Xbox’s former boss has dished the dirt on the Xbox 360’s infamous Red Ring of Death saga, and he’s finally confirmed something we were pretty certain of the whole time.
Thank you in advance to Pure Xbox's Ben Kerry for the original source!
Well, this feels like a weirdly apt time to talk about this, considering several ex-Xbox staff members have been stating that the Xbox brand is “dead” following Microsoft’s recent layoffs.
In a recent interview with The Game Business's Christopher Dring, former Xbox exec Peter Moore discussed how Microsoft handled the Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death fiasco, and the effects it had on Xbox’s longevity.
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Moore worked as Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Home and Entertainment from 2003 to 2007, so his tenure at the company took place during the immediate fallout from the Xbox 360’s disastrous release in 2005.
“That's where a lot of the money was, [...] the overnight FedEx, UPS and DHL or whatever was being used at that time,” Moore revealed.
“But the one thing I will always say is this was, for us, a defining moment. If we hadn't done what we did, I'm not sure the Xbox brand would be around today.”
If you’re too young to remember the Xbox 360’s launch, it might seem like Moore’s statement here is an exaggeration.
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However, it honestly might have been even worse than Moore’s comments imply. Depending on who you ask (by which I mean, if you take Microsoft’s statistics at face value), the original Xbox 360 had a failure rate of somewhere between 30 to 50%.
Personally, I went through two OG Xbox 360s myself when I was younger. The process for getting them fixed had become so streamlined by the time that my second one failed that I received a new 360 in the post roughly a week after I’d sent the original off for repairs.
Although Moore’s comments are certainly correct, as Xbox really would not be around today if they hadn’t been so proactive in repairing faulty 360 units, I can’t help but wonder how successful the Xbox One could have been if consumers hadn’t lost faith in the Xbox brand following the disaster that was the RROD debacle.