Xbox 360’s ‘Red Ring Of Death’ true cause roasted by fans
Topics: Tech, Xbox, Retro Gaming, Microsoft
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft
Topics: Tech, Xbox, Retro Gaming, Microsoft
The dreaded “Red Ring of Death” was the nightmare scenario for Xbox 360 gamers in the mid-2000s that still sends shivers down my spine to this very day.
When you saw the three flashing red lights around the power button of the Xbox 360 console, instead of the healthy green lights, you knew you were in trouble.
The “Red Ring of Death” was mostly caused by a major hardware or power supply failure which resulted in an influx of consoles being sent to Microsoft for repair, which no doubt cost the company a ton of money.
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An article from our own GAMINGbible was shared on Reddit featuring the words of Xbox’s head of hardware between 1999 and 2014. Todd Holmdahl claimed that the “Red Ring of Death” was caused by gamers frequently turning the console on and off (yes, really).
“All these people loved playing video games, so they would turn this thing on and then off, and when it would turn on and off, you get all sorts of stresses,” he said.
However, this won't surprise you to know that this wasn't entirely the truth and we gamers were rightly not to blame.
Reddit user Additional-Gas-45 explained that in a documentary detailing the “Red Ring of Death”, allegedly, one out of two Xbox 360 consoles did not pass testing before its release in November 2005 and were consequently thrown on the scrap heap.
It was also claimed that Microsoft was so hellbent on releasing the Xbox 360 before Sony’s PlayStation 3, that the tech giant was delivering its new console to retailers, no matter the cost.
Some Reddit users mentioned that they were fortunate enough not to encounter the “Red Ring of Death” until many years after the launch of the Xbox 360.
At least by that point, as long as saved data wasn't lost, second-hand Xbox 360 consoles could be purchased on the cheap, which was a bonus.
While console faults can happen at any point no matter the generation, hopefully, we won't see anything to the large scale of the “Red Ring of Death” ever again.