Why Microsoft Will Not Issue A Recall or Explanation: Because either way they go in that sense, they are effectively admitting: "We f**ked up". No matter how you look at it, thats how it is. Extending a warranty makes them look good. Product Recall... Well, look at Chinese Toothpaste. Bad for PR. Very Bad. Thats why you will not see a Public Explanation nor a Recall.

@ Quiet

30% to 40% rates of catostraphic failure within the first 1.5 years of release are not usual, normal, or professional. I say 30% to 40% because that is what the reporting thus far has revealed. We can only look to this reporting because Microsoft seems too scared to reveal the actual figures. That said, the Billion dollar warranty allocation combined with Microsoft's statements regarding the planned allocation of those funds almost guarantees that Microsoft expects a failure rate of at least 30%.

30% is a truly stunning and nearly unprecedented rate of catostraphic failure for any name brand product. It's true that many products suffer from problems, bugs, issues, or defects. Most of these issues don't leave the product completely unusable. The 360s defect always results in Catastrophic Failure. By Microsoft's own admission, this failure can cause so much damage as to make the unit not worth fixing.

You also make a number of entirely groundless assumptions. You suggest it's just a matter of tight tolerances and that there are multiple causes for the failures. The evidence from those who've torn down over-heated systems sharply contradicts your opinions. But really, we can only guess as to the actual cause of the over-heating. Microsoft refuses to discuss the cause(s) of failure, the rate of failure, or the likelihood of failure in any given grouping of systems.

Microsoft has little credibility on this issue. Microsoft's top management told bald faced lies regarding the failure rate as recently as this past month. Until this past week, Microsoft's management continued to say that the 360 failure rate was within the 3% to 5% industry standard. Quite obviously, this was not accurate then or now. They knew this statement was a lie when they said it, yet they continued to tell this tale.

All said, Microsoft can only be credited with a Single professional and responsible action during this entire debacle. That action of course is the extension of the 360 warranty.

But for Microsoft to be truly responsible and professional, they will need to go on the record as to the exact reason and cause of the failures, the lot numbers most likely to fail, the lot numbers which have been redesigned, and the likelihood of failure for those systems which still suffer the defect.

If Microsoft opened up regarding those issues, perhaps some of us would change our opinion regarding the calls for a general recall. But Microsoft's refusal to clear this air leads us to to believe the worst. This "worst" is that every single 360 is defective. That every single 360 will eventually fail because of this problem. And that Microsoft is only holding back on a recall because it would cost them more money than a Warranty extension. This because some proportion of 360's are so rarely used that they are not likely to fail within the 3 year period. By not fixing those systems, Microsoft will save money.

@ Zippy

The industry has been and likely will be again friendly with consumers. The thing is that right now the strength of the notion of propriety and physical media.

Here's the solution to the problem: all of the systems have a hard drive these days, so give them all rewritable media drives and let consumers take a game disc, install it on the machine (therefore making it executable without using the media) and also allow them to use the machine to burn backup copies. Hell, just let people download the games from these omnipresent online services and then burn 'em to discs.

@ Zippy

The "industry" needs to let us make legitimate copies of our legally purchased games and it needs to allow those games to play on their consoles. Fair use is a legitimate consumer concern.

Well, I don't know how I feel about this or how to explain to people that I have never, ever had a problem with my 360. I guess those of us unaffected should start posting to show there are indeed plenty of working 360's. My first console was a launch console, which worked perfectly and April 29, 2007 it was traded in for an Xbox 360 Elite which hasn't even froze in a game. No problems to report here.

How does a three year warranty not cover it? The 3 red lights are from the gpu losing its connections to the circuit board due to overheating (as far as I have been told and read). The new 65 nanometer chips will be cooler, and there also have been changes inside since launch to help fix the problem. (Check out Llama's pics of the original and Elite taken apart) If a hardware problem doesn't show up in three years than I would think its a safe bet that it might be ok. The warranty is an unprecedented attempt to go above and beyond what they have to do, and I think everyone will be safe with that.

@ Timmay!

Considering what you've said I still don't see anything to warrant a recall. The quote is from someone editorializing and admitting assumptions.

“absent a definitive statement from Microsoft about precisely when it identified this design flaw and rectified it, it’s reasonable to assume that there are still thousands of Xbox 360s in stores with this design flaw”

MS has claimed that there are general problems that lead to the three red ring fault. There's no claim of a particular "design flaw," a smoking gun if you will, that would warrant a recall, neither has a third party found that flaw to support a class action lawsuit.

However you slice it all of the evidence is anecdotal. Hardware is always going to eventually fail. The longevity of the parts is, I would imagine, based on estimated average usage. Is it possible that MS greatly underestimated the amount that XBox 360's would be used? Probably. Is it possible that they made faulty assumptions about how people would power the XBox 360s? Probably. I imagine that they have a disclaimer somewhere that says to plug the thing directly into the wall - as do most electronic devices.

I'm guessing that when you look at it the units that are seeing the most problems belong to people who keep them on nearly non-stop and also have them plugged into power chords of questionable quality. Considering the expanded functionality of the XBox 360 MS should have assumed that the machines would remain powered on far longer then any other console to date and they should also have designed hardware based on the lowest common denominator as far as third party electronics equipment is concerned. Does this mean that they need to recall the systems? No, because there is no fatal fault. What are they going to fix?

Extending the warranty is, basically, saying that they produced a system that doesn't have the longevity it was intended to have because of a variety of reasons. Fine. It's a good-faith step that they took because everyone realized that they dropped the ball somewhere along the line.

If there's a repeatable, verifiable hardware fault that MS has refused to repair - and I'm not talking a general "it be broken!" - then it's the right and the duty of consumers to launch a class-action lawsuit. Otherwise I would rather see MS's money going back into the industry in the form of new games, new peripherals and new hardware then into the pockets of lawyers and PR drones as they defend against lawsuits already doomed to failure.

what happens after that 3 years? People might desire a system that will last longer than that. If they did a recall and fixed the problem the life of the system would be greatly increased.

I know I'm probably one of hundreds (if not thousands) who are holding off buying an Xbox 360 until there's more definitive proof that the unit I buy today has had what ever underlying issues exist addressed.

Honestly, of the 3 "next-gen" consoles, the 360 is probably the one I am willing to buy first. But, there's too big a question mark about product quality for me to buy one right now.

@Tom (and not Terrible Tom):

It's right there in the article:

"absent a definitive statement from Microsoft about precisely when it identified this design flaw and rectified it, it’s reasonable to assume that there are still thousands of Xbox 360s in stores with this design flaw"

If ANY manufactured product is found to be widely defective, even if it's not a "life or death" matter, the product should be recalled. Keeping a known defective product on store shelves is bad business, and could lead to another class action lawsuit against MS AND any store that would still sell it.

No way will they do a recall. The bad publicity would absolutely drive customers (potentially new and existing) back to Sony. I do believe though the industry needs to set better standards for both the hardware and software. I should not have to patch a game on the first day of purchase. I will say though I have never had any of my video game hardware fail or break and this includes products from all three companies.

I just got mine in March (Guitar Hero 2 was the tipping point) and it's fine so far, but Rock Band and Assassin's Creed will give it a workout this holiday season. :P

What really pisses me off is that I bought a 3 year extended warranty from Future Shop when I bought it. I'm not mad that I bought it because it will save me a huge hassle if it does break, although the MS warranty extension kind of hurts it a bit. What I'm mad about is that I couldn't justify buying this console WITHOUT the warranty because it's probably going to break after my (old) warranty expires and I would've had to pay MORE than the store warranty cost me to send it back to MS. At least this way, I can walk into the store and they'll give me a new one, no questions asked.

That's a great read, and it is just what M$ should do, but won't. It took them decades to admit that security is a concern in Windows, they'll admit a problem with the 360 when the 720s start breaking down.