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http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/petermooreletter.htm

Open Letter From Peter Moore

To our Xbox Community:

You've spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we've not been doing a good enough job.

Some of you have expressed frustration with the customer experiences you have had with Xbox 360; frustration with having to return your console for service after receiving the general hardware error message on the console.

The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles have had a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out. But when anyone questions the reliability of our product, or our commitment to our customers, it's something I take very seriously.

We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console.

We are also implementing some important policy changes intended to keep you in the game, worry-free.

As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.

If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.

This will take a few days to roll out globally, and I appreciate your continued patience as we launch this program. I've posted an FAQ that should address some additional questions, and we'll update it over the next few days.

I want to thank you, on behalf of all us at Microsoft, for your loyalty.

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As a 360 owner this is a huge, expensive (estimated at 1 billion) step that was very responsibile of ms to do. Luckily I haven't had any issues yet, and hopefully i dont , but now i know i'm covered.

Man, I have had 3 counsoles already, all have had the same problem. I just got a brand new one a couple weeks ago, and its starting to freeze every game after about a half and hour of PT. When my first one started to act up with the lights, they charged me 100 bucks, and I spent HOURS on the phone with them arguing because regardless of warrenty, they stated that it was a hardware malfunction, and even ADMITTED on the phone that they were haveing numerous problems with them, but still were charging me. They were very rude and ignorant also. I got my money back, but what about all the time I had to argue with them and the frustration and the weeks I went without a system I paid good money for?...nothing

I loved the original Xbox and this one gameplay wise and visuals are out of this world, but this company has lost a customer in me. I will never buy another system gaming counsil from MS again.

This is amazing. I bought mine about a year and a half ago, and recently in the last couple of months, 3 of my friends who bought the same time I did started having their 360's drop like flies with the three light errors. They all had extended warrenty's that they purchased, I didn't purchase the extended warrenty so I started to get a little worried, but this puts my mind at ease in case mine decides to blow.

I feel that shadez, i am in the same boat, i haven't had issue with mine yet, but the warrant was going to be running out in june so I was getting scared, but this makes everything cool in case it does.

I had a friend who had the "Ring of fire" as some call it. He took the easy way out, he took it to a game shop along with some of the games he had and traded them in towards a PS3.

Three year warranty... It's good that Microsoft is realizing there were some serious design flaws with their system. It looks like PS3's launch wasn't as bad as people said. At least the system hasn't had the problems (or any I've heard of) yet.

Yeah, this is costing Microsoft $1 billion for the repairs. Doesn't sound very good.

I just had to send mine in yesterday... Called up, they said I had to pay the $140 for the repair. I told them I'd think about it, so I took things in my own hand and took it apart to see if I could go anything. BTW, if you take it apart, it voids the warranty for your system. The X-Clamps looked like they were holding up, and the fan was ultra cool, so nothing wrong though. No thermal paste either... So there was nothing I could do.

I gave them 2-3 days later, and they told me about the extended warranty. So hopefully I'll get lucky and they'll look past it, they should have my earlier call in their system log to see. Lots of breakdowns recently for the first gen systems, the lady at the packing place told me that the 360's were coming in "like hotcakes."

Not good for M-Soft.

is there any way to tell what generation your 360 is?

i got mine about a year ago, but didn't get it in a store (long complicated story)

haven't had any problems yet, (knock on wood)

Well, the earlier ones you can tell by your fabrication date on the back, by the serial number. Mine was made in Sept. of 2005, before the system even came out. I don't know when they updated the hardware for the newer models (or IF they did)