Look at CNET, breaking news left and right. The site ran a little survey asking its UK readers how many times their video game consoles crashed. No surprise: the Xbox 360 leads the pack with a full 60 percent of heaving died (due to the red ring of death). The PS3 comes in at 16 percent (yellow light of death?), and the Wii is only 6 percent.

Let’s focus on the Xbox 360 numbers. The most amazing thing to come from the survey is how quickly people’s Xboxen broken. It turns out that only 25 percent of those broken Xboxen lasted more than 18 months. So, 75 percent of those Xboxen didn’t even make it to month 18. That’s ridiculous.

One thing to keep in mind about this survey: it wasn’t a random sample. So we’re not saying that 75 percent of all Xbox 360s will, or have, broken within the first 18 months, but that 75 percent of respondents’ Xbox 360s broke within the first 18 months. It might well be that put-off Xbox 360 owners filled out the survey to “stick it” to Microsoft. Owners of broken Xboxes, unite! That kind of thing.

But the overall story—the Xbox 360 is not reliable—is nothing we didn’t know before. I’ve had two Xbox 360s die on me since August, 2006.

What a day. First Barnes & Noble is a jerk to me, then I get the red ring of death. Oh, and Sirius XM may be going under. Isn’t everything just peachy?

It’s like this: I was watching a DVD last night in my Xbox 360, and all of a sudden—these things are always “all of a sudden”—the screen turned all fuzzy, then it froze all fuzzy. Then we got the telltale three red rings. (Sorry, I didn’t think to grab my camera.) Jesus H. Christ, no!

Then today I figure, “let’s see just how broken this thing really is,” and put in GTA IV. The game loads up fine, then two or so minutes later, bam! Fuzzy frozen screen all over again. No RROD this time, but I know I’m just playing with fire at this point.

The writing’s on the wall: I’m going to have to buy a new Xbox 360, preferably in time for Street Fighter IV next week. Then again, give how I play games nowadays—pop it in, play for half an hour or so, then never play again—I’m wondering if I should instead just save the $200. Maybe I’ll luck out and I can grab an Xbox 360 Arcade from Circuit City on the cheap. See, silver lining!

[PSGallery=336elhqshv]

You know the upcoming New Xbox Experience that has so many people excited for some reason? Turns out that Microsoft call centers are bracing themselves for NXE-induced red rings of death. So while you’re gaining a [fancy?] new user interface you may also be losing an Xbox 360. Fun!

It’s like this: Microsoft is afraid that its Frankenstein of a machine may have trouble “taking,” in a sense, the NXE update. The result of such a rejection could be (emphasis on the “could” as none of this is guaranteed to happen) mass RRODs. And when the system breaks down…

It gets better. You remember the extended warranty that Microsoft offered early last year in order to remedy the original RROD situation? It’s set to expire a few days before the NXE launches—meaning that if the NXE causes a RROD you’re SOL.

Please keep in mind that that is all speculation—there’s no reason to suspect that the NXE will cause mass RRODs. If it does, however, then we’re all in for a treat in the next few weeks.

If I get another RROD—I’ve already had one, last year—then that’s it for me, I’ll quit gaming.

via GameCenterOnline

The honorable Benheck has graciously torn apart one of the new 60GB Xbox 360s for us, and its innards are sorta blah, but there’s at least one important change going on.

Microsoft appears to have removed the bottom memory chips so as to prevent the overheating that leads to the red ring of death. We can assume, then, the the memory chips on top have doubled in capacity.

Other than that, it’s more or less the same Falcon board we’ve seen for a little bit. The DVD drive is a Lite-On, which may be useful news for those of you looking to flash your drive for your own ends.

via Xbox-Scene

What number Xbox 360 are you on? I’m on number two—thanks red ring of death!—but apparently Microsoft thinks I’m cool with that.

In an interview, the head of Microsoft’s entertainment division said Microsoft’s data shows people still show a brand loyalty to the Xbox 360 despite being on their second or third console.

It speaks to the fact that they love their games and Xbox Live. Does it frustrate them? Yes. On the other hand, they know we’re taking care of them. People have a certain amount of respect for that

It’s hardly respect, chief, when you do your duty; it’s what’s expected of you.

If it had happened on a product that had less baseline customer satisfaction, it would have had a bigger impact. We really haven’t seen that.

O! I wonder, how many of you will be foolish enough to buy a launch day Microsoft console ever again? Hopefully by then I’d have fully tired of gaming, but you’d have to be silly to subject yourself to that type of gamble.

via Next Generation

I keep waiting for the day when my Xbox 360 throws me the Red Ring of Death, cringing at the thought of having to call Microsoft, wait on hold, box up my console, and wait forever for it to get returned. Even though the above video tutorial likely voids your warranty, I’d much rather fix my Xbox 360 myself and then grunt like Tim Taylor when all is said and done. Or grunt like the girl in the video would. Either way.

Anyway, the fix comes to us from i-Hacked.com and, according to SlashGear, “they tested out their way of fixing the 360 on ten different ones that had gotten the RRoD and were successful with all ten.” Good enough for me.

We now have the first photo of Team Xectuer’s red ring of death repair kit. I can’t tell what’s inside the bubble wrap, but I trust that, whatever it is, it’ll work. After all, the X2 Pro modchip, also from Team Xecuter, brought me a solid two years of enjoyment.

The kit is shipping now to stores like Divineo and Modchip.ca, so it should be available pretty soon. Remember, it costs $12.95, a small price to pay to be able to fix your rror’d Xbox 360 without having to send it in to Microsoft.

via Xbox-Scene

Here’s more details on the Xbox 360‘s failure rate. Because few things are as fun as kicking a man (or a video game console) when he’s down.

SquareTrade, which is an independent warranty company, says that it tracked a sample of 57 Cores, 956 Premiums and 27 Elites, or 1,040 in all. Sixty percent of the 171 that had problems (so, 60 percent of 17 percent of the total) had the red ring of death. Of the remaining hardware problems, 18 percent were disc read errors; 13 percent were video card failures; 13 percent were hard drive freezes (!); 10 percent were power issues; and 7 percent were disc tray-related.

Remember how the original model of the PlayStation would overheat after only a few hours of use? You’d think Microsoft would have constructed a more durable system.

What’s even more amazing is that these numbers only represent systems tracked for six to ten months; hardware failure usually occurs after that time frame. In other words, these numbers could be on the low side.

For the record, I’ve only had one red ring of death, so maybe I’m a little on the lucky side, all things considered.

New Info on 360 Death Rate Study [IGN via Xbox-Scene]

Here’s a Microsoft-owned Xbox 360 at the San Francisco Game Developers Conference that’s supposed to be demonstrating Microsoft’s XNA development tools but is instead demonstrating the insidious “Red Ring of Death” that’s plagued lo a-many gamer’s console over the years. The video was captured by an alert BBC reporter. Enjoy.

MS showcases Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 at expo [Reg Hardware]

The next two Xbox 360 motherboard revisions will be called Opus and Valhalla. Quick, somebody call CNN!

Wanton speculation points to Valhalla being the final motherboard revision for the Xbox 360, though that depends on the further success of the console and what Microsoft has in store for the next generation Xbox. (Keep in mind the Xbox 360 will be three years old this fall—time to start expecting news on the next-gen system to trickle out.) Valhalla will make use of a 65nm GPU and CPU, which should help cut down on the overheating, which is partly what causes the red ring of death.

As for the Opus, that’s the board Microsoft will use for rrod’d Xbox 360s that it repairs. Only the CPU is 65nm there, while the GPU remains at 90nm.

Next Xbox 360 Designs are “Opus” and “Valhalla” [Digital Joystick]

Team Xecuter, whose X2 Pro modchip I used on my Xbox1 back in the day, appears to have developed a kit that fixes red ring of death-affected Xbox 360s. The kit, which costs $12.95, includes all the necessary Torx screws to open your console. The kit was developed by an Xecuter member whose 360 rrod’d on him recently. Rather than send it in to Microsoft to be repaired, he tinkered with it, trying to figure out what went wrong.

The kit is said to have worked on 18 of 18 broken 360s.

If the kit works as advertised—it’s due for release “soon”—it would represent a better alternative to sending in your 360 to Microsoft. We all know how well that can sometimes go. At least it’s not a widespread problem or anything…

Team Xecuter Back from Dead: 360 ROD Repair Kit [Xbox-Scene]

Microsoft, DRM and the non-working Xbox 360. It’s like a Tom Clancy novel.

A Kotaku patron, Kevin, has his Xbox 360 red ring of death on him last November. Fair enough, it happens. So he contacted Microsoft, which then arranged for his console to be repaired. A little while later a repaired Xbox 360 arrived in the mail. Hooray.

Not.

Microsoft sent Kevin a different console. When he tried to access his Xbox Live content on this different Xbox, he found that it didn’t work on profiles that weren’t the purchasing profile. When you buy something on XBL, it can be accessed by every profile on the console and not just the one that did the purchasing. Not so with the new Xbox.

So here Kevin is with a semi-gimped 360. What’s Microsoft’s reaction?

There’s nothing they can do. Kevin called and called Microsoft, received assurances that the problem was being worked on. This tete-a-tete began in November; it’s now February and there’s no solution in site for Kevin. Microsoft told him that hopefully there will be one sometime in 2008. How nice of them.

So there’s two issues at work here. One, Microsoft is using some busted DRM with its Xbox 360. Two, its customer service comes across as woefully incompetent.

Microsoft Has No Answer For Their Broken XBOX Live DRM [Consumerist]

For a brief moment, though, I thought that I had joined the legions of Xbox 360 owners that have turned on their systems to the real-deal blinking red ring. Now 8bitjoystick.com has an interview with an unnamed source inside Microsoft with some more details about the sometimes-problematic console.

The source confirms the 30% console failure rate and says that many of the problems have to do with the console being rushed to market to beat Sony’s PS3, understaffing, motherboard timing problems, bad parts, poor heat dissipation, defective or insufficient heat sinks, humidity, and more. Pretty much what people have been saying all along, now apparently corroborated by someone on the inside.

Inside Source Reveal the Truth About Xbox 360 “Red Ring of Death” Failures [8bitjoystick.com]

Those are red crystals representing the dreaded Red Ring of Death many (many, many, many) 360 owners have experienced. For those fallen soldiers out there, a salute is in order.

RRoD card [via Technabob]