Xbox 360 Red Lights - What is Microsoft Doing About It

So in the "real" world, if you put out a lousy product, the market tells you that by not buying it. So why is it that there are still so many XBox 360 red lights issues out there?

Well, my thinking goes something like this... the xBox 360 is not a lousy product. It is great product with a design flaw. To use an analogy with people, what's the first thing people do when they are accused of having a flaw, large or small? They deny it of course. Well, companies have "personalities just like people do. In Microsoft's case, their personality at the time the xBox 360 was being designed and built could best be described as arrogant. Too much success too soon does that to you.

So you can imagine what was going through everyone's heads during the design an launch of the xBox 360. Probably something like "We're Microsoft. We don't make mistakes. We make great products and we make a lot of money."

The xBox 3 Red Lights problem brought them back down to earth. It took a while, but the red Ring of Death became an undeniable reality for Microsoft and they've been forced, by their own customers, to take it seriously. It's not caused by misuse, abuse or neglect, It is caused by a design flaw, pure and simple.

In the case of the xBox three red lights problem, the design flaw is insufficient cooling. The xBox 360 is actually a very powerful computing platform. Most video game consoles have more computing power than their desktop PC cousins. Graphics is the reason, Those great graphics take incredible amounts of raw calculations. And anything that is working hard generates heat.

What Microsoft is doing with new xBox 360's is designing in a more efficient cooling system to dissipate that heat. The cooler the xBox 360 runs, the better it feels.

However, the vast majority of xBoxes out there still have the potential to suffer from the 3 red lights problem because they don't have the new design. That's why a small industry has sprung up around fixing the xBox 360 three red light problem. The Red Ring of Death do it yourself fix it guides. There's services that will fix it for you. And then of course there's Microsoft's $140 fix it plan (if you're out of warranty).

Personally, I like doing things myself. Popping open a computer and working on it is not something that scares me, as long as I have some sort of guide to tell me exactly what to do. There's a website out there that reviews the top 4 xBox 360 Three Red Light fix-it-yourself guides. Check it out. The guides are around $25-$30 dollars and the fix takes about an hour.