Is the Red Ringed Menace Over?

 

The egregious* hardware faults that have plagued Microsoft’s usually viridian illuminated console may be over, if company mouthpiece Aaron Greenberg is to be believed.

Infamously nicknamed “The Red Ring of Death,” the three flashing crimson lights that signify a “general hardware error” have incited tears, anger and and derision amongst many a gamer.

Shall this Pandora’s box be forever closed?
Let’s see what Greenberg has to say, after the jump!

In countries with a proper support structure, consoles are repaired (as opposed to being put on a months long waiting list for swop units). With regards to these repairs, Greenberg states :

“We’ve improved that [repair] process..It’s very quick, and they may upgrade your system with the latest technology. So that works really well.”

“…What we do in general, the way that it works, is that they will fix it with the latest [hardware] improvements that we’ve applied [to current Xbox 360s]. Obviously we’re continuously improving the technology inside the box, not to get too technical. So they’ll apply that when they make the increments to your system.”

“We’re seeing great performance of the current systems, so we’re really happy with the way they’ve been performing. … From friends that have had [repairs] done as of late, I can tell you from our own internal staff that we’re seeing very strong performance from a quality standpoint.

“What it comes down to is isolating and figuring out the issue, fixing the issue, and the more that we can fix the issue, and know it’s fixed, then we’re good going forward. We’ve put the worst behind us on this, but we know there are a few lagging systems, and so we want to take those and make it right.”

As nice as it sounds it’s hardly instilling me with confidence – it all seems like standard PR fare. I don’t think that Microsoft is going to be rid of the red ring problem, let alone its $1bn stigma any time soon.

Source : Edge

*Define: egregious

“extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant”

Last Updated: February 18, 2009