3 year warranty on every Xbox 360 console
In an open letter to the entire Xbox Community, big cheese Peter Moore addresses a couple of issues a lot of people have had with the Xbox customer service. Apparently Microsoft has identified several factors that can cause the feared 3 lights of death and they’re making improvements to address this issue. The best part is that Microsoft is now offering a 3 year warranty on all Xbox 360s, and will reimburse anyone that already paid for the repair.
In the letter, Peter Moore admits that they’ve been lacking in the customer service department and apologizes for it. All these people complaining about Xbox 360s breaking down must have gotten through to the people at Microsoft. This operation is quite an expensive one as Microsoft anticipated that it’s going to cost them $1.05 to 1.15 billion dollars for the quarter ending June 30, 2007.
“Microsoft will take a $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion pre-tax charge to earnings for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 for anticipated costs under its current and enhanced Xbox 360 policies.”
“For any customer who has previously paid for repair expenses related to the three flashing lights error message on the Xbox 360 console, Microsoft will retroactively reimburse them.”
We reported earlier that Microsoft was already applying some changes to Xbox 360 consoles by installing an extra heatsink to make sure the motherboard or any other part won’t overheat so fast. We don’t know what other measures they’ve taken to prevent the 3 lights of death but with the extra warranty you won’t have to pay for your console breaking down for a while at least.
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.
The reimbursement and extra warranty will take a couple of days to roll out globally so don’t start calling to Xbox Live support immediately because they probably have no idea what you’re talking about.
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.
Thanks to the beautiful looking and lovely smelling Peewee for submitting this great news first.
I just submitted this article too. Great news!
Here here…. submitted it as well… definitely great news!
OHHH fuck yea hooray for another 1 1/2 years of free warranty coverage, seriously my console is about to explode and this came just in time!!!!!
wow, good move. a recent retail survey from dailytech.com estimates the 360 failure rate to be 33%.
http://www.dailytech.com/...3+Percent/article7892.htm
being on my fourth 360, i would not be at all surprised. i am certainly delighted to hear that steps are being taken to remedy whatever is causing these units to die, and i think it is pretty damn fiscally liberal of them to return money on past units, but i guess they would have to. anyway, color me impressed.
ya i was thinking that too, like only if you paid to have it repaired w/ in the last 3 months or somethin, but then some people would be cryin how they paid 3.1 months ago, it seems silly to reimburse peple that payed for somethin like 14 months ago w/e free money is always cool i guess
good timing with this announced right before E3 . launch console still going but just in case
woohoo refund!
Oh my fucking god! Please tell me this applies to the UK…I get my ÂŁ90 back hooray hooray hooray - hopefully!
worldwide
pwn’d
This is the best news to happen with the 360 in months, I’m so happy!
I want a party & a cake for this
I’m impressed - this is a very good move indeed. I was prepared to return my console (even though it is working properly) just before my warranty expires in October.
Bunnies can’t dance.
WHAT……Do we get out money back…..sweet a fat a fat bag of weed coming my way
no just a fat bag of weed
puff puff give :p its great m$ is going to do the right thing finally. better late than never.
Thank heck for that!
? Do you live in Plymouth?
Nope, although I do venture through there a lot going to and from Cornwall.
yeah I just recognise your name thats all from somewhere. I too venture to cornwall a lot.
Oh shit, more and more people from this end of the country, I already knew Jay was from down this way, now Steve Perry. Soon, we might become a majority…
Well, stranger things have happened.
LOL…
Smart move by M$!! About goddamn time too!
Nice the best move from MS sinse they released it
Now wait a minute. I thought M$ was only reimbursing on account that your 360 got the red rings? If they are rimbursing for all hardware problems (like they should) then I’m in store for $140…
Only 3 red rings.. which like 99% of the problems.
Uhm, not necessarily, my first 360 died because the DVD drive stopped reading discs. So while no 3 red lights, it was still broken and needed servicing.
Part of the 1%
2 360s with disk read errors in 14 months thats more than 1% in my book
Hardly.
Before working out the percentage you need to know the total amount of fucked 360’s.
So your 2 could be potentially be 0.0001%
no thats just myself my first 2 360s had disk read errors i’m now on my third 360 in 14 months
ok so lets say my console is broken just not the 3 red lights broken, if i wrap it in a towel will it do like the reverse of the old fix it idea, like broken+towel=fixed, would mine become workin+towel=broken just curious since i may need to do this eventually
I imagine so.
I am extremely happy about this. My 360 got the RRoD about a week or 2 ago. I decided not to call so soon because I was out of warranty and was waiting on paying some bills first.
But now that this covers me, I’ll be calling them tomorrow. =D
its the towel trick which caused mine to overheat the motherboard…
what about extended warranty users? will this extend my xbox warranty to a total of 6 years or whats going on with that. I should get another 2 years free extended cuz I got mine on launch day with extended warranty from microsoft.
No, but you are covered for anything other than the 3 red lights within the 3 years.
This 3 year warranty only covers the 3 red lights of death for 2 years after the initial full 1 year warranty, but nothing else.
hell yea!!!..best news ever!….my system if about to fry!…ive gotten the red lights amillion times…but it always seems to work if i dont use it for 2 or 3 days…gets annoying!….the towel works i guess…but now i can send it in since my year had already ended….im sending it in!!!…yeaaaaaaaaaaa!…
NOW THIS IS TAKING CARE OF CUSTOMERS!
Sh*t you’d never see sony giving 3 years to the ps3 customers lol….
So lets see, best game lineup, 3 year warranty on all consoles, the largest online network… I seem pretty darn comfortable with my 360 now
sony don’t need to give such a big warranty cause they don’t break down every other day i’ve had my 360 14 months and im on my 3rd console i’ve had a ps 1 for over ten years and it works fine same with my ps 2 five years no problems fortunately for me i’ve got a ps 3 so when my 360 breaks down as it does regularly i can still play games
Sony dont need to give this warranty because the PS3 does not get the amount of use 360 does. The pitiful online servive is worse than Live silver !!
ya a friend of mine got a ps3…. i can’t stand tryin to play online with that thing… but it’s ok he took it back and got a 360 about a month ago.
My 2005 launch console died last week - this is great news and a classy move on the part of Microsoft - there was not denying that the console had manufacturing and/or design problems which they are now commited to fixing - good move Microsoft, you have regained my trust!
Nice, but nullifies my extended warranty I purchased through Best Buy. I guess I could still bring it into the store, I still have my 20gigHDD thats empty now, but it is nice for the people without extended Warr. Big Ups M$!
I hear you. I got an extended warranty for 3 years from Target when I purchased my Elite. Meh, not that big of deal seeing as how the extended warranty only cost $30.
At last!
Thats because Sony waited, built great systems, and didnt put out crappy machines just to meet some deadline and get ahead of the game. I’m waiting for a price drop and more tittle and I’ll be back to PS Nation! Fuck MS and their bullshit!
Cock.
PS2 was the worst made bit of shit ever. Plastic all through which lead to wear down of the cog moving the disc tray, which led to the tray falling the laser going out of focus and a fucked PS2.
On calling Sony I was told this was a known technical fault, I was 2 weeks out the warrenty when it happened but still expected to fork out ÂŁ70 to have it fixed, half the price of the fucking console!!!
So fuck it, I bought a new one as they would only give three months warrenty on the fix.
New PS2 broke with the same problem 4 weeks outside the 1 year manufactures warrenty again.
Sony, known faults, fuck you consumer you can pick up the burden of our shoddy design.
MS, known fault, okay then we will increase the warrenty period for the fault and give refunds to those that have already forked out for a fix.
You tell me which one is the better example of customer service.
If you are going to bad mouth one company make sure you don’t do it in a biase way, Sony are no fucking angels by any means.
Yeah I agree with you totally. The PS2 bored me shitless and was the ugliest thing I’d seen in ages around that time.
i got laser errors on all three of my ps2s, and NONE of them lasted more than six months. utter garbage.
Think with the numbers sold you may only be a PS town or small city.
i’ve had 2 360s with the disk read error no red lights so the warranty means shit to me on my third console in 14 months thats a fukin joke i’d like to shove my 360 and worthless warranty up peter moores arse if they did’nt churn out low quality shit they would’nt need big warranties
Wtf do u ppl do to your 360’s… my launch system is still going… no red lights.. EVER!
i know 6 people with 360s out of the 6 people 4 have gone back fucked mine included i am now on my third 360 it is well cared for not abused my friend however who has had his 360 longer than all the rest of my friends and regularly moves his around has had no problems it is purely luck some go wron some dont go wrong but the percentage that go wrong is way to high
I almost collapsed and died through oxygen starvation reading that.
too little, too late MS, after the 5 systems i’ve had fail on me, they could offer me a free one with all the games i want and i still wouldn’t take it.
i love my 360 and my ps 3 i just wish my 360 was reliable