you need to prove where I said the things in the exact context you are accusing me of saying, come kev. I’m waiting.
You know, I don’t think I’ll ever set up my 360 online thanks to you, now that I know I might run into jerks like you. Hope your happy, your precious MS is going to lose my 50 bucks a year.
There you see how your FUD is getting you nowhere?
April 4th, 2008
MOU- so i posted the proof w/ link and now you want to ignore the proof and focus on the ps3? the point is; hardware reliability, especially for never-done-before technology, is a risk. Sony proved that. Yet you feel that MS is the ONLY company that should be held accountable even AFTER sony REFUSED (and still does) to acknowledge their console even had a problem, prompting most to buy 3 and 4 console at their own expense, which sony happily claimed as a sale, thus padding their “120 million ps2 gamers” numbers. You stated 33% in previous articles. I’m too lazy to keep proving you wrong. Once is enough. You still haven’t proven why achievements are a bad thing, when noone but you has ever said this. I’m really glad you won’t be on ‘live. you’re too much of a noob to be associated with. Btw; ps3’s are having problems. Read the reviews of condemned. what’s the point of hdmi if sound doesnt’ work properly. Or how about the controller connection drop outs. How about the lack of voicecom with the ps3. seriously, tho, with over 10 million gamers on xbox live, i think we can live w/o you.
April 4th, 2008
POOP
April 4th, 2008
Kevin you are such a loser i never comment on these but seeing you so defensive and putting words in the authors mouth and commentors mouths is just bazaar you are one head sick individual, do you masturbate with your rumble 360 controler up ur bum? it seems that kind of love for your 360 would explain your obsession.
April 5th, 2008
i seriously think people should stop supporting a console (or anything) that craps out on them. when i buy ANY hardware, i expect it not to crap out on me. I sometimes wonder why people still support the x360 with such a high failure rate. After needing to turn in a console multiple times, you should just get rid of it. when the warranty ends, what do they expect you to do, buy another one? f*ck that
April 6th, 2008
Note:
The article has one grammar mistake on the bottom the word problem was written like this “Problam”
Xbox 360 sucks period is unreliable useless hardware , doesn’t even play next gen DVD. Xbox 360 still has a massive failure rate with new models. The PLAYSTATION 3 is the only true real next gen gaming system that will takeover once again as the god,king,ruler and leader of the gaming industry.
April 7th, 2008
kevin, you’re an idiot.
April 8th, 2008
mou - if that’s all you’ve got left, you’re done. you lost. move on.
April 8th, 2008
kevin, a quick tally of the comments shows that you lost, therefor it is oyu who should move on, you lost kevin.
April 8th, 2008
and kevin, it’s Moustachio, not mou. If you can’t get my name right then stop posting. I’ll even give you a cookie if you figure out where I got the name from.
April 9th, 2008
mou - i like mou better than moustachio. it’s sounds almost like the “mooing” of a cow when you speak. in fact ps3 owners are known as “cows” in some circles so i guess it fits. it’s funny you can always tell the ps3 fans on a site. they’re the ones with 6th grade grammar. Appropriate given most ps3 owners are whiny kids who believe every piece of pr fed to them by sony. it’s funny you ignored every fact i poste for you. no wait…more sad than funny…but you get the point.
April 11th, 2008
Erm Kevin i hate to break it to you, but Moustachio’s grammar is correct. I study advanced level English language and aside from the incorrect spelling, theres nothing gramatically wrong. Would you care to give me some evidence?
June 6th, 2008
Kevin i once supported microsoft cause i think their xbox was much more better in graphics and online experience and i bought da 360 as soon as it came out but sadly enough it failed me with da 3 rings of death n am now in africa where i cant replace it cause their’s no microsoft here. Anyway if u know all da ps3 functions u wont be compairing it with 360 considering features like home which is far more better than xbox live where u have 2 pay, also da siaxis motion controller which 360 does not have, n dont tell me about no rumble cause there is dualshock 3 which supports both rumble n siaxis. Also u have da blu ray thing which holds about 54 giga byte of data whilst 360’s hd dvd holds about 9 giga byte of data n blue ray movies are 7 times clear than dvds. There are much more advatageous features of ps3 over 360 but i dont think u wud understand them as they are technical. Anyway just thought about saying smthing n warn gamers 2 not make da mistake i made. SONY i still do not like da ps 2 but i think i will give u credit 4 da ps3 cause it rules.