Microsoft Acknowledges 360 Issues, Extends Warranty to 3 Years 205
RamblinLonghorn writes "Microsoft has announced that they are extending the warranty for all Xbox 360s to 3 years. This appears to be entirely retroactive and that 'those who have already paid for such repair charges can expect reimbursement checks for the amount of their console repair.' It seems as though Microsoft is accepting the blame for the hardware malfunctions, but it is worth noting that this warranty modification only applies in the 'Red Rings of Death' situation."
Re:I'd like a 360 (Score:2, Interesting)
What's weird is when I called a month ago for help with the game (no solutions, they were baffled), it turned out my XBOX had another year of coverage on it... the first year expires in ten days, but they said my expiration for warranty was actually in 2008. I wonder if it was because of this.
Also, I wonder what this means for people who paid the $60 extra for a warranty? Microsoft gave something like a one year warranty with the console and for another $60, you could get a second year (I think). So I wonder if those people will actually get four years, now?
And if your product is failing so often that it's impacting your actual *game* sales (who's going to buy games when their console is broken?), maybe you should just replace everyone's console with a good one. Otherwise it's like having a Pinto and saying "this car is going to explode -- we won't replace it now, but if it blows up in a year, we will replace it then".
Re:An Utter Train Wreck (Score:2, Interesting)
Bravo??? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
The SNES has no such problems and very well should last until now, at least.
Microsoft NEEDED to do this? No. (Score:5, Interesting)
When the 360 first came out, someone made a decision that beyond one year it would cost the company too much to repair the consoles relative to the increased sales than would be had by having a longer warranty. They also had to take into account the bad publicity that could (and did) occur.
I'll be pure engineer here - someone at Microsoft redid the formula, given the knowledge of failures that have happened since release. This time around, the math said that enough future sales would be lost to outweigh the cost of extending the warranty. It's really that simple. It's also interesting to note here that they didn't make it a lifetime warranty (20 years or something). They probably ran that formula too, and decided that the math tips the other way if you let it last forever.
So did they NEED to do this? If by need you mean "saving face", then no. Being the retrospective hero doesn't help anything, only in the sense that it might affect future sales.
Re:Still, they break. (Score:4, Interesting)
What if you already paid for the MS warranty? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'd like a 360 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bravo Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
My cellphone has 5 years warranty
My TV has got 5 years warranty
My PS3 has got 5 years warranty
My etc...
This does not apply for parts that are worn out because of heavy use like batteries in laptops and mobile phones (1 year warranty on batteries) or lasers in PS2s, but for anything else "supposed to last for 5 years or more" there is a 5 year warranty against production error.
In other words... Microsoft would've had to fix the "ring of death" units in Norway for free even though they hadn't extended this warranty, unless they can prove it is the users fault and not theirs.
One of the reasons why everything is more expensive here? Might be
Question (Score:3, Interesting)