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The famous “red ring of light” that lets Xbox 360 owners know that their consoles have broken is no more, VideoGamer.com can reveal.
With the new Xbox 360 250GB model, announced this morning during Microsoft’s E310 press conference, error codes will be represented by a red centre light on the “cap touch” power button.
The red ring of death has been a high profile problem for Microsoft and its Xbox 360, and has cost the company billions in repair and shipping costs. Unofficial reports suggests the launch versions of the console have a failure rate of over 50 per cent.
Microsoft is confident, however, that such cases will be extremely rare with the new Xbox 360 250GB model.
“First off, that’s behind us at this point,” Albert Penello, director of product management and planning at Xbox, told VideoGamer.com during an “unboxing” of the console at the J W Marriott Los Angeles hotel following Microsoft’s E310 press conference.
“I’m not really worried about it. Obviously it’s something all of us in this group wish hadn’t happened. Most of you guys know with the older consoles it was an issue, but for the last couple of years, essentially the problem has gone away.
“This console is just an evolution of the work that we’ve been doing. The box that you have right now, the box that you’ve just bought, is one of the best boxes we’ve ever built. This box is an evolution of that inside.
“The first thing I want to tell people is, it’s not going to be a problem. If something does go wrong, because consumer electronics, no matter how good you are, unfortunately there will be one guy who might have a problem, there will be an error message on the front. It won’t be three red rings. There will just be an error code. The centre light turns red. But no-one will see it!”
So there you have it. The new Xbox 360 250GB marks the end of the red ring of death. A moment’s silence, please.
You can expect more from Microsoft at E310 right here on VideoGamer.com.
