Microsoft Acknowledges 360 Issues, Extends Warranty to 3 Years

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

[Seumas]

I haven't had a lot of problems with mine, except that Forza 2 won't play. I've tried four different brand new copies of it and about 98% of the time, the XBOX 360 tries to play it as if it were a DVD and not a game. I literally have to reboot the XBOX about 40 times every time I want to play, before it finally works. Mind you, my 48+ other XBOX 360 games are just fine in it.

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

[RamblinLonghorn]

And yet it still outsells its market competitor

Bravo???

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying that 3year warranty would be a bad thing, but seriously... Has there been any *good* on this year (or two) long episode. M$ should have acted a long time ago, and what they did was only unevitable since 360 users had been driven to point M$ was close to be massively sued..

Re:Well...

[WMD_88]

Your NES still works fine? Lucky you. Most NES units have faulty cart connectors, due to a design defect. Mine is near impossible to fire up...the best solution I found so far is to insert the cart, press down all the way, and then wedge a Game Boy Pocket (?!?!) in between, holding it all the way down. Press Power, then Reset.
The SNES has no such problems and very well should last until now, at least.

Microsoft NEEDED to do this? No.

[avoisin]

I work for a high tech company that makes expensive hardware, far pricier than the xbox, and I've come to understand a lot more about the cost of warranties from the supplier end. Extending warranties is essentially a loss for the the manufacturer - you're essentially betting when what you made will fail. That's weighed against the cost of making more durable components and the cost that a customer would not buy your product in the first place.

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.

[MeanMF]

Because of DRM issues they stopped doing that a while ago. Now they make an effort to return your repaired box to you. If it's broken beyond repair, only then do you get a refurb.

What if you already paid for the MS warranty?

[pozitron969]

Is there any information about customers who have purchased an extended warranty from MS? (as I did after a RRoD prompted a replacement, and my 1 year retroactive warranty was about to expire) Any guesses as if that part of the "repair costs" that they indicated would be refundable?

Re:I'd like a 360

[aichpvee]

Of course you're assuming that they actually have good consoles. Given that just about everyone I meet with a 360 is on at least their third I'm not so sure that they're even capable of producing enough "good" ones for everyone who already owns one. Leave it to microsoft to bring windows-quality to hardware.

Re:Bravo Microsoft

[IrquiM]

Every thing in Norway does, and lots of other countries in Europe too... :)

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 :) But at least it covers our asses :)

Question

[Guppy06]

I've recently had problems with the USB ports on my PS3, but Sony won't touch it for free since I no longer have my receipt (nevermind that it's impossible for the warranty to have expired by now; I guess the policy saves them some money). So with Microsoft retroactively extending the warranty like this, what happens to those people who voided their warranty, thinking that it was expired?