They cite the story of reader Zach, who says:

My Xbox red-ringed for the second time this weekend. Which is almost a relief after hearing how bad my disc drive was sounding, but not so much after hearing the new policy. I was told that Xbox no longer ships out a box to you and you must find a box to ship it out in. Yeah I guess its not a big deal, but I think it gives them another thing to hold over your head; "We are sorry, Sir, but you didn't back it well enough and it appears the damage was due to shipping, we cannot help you."

Sounds ominous. And, given these tough economic times, somewhat plausible, so there's a good chance you may have seen the story doing the rounds earlier today. But Microsoft claim otherwise, telling us:

Reports that Microsoft now requires consumers to find their own packaging for sending product to Xbox 360 customer support are inaccurate. Our policy allows customers to choose whether they would like Microsoft to ship them a box and shipping label or print an electronic label and ship their console using their own packaging in an effort to speed up the repair process.

Sounds like Zach may have got a dud customer service rep. Which, to be fair to him, wouldn't be the first time that happened when trying to contact their god-awful help line.

What about you guys? Have any of you been told to get your own damn box?

Microsoft Tells Broken Xbox Owners To Find Their Own Shipping Boxes [Consumerist]

While Microsoft pegged a low percentage rate of system failure in the early moments of the Xbox 360's launch, the numbers of customers suddenly experiencing the system failure continued to rise. A class action lawsuit was filed in California in late 2008, and earlier that same year Microsoft extended the Xbox 360's warranty.

Those days of hardware headaches are a thing of the past says Microsoft exec Aaron Greenberg. "We've improved that [repair] process," he told game Edge. It's very quick, and they may upgrade your system with the latest technology. So that works really well."

"What it comes down to is isolating and figuring out the issue," Greenberg added, "fixing the issue, and the more that we can fix the issue, and know it's fixed, then we're good going forward. We've put the worst behind us on this, but we know there are a few lagging systems, and so we want to take those and make it right."

Can Gamers Stop Worrying About Red Rings? [Edge Online via VG247] [Pic]

While the instances of Xbox 360 red rings have certainly dropped, I do still hear stories about the console's DVD player giving up the ghost. That's what happened to me in July last year when my last 360 died and that seems to be the case this time around. I was playing the end of LEGO Batman The Videogame when the game paused and a "dirty disc" error popped up on the screen. A few more runs at playing the game allowed me to get a few minutes in before the console crapped out on me again.

Just last month my brother had his Xbox 360's DVD drive die on him as well. He recently went out and purchased a replacement Xbox 360 Arcade.

For those keeping track I've now had a total of ten Xbox 360s die on me since the launch of the console. (That's counting debug units and retail consoles). Of those eight died with a Red Ring error and two died with perpetual dirty disc errors.

Robert Delaware, a Microsoft game tester employed by temp agency Excell Data, was let go on Wednesday and is expected to face civil charges from his former employer, according to an update from VentureBeat.

Delaware was the only source at Microsoft to be directly named in the original article. He was quoted by VentureBeat on two separate "red ring of death" scenarios, one that could be triggered by a reproduceable crash , citing NBA 2K6, and another related to dashboard update bugs with Capcom's Dead Rising.

The former game tester says he doesn't regret going on record about his experience with the Xbox 360. "If they want to come after me, bring it on,” Delaware said, in response to assumed impending civil charges.

As VentureBeat points out, it's likely that, in speaking to the press, Delaware violated his terms of employment with VMC, Microsoft and Excell Data and that his termination was legally justified.

Microsoft fires game test contractor who talked to VentureBeat [VentureBeat]

Venture Beat's Dean Takahashi talks to numerous on- and off-the-record sources close to the manufacturing of the Xbox 360, providing insight into how ill-conceived certain aspects of the first-to-launch console were. For example, VB writes that in August of 2005, just prior to launch, some 68% of consoles coming off the assembly line just didn't work.

It's a fascinating read, from the console's early engineering gaffes and compromises, to Microsoft's reluctant admission of defective hardware. Some of it may be familiar territory, but it's a comprehensive look at the console's history, if nothing else.

Xbox 360 defects: an inside history of Microsoft’s video game console woes [Venture Beat]

The online outlet cites Gartner research analyst Bryan Lewis who, at the Design Automation Conference, said that MS "wanted to avoid an ASIC vendor," opting to use a general purpose chip designed in-house. ASIC means application-specific integrated circuit, according to my sources that are Wikipedia. The EETimes writes that the decision saved money up front, but ultimately cost the company over $1 billion in warranty related costs.

According to the EETimes, the chip at the source of the problem has since been redesigned by ATI.

See? Boring. A more interesting theory is that Bill Gates lost a bet with Satan and that the Devil's hellish minions use the Xbox 360's ring of light as a passage into our world, burning them out in the process. We've opted not to contact Microsoft for comment on this matter.

The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall [EETimes - thanks, Kirk!]

My first instinct was to call b.s., on this, but then I don't know what the hell I am talking about, either in the realm of casemods or electrical engineering. And, clearly, there are holes in the top of the console where he's routed the cooling tubes. So it looks like he gave his 360 a cochlear implant. (Seriously, you ever seen an old geezer with one of those? Looks like Lobot from Star Wars.)

The guy who made this also laid a better heatsink on the power supply. Check the link for pics of that, and more. Now I'm wondering if I can get his phone number.

Watercooled Xbox 360 {Thanks to Michael Hurt]

The manufacturing test equipment had major gaps in test coverage and wasn't reliable or repeatable. Manufacturing processes at all levels of suppliers were immature and not in control. Initial end to end yields were in the mid 30%. Low yields always indicate serious design and manufacturing defects. Management chose to continue to ship anyways, and keep the lines running while trying to solve problems and bring the yields up. Whenever something failed and there was a question about whether the test result was false, they would remove that test, retest and ship, or see if the unit would boot a game and run briefly and then ship. 360 is too complex of a machine to get away with that.

Reasons for the failures vary, but the anonymous interviewee narrows it down to one main source - the GPU.

The main design flaw was the excessive heat on the GPU warping the mother board around it. This would stress the solder joints on the GPU and any bad joints would then fail in early life.

Inside Source Reveal the Truth About Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death" Failures [8Bit Joystick]

Every gamer's worst nightmare... the center fell out and had to be taped *cries due to lack of skill*

My Red-Ringed Xbox 360 Elite showed back up at my house when I was in Leipzig. The majestic black console was cloaked in bubble wrap, stuffed between two pads and placed in a box along with a letter of apology from Microsoft.

The letter apologized for the inconvenience of having to ship my console off to have it repaired and said they were going to give me a free month of Xbox Live Gold membership. Sure enough, there was a plastic card taped to the bag protecting the Elite good for one free month.

Of course I'd prefer that Microsoft get to the bottom of their RROD issues, but this certainly is a step in the right direction.

Rumor has it that a spike in Xbox 360 returns, both valid and not so much, have lead to an increase in the return time for repaired Xbox 360s.

I've heard that the turnaround time for Xbox 360 repairs has skyrocketed to as long as six weeks and if you do the math, that could mean that some loyal 360 fans may be console-less when the Halo 3 launches. Talk about bad juju.

But here's the problem for Microsoft. They have a lot of inventory of the older 90-nanometer machines. Many of these machines don't have the HDMI ports for sure. It has to sell these machines out before it starts selling the Falcon-based machines. That means that a lot of consumers are going to be buying machines that don't have the highest quality.

Sure Microsoft has been flooded with a slew of Xbox 360s returned after blinking the dreaded Red Ring of Death, but we hear that not all of them were due to overheating.

When the console seizes up and dies, three of the "circle of light's" quadrants blink red, but when the video cable pops out four of the quadrants blink. Apparently, a large number of consoles returned to Microsoft with the dreaded Red Ring of Death were perfectly fine and just the victim of a bit of red ring hysteria.

There have been so many returns, in fact, that we've been told Microsoft plans on disabling the four ring error code on future builds of the console. No word on whether they will remove the three-ring coding as well.

Of course, Croal has a number of reasons for suggesting this course of action, including that potentially "thousands of Xbox 360s [are] in stores with this design flaw" and that many gamers looking to play this year's hottest 360-bound titles—Rock Band, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mass Effect, et al.—are going to spawn a new batch of gamers who "jumped in" only to find out that the water is boiling. That kind of PR black eye could be very damaging, one would think, potentially more costly in the long run.

N'Gai explains in much greater detail than we are allowed at his own blog, one which makes for excellent reading and debate. Please go on.

Confession is Good For the Soul: Why Microsoft Must Be More Forthcoming About the Xbox 360's Flaws—Or Initiate a Recall [Level Up]

One Asian manufacturer that SmartHouse spoke to on Friday said "Microsoft have known of this problem for a long time. They are trying to blame component manufacturers but it was a combination of bad design and them (Microsoft) wanting everything cheap. This is what caused the problem along with them wanting to beat Sony to market. A lot of manufacturers were pushed to deliver components without much testing of the components working together inside the console".

Microsoft has said little about the causes of the hardware woes. It relies on two contract manufacturers to make the Xbox 360—Flextronics International (FLEX) and Celestica (CLS)—both of which make the finished product at plants in southern China. But Bach indicated the issue had nothing to do with the recent spate of tainted or defective Chinese imports.

I'm relieved to know the 360 in the living room isn't in danger of poisoning me any time soon, except perhaps with dangerous levels of cuteness from Viva Piñata.

Why The Xbox 360 Failed [SmartHouse]

The warranty, which gives all Xbox 360 owners a 3-year safety blanket guarding against the dreaded red ring of death, will cost Microsoft more than $1 billion, but Moore said it was about time they stepped up to the plate.

"It needs to be above and beyond because we haven't done what we need to do to take care of our consumers," Moore told me, adding that three years is quite a long time for a consumer electronic.

Moore said the timing of today's announcement, a mere two weekdays before Microsoft's E3 press conference and more than a year after they first addressed the red light issue, was due in part to the company needing to analyze data and figure out the potential cost to the company.

"You gather data... you determine what we have done isn't good enough," he said. "The number of returns we were getting with the three flashing red rings. When we got that data we took this rather unprecedented step."

Moore declined to give any specific numbers for the rate of returns for the Xbox 360, which have been placed at anywhere from 5 to 30 percent, and also didn't want to talk specifics about what changes to the console have been made and are yet to be made to ensure the problem doesn't continue.

"It was a number of problems," he said. "It's not just one systemic problem we are seeing that was causing these three red rings of light... We are always making changes (to the Xbox 360), as we see things we identify the issue, then we make changes to improve the console. And we will continue to make changes with the goal of making (the Xbox 360) a more reliable product."

I pointed out that while the warranty gives Xbox 360 owners a safety net, it doesn't really ensure they won't be inconvenienced with multiple repairs or returns, no matter the cost, but he said gamers shouldn't "have any issues walking into a store and buying an Xbox 360" today.

While this has become an increasingly public black eye for Microsoft, Moore said that consumer satisfaction remains quite high for the Xbox 360.

"You worry about (the backlash from the red light issue). I worry about that, but when we look at our consumers we are almost 90 percent customer satisfaction on the console. As hard as it is to read those letters that say they've had one, two, three break, they also always say 'Can you get my Xbox 360 back to me as soon as possible.'"
Microsoft Expands 360 Warranties [Kotaku]

Don't believe him? He's got audio proof of a phone call with an MS service rep who verifies his history of 360 troubles.

Despite these hardware setbacks, Lowe is still a fan, probably partially due to the company's efforts to compensate him for his inconvenience. Gotta say, if I were in his shoes, I'd be livid, demanding Peter Moore tattoo an apology to me on that left bicep.

Read the full story over at 1UP. Michael McWhertor

A Tale of 11 Broken Xbox 360s [1UP]

Xbox 360 owners who have returned their consoles suffering from the "red ring of death" are reporting that this new addition has been showing up in refurbished 360s over the past week. TeamXbox has a number of theories about the change and we hope that this addresses the unusually high reports of faulty hardware issues gamers are experiencing.

We're waiting to hear back from Microsoft reps on confirmation of the new hardware changes. Michael McWhertor

Xbox 360: Pictures of the New GPU Heatsink [TeamXbox, thanks EnigmaNemesis!]