Problematic Xbox 360s repaired free

Id like to see Sony offer this kind of support. Bastards....

Hah. So, everyone that defended MS by saying people were just overreacting to a normal number of defects...

How's that crow taste?

(gotta get my jabs in while I can :) )

HAHA!! Yeah that's right Microsoft. This is great news for everybody that got e defective 360!! Looks to me like Microsoft does indeed care for the customers.
I doubt Sony would do this if they end up having the same problems.

Any ideas on what changed after Jan 1 2006? Did they make some changes to the hardware that would decrease the "bugginess" or is this just an arbitrary date they picked to make it appear like they are doing the right thing? If they didn't actually fix the problem and units need repair that were manufactured on Jan 2, they should probably fix those as well, having admitted the units had problems. If they did fix the problem, I would be curious to know what was fixed. Any ideas?

Just got off the phone with a rep at 1-800-4MYXBOX. I had one of those launch 360's that died after playing Dead Rising. I sent it in late August, got a refurbished one back (also built before 2006) a few weeks ago after shelling out $96 for the repairs. The rep kept me on hold for a long time because she had to ask her supervisor about this whole refund deal, apparently I was the first to contact this call center requesting the refund. She took all the info and told me that they don't issue the refund. She made a note that is sent to Microsoft and they are supposed to contact me through a letter to let me know if I am eligible. I was told they have no idea what the time-frame for the receipt of the letter or the possible refund should be. So, basically, I didn't get sh*t yet. Maybe the refund is coming, but I'm not holding my breath.

So how do we find out when our 360's were made?

Microsoft is saying, yeah, the initial batch is acting like the initial batch, so we are gonna care for OUR customers. Its good PR, unless you believed the crap that some news networks (with suspious ties to Sony) said about every Xbox 360 burning peoples houses down.
BTW ---> I HAVE ONE OF THE FIRST 360's, NO PROBLEMS!

I was just going to post, MS are going to get slated for this, they admit there we higher than expected issues, and offer a refund and people will still find fault.
I'm happy i got xbox36o in 2005, and pissed i have to wait to 2007 for the marginally improved PS3, hats of to MS for bringing us nextgen technology when we all wanted it, and for admitting that they struggled to do it at first.

MS taking care of customer unlike Sony who championed in the denial tactics.

Let me clarify #5. You get an automatic refund, if your box was made before July 06.

I am getting the refund. I got a launch box from ebgames. It slowly died over a number of months, first it had artifacts or tears in the animation or graphics if you will, then it started freezing, then after rebooting it got a black and green checker board, then white dotted lines with a crunching noise with a frozen screen, then finally black screen at boot up. I called this evening and found out:

1) that I qualified for the refund, my customer service new what to say
2) she told me that the refunds to eligible customers was to be automatic so there actually was no need to call
3) that the refund was to take 4 to 6 weeks but call again after 7 weeks if I didn't get it
4) the box that they sent to replace it with was dated as manufactured 3/5/06

This is good news, I had to pay to get mine repaired after it died at 7 months old, played for about 10 hours a week. Total nonsense. With MS's admission to faulty units, I feel much better now, as I took great care of that thing (set-up horizontal, well-ventilated, never moved... even had it's own shelf!) and it was replaced with a different model, manufactured in January. No problems so far.

Some of you guys are slobbering on MS' jock a little bit hard though (yeah, you know you are, don't deny it), defending and praising them for something they now seemed to know about and have only now admitted to - I'm glad too, but really, fanboys, what does this have to do with SONY other than you apparently hate Sony, and you have spied an opportunity to take a dig at them?

"Networks' "suspious" ties?" 'Paranoid fanboy' often enough?

Kitten, I HOPE YOURS KEEPZ WORKING CAPS-LOCK STYLE

Sony drops the price of the PS3 in Japan only ... so far anyways ...

Microsoft returns my $95 repair fee, and gives me a free warranty until Aug. 21, 2007, one year from the date of my repair.

Umm, someone wins ... someone SO wins. Guess who?

[Waits patiently for other shoe to drop]-then- "Woops,sorry,we forgot to mention that the customer will be responsible for a nominal shipping fee of $296.29 plus return postage via Cape of Good Hope." Just kidding! har har.

Refunds issued automatically.

MS captures serial numbers/ mfg dates from all consoles repaired or replaced, and will be sending refund checks automatically- to be received in the next 4-6 weeks.

Glad to hear MS is taking care of shit.

I bought my 360 at launch, and have played quite a bit with it -- moderate/heavy usage. No problems, but it is nice to know that if something does go wrong, they've got me covered.

They did wait 9 months to do this though...

Hundo

They Don't come with a 1 year warranty? WTF?

I just tried this and it totally worked!

My 360 is getting paid on MS dime to be packaged, shipped, and speedily repaired within the next week. I'm quite shocked and quite happy that I didn't call about this a week ago!

If you haven't bought a 360 yet please do so. They've earned my brand loyalty for quite some time with this move.

I too called and got mine taken care of today, the person i was talking to, was understanding that i wouldnt want to put down another 130 on the system and was like "Let me talk to the supervisor and see what we can do to get the price down" 20 mins later he came back and told me tht they were extending the 2005 machines (listed on the back of the machine) warrenty to a year, so it was covered. So i get it fixed for free, my box should be here monday.

My launch system has been running great, and it's used all the time. If I'm not playing games on it, I'm watching DVDs on it or streaming music through it.

But it's cool that MS is extending their warranty. It's a good move and shows that they do keep track of these things, and respond accordingly when the data shows that they have a problem.

ZeroCorpse, shut your hole.
"You see, children, you have to learn to take care of your nice things. If you read the manual, follow the rules, and treat it with care, your Xbox 360 could last as long as my Atari 2600 or Odyssey2, which are both working fine and looking good to this day..."
"So just shut up. Some of you might have had faulty consoles, but I'm betting at least half of you are Sony shills spreading lies and rumors."
Ring a bell? Let me jog your memory.
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2006/08/20/x360f-poll-insert-game-killed-my-360/
Post #19

How 'bout dem apples? Next time you might want to exercise a little but I'm relishing the fact that I can throw this in your friggin face, you twit.

great news, unfortunetly my warrenty is up come nov then. 1 year since launch. so that means only a couple months left on the warrenty.

But then that means I would have 1 year, which is nice because every product comes with one year and I dont know why for some reason microsoft is only 90 days?

This is interesting. Fanboys will be denying the problem but at the same time giving props to MS for recognizing it. Same with DS Lite hinge cracks, as I recall. I JUST LOVE HOW FANBOYS WORK!

I got a launch 360 from Sam's Club and it worked beautifully for 4 months and then started locking up on games and also playing DVD's. I called up Microsoft and told them it was locking and they sent me the packaging and asked me to send my 360 in. Five days later I had a new 360 since they told me that it would be faster to give me a new one than repair mine and send me mine back. I made no warantee claim, it was the easiest thing I've ever done. I doubt Sony did that for any PS2's...

They have been repairing the 2005 built consoles for free for a while now. My 360 died soon after I got Dead Rising. It was long out of the 90 day warranty. I called just to see if they would repair it. They did, for free, no hassle. I got my box in 2 days and shipped it back, console was back in about 10 days. Yeah, it had a problem, but microsoft IS fixing it, AND it was pretty hassle free.

Poor ms trys to give info ,to bad its just them saying
yes we admit we sold you crap.Expect the same from that
crap upscale hddvd player.PS3 owns!

This is a good policy on their part.

It takes a good deal of time to get meaningful data back. In the automotive industry, defects that have the potential to kill people typically take at least three years to spur a recall for free repair or correction.

The changes to the actual machine are likely subtle. The bulk of the difference is probably in refinement of the production line and inspection process. It's nearly impossible to do this without actually running the production line for real and harder still when a tight schedule means all of the parts become available only briefly before production starts, even more so when the product is seeking to push the cutting edge at its price point.

It could be worse. The Apple III launch was legendary for the number of machines that were plain DOA out of the box. Or when Commodore knowingly shipped some disk drives missing major parts to make their Xmas numbers and confident nobody would care if they had to wait a couple of months to exchange their purchase for a working unit. Or the early Atari Jaguars that couldn't play Doom without a severe visual bug. (I had one of those.) The most anticipated early release for the machine and it wouldn't play.

So, now that the numbers are in and can be judged, MS has done the right thing. A minor expense compared to the value in good will.

For the record, two of my friends who own a 360 take VERY good "care" of their "toys". Both bust. However Microsoft replaced both within a few weeks.

I think what M$ is doing is very good, it shows some responsibility. What is concerning is that they maybe should have taken some more time to finish the product before pushing it out the door.

But I digress. In the end, this is making me feel more comfortable about getting a360.

Goblemonster, good call. ZeroCorpse's comments were uncalled for. I read the manual, I did all of the recommended things, I even bought one of those laptop coolers to pull extra heat off the machine, and it still died on me. People that preach like that without knowing anything about the situation annoy the hell out of me.

MSFT's announcement is great news for me, not only will I be getting a refund, but also the refurb machine they sent me as a replacement was manufactured before Jan 1, so it's covered too.

@Dark -> "So how do we find out when our 360's were made?"

Ummm - look on the back, where the manufacturing date is, perhaps? That would be a good place to start.

Also realize, of course, that not every 360 is going to break or need repair, either. You'll notice that there is STILL not a comment on how MANY consoles actually had issues. It's entirely possible that the acceptable defect rate was 2 - 3% (which, tough as that sounds, is probably about right) and there were actually 5 - 6% defects.

In the grand scheme of things, it's still not that many consoles. However, in this age of blogging and the internet, it's a heck of a lot easier to scream to the world about how something broke - instead of just painting your car bright yellow and calling it a lemon, hoping for someone to notice. (Don't laugh at the last - I've seen that happen in the past when auto manufacturers really didn't care one way or the other.)

Unbelieveable how many people are praising Microsoft for "taking care of their customers." Let me tell you all something for your own good: They aren't doing this to be good people, they are doing it to avoid a lawsuit and the bad PR that comes with it. They pushed the 360 out the door too early with a poor hardware design and QA plan and the initial run was bad. Rather than talk about how that should never have happened and how they only now acknowledged the problem (almost a year later), people are prising them (and bashing other companies for no relevant reason) for "taking care of their customers." Anyone remember when Sony started offer free out-of-warranty repairs for PS2 disc read issues? You know why they did that? Because a lawsuit was filed and they offered that as part of a settlement. Microsoft isn't stupid, they know that if they take care of this now, they can avoid a lawsuit (which would almost certainly be won and would come with a lot of press) and look like the good guys when in fact, many people paid for a faulty $400 device and then got jerked around by them until now. For the record too, I own a 360 (purchased recently, but still replaced twice now, ask someone about what it's like to get your Live Arcade games back when you have multiple profiles) and when it works, I love the system to death. But anyone who takes an objective, brand agnostic look at this will see that Microsoft isn't doing this for your benefit, they are doing it for their's. If there was no threat they would get sued over it, this would never have happened. And no, Sony would have been no different, neither would have anyone else. Companies exist first and foremost to make money, not to please their customers at any cost.

My launch 360 decided to crap out on me Monday night.... I was this --->

I'm glad Microsoft is taking care of it. Not many companies would do this...even though they know they may take a PR hit for admitting something was wrong.
BTW, I bought my 360 on launch day at Costco. Costco is great. My friend bought his on launch day from Costco as well and it died a couple of months ago. He just took it back to Costco and they swapped it out for him. No need to call Microsoft. Why I love Costco. No need for any kind of extra warranty with them.

Nice, but I wish MS announced this a month or two ago when my 360 broke. I sold all my games and accessories after they told me it would be $130 plus S&H to get fixed.

:/

So what happens if you've already bought the extended warranty, do you get it extended another 9 months? (1 year - 90 days)

MS is a business and we shouldn't expect them to do anything but act as a business.
However, this isn't inherently bad. MS Xbox division isn't playing for stock prices,
they're not going to layoff half their employees to raise a their stock a quater point.
There in it for market share, they're in it to compete against Sony(aka top dog).
I am not convinced that the 360 would of sold any better if it had launched spring 06,
in fact it may of proved a fatal mistake if they had. With what they did they had a product
availible for the holidays. They had a Q1 lineup of games coming after the new year.
And most important, they have real world experience to see how the machines will hold up and
what problems may show up. All the beta testing in the world isn't gaurenteed to find
every last hardware or software bug. But this doesn't excuse it either. These problems,
one way or another need to be addressed for continued sale over the life span of the product
(probably looking at 5-7years). What ultimately matters is the companys response to the issues.
At first it was denial. As was mentioned automakers usually wait years before the need grows.
This isn't necessarily out of contempt for the costumer or a futile hope that it will just
dissapear if it's ignored (which can happen as production gets ramped up, issues of quality
with no apparent cause can dissapear as apparent nonrelated items get streamlined or ramped up to the
intended rates of production the machines are intended for. This actually MAY of been what happened given
the mear two to three month timespan of production we're talking of here). It is concievable
that a company will not acnoledge a problem until they:
1. understand what the problem really is and it's effects on performance
2. know the frequency of the problem
3. know how to fix it
4. can afford to fix it/can't afford NOT to fix it(cynical)
From the launch I have scene the initial runs as mearly a beta run under real world conditions.
Buy at your own risk. I take this stance on most new pieces of hardware and software but there is
a definate difference when it comes to game consoles. With automobiles and cd burners, the company
doesn't expect, or want, you to keep the same thing for ten years. They want you to buy the newer
versions as they come out at their price tags for new hardware. The cynic view is that they WANT
your stuff to break so you will buy new ones. Another view is that they're new models releasing
every year or less that any improvments can just be attributed to the newer lines as they're released.
This is where the difference comes into play for game consoles. It's one piece of hardware that is
expected to last the consumer until the hardware becomes profitable, at least, then support is limited(for the cynic).
MS doesn't WANT people buying multiple xbox 360s. For every replacment 360 they sell they are mearly
losing MORE money since you won't be REBUYING any games(except maybe arcade games:D, but that's besides the point).
They want new adopters to buy and then buy games for their systems.

So where's the brass ring. MS WILL address issues with the 360 as long as they know what is causing it because
replacment 360s lose them over twice the amount of just selling them. However, they will not ADMIT there are
problems until these problems are solved and long in the past as to have as little impact on new adopters as
possible. It's the PR game at work that gave us the denials as not to effect sales or returns. In the long run
the launch consoles are a ever smaller portion of the production run and will ultimately dissapear in the fog
of the ever more 360s being built. Xbox is a cosole maker now fellas. Lets see how they keep they're boots this
holiday season and into Q1 07.

My XBox was made in February of 2006 and bought in March, it kicked the bucket from Dead Rising and/or Chromehounds. While it was clearly past 90 days, the guy at 1-800-4my-xbox claimed my warranty was good until mid October (which would make it 180 days) and fixed it free, including shipping costs both ways.

Which is great for me, but means that the problems we're talking about were obviously not fixed by Jan 1, 2006.

How dare you post that picture, it gives little fanboys nightmares.

this is my ms costomer service story.
http://forums.xbox.com/6949556/ShowPost.aspx

There IS a manufacturing defect (hopefully not a design flaw) with an unacceptable number of first run consoles. I lost mine last night to the 3 rings (code 0102). It was manufactured on 11/22/05 and purchased, luckily at Costco's, on 12/10/05. I always treated it with kid gloves on - plenty of ventilation, never moved or even touched while playing.

I am a Quality Assurance Specialist for the D.O.D. (and have been for the past 22 years). I routinely inspect and purchase material (from screws and washers to jet engines) manufactured to strict Military Specifications under ISO9000 Quality Procedures. I've never seen ANYTHING even close to this failure rate. Even a 95% release quality that MS first claimed is WAY unacceptable. I would LOVE to see the true failure analysis data. Cause, Corrective Action and most importantly PREVENTATIVE action. It's a good thing none of our young men and women's lives depend on this thing!

I will be getting a new console today, Cosco's has a great return policy. I'm just hoping I can recover my saved games and gamertag info. My daughter and I have had too much fun with the 360 to give up after one! And I guess as long as Costco's will swap out the duds, I'll find one that is made after the manufacturing processes are corrected.

I have just got an XBOX60 and i must say it rocks,
i am now a 36 year old and started off with a ZX80 (bet many of you dont know what that is) then i progressed to the PC (after ZX80,ZX81,SPECTRUM,C64,C128,ATARI 1040 STFM,AMIGA) i thought the pc graphics where awesome and have a very good pc, but i must say i am very impressed with the graphical quality of the XBOX 360 i was told about it before by many but thought how can it better than a high end pc, boy how i was wrong it is ********** brillient, much better than a high end pc and much smaller.

Anyway i heard that the problem with the early XBOX 360 was that when they installed the heatsinks on the GPU of the XBOX360 that some of the workers had neglected to remove the film (allegedly) (a pice ? of plastic to stop thermel pasted getting ruined) on the bottem of the heatsink so that when used for a long time the GPU would overheat as it would not be efficiently coled

but thats why they have allowed refund (allegedly)(i think),

as for PS3 what PS3 I See no PS3 (you need a small bank to buy one when they come out and i heard in three different flavours and blu_ray smells like betamax to me i would not buy one now out of principle as they are making u wait in UK till march 2007 when we are one of the biggist markets for there games i think they are making a big mistake as a lot of people feal the same way (around my age anway as most of the time it's parents who buy consols to keep there kids happy and dont know what there buying

BLU_RAY SMELLS LIKE BETAMAX AND PS3 WITH IT
(Comming soon my **** just like interactive on cable in London Glade i changed to sky

Am I the only one who thinks of this in the simplest possible way...i.e I pay upwards of $500 for the premium, get home plug in play a couple months...360 breaks(network jack doesn't respond)I call 360 CS they MUST REPAIR FAULTY 360!! in the interest of fairness and my continued support....END OF STORY!

A BIG shame to microsoft xbox360 to sell and expensive non reliable console. For the hassle they have provided they should provide a free game of our choice...to all affected owners. My 360 just died on me with three lights..it used to be 2 lights on and off. In fact i had to provide an industrial strength fan in my room just to cool of this console. It was so strong that i was gettin hypothermia just to stop it from gettin the red light. Well now i wont need it no more cuz the console totally died out on me already. I am starting the process of gettin it fixed will keep u all posted of their reliability to fix this matter.

I already got my repair order number to fix my console. Funny how the cust reps deny that xbox made a bunch of messed up consoles. However they do confirm that the 2005 consoles have an extended warranty up to jan 2007. They also are selling $30.00 for a 1 year extended warranty.