If you owned an Xbox 360 between 2005-2013 there was a very strong chance that one day after you pressed the big welcoming 'on' button, the Xbox didn't turn on at all.
Instead those green rings turned a menacing red and you thought to yourself 'here we go again', because more than likely, the Red Ring of Death haunted you multiple times throughout your teenage years.
The Red Ring of Death was the Bubonic Plague of the Xbox 360, The Fall of the Roman Empire. I imagine that somewhere in California is a landfill site filled with disregarded Xbox consoles hopelessly wrapped in towels.
Advert
Robbie Bach was the head of Xbox at the time and has a lot to be proud of for overseeing the development of a console that can arguably be considered as Microsoft's best.
However, The Red Ring of Death was a monumental mistake and one that cost the company a cool $1 billion.
TechInsider reported that in Bach's book "Xbox Revisited: A Gameplan for Corporate and Civic Renewal" (2007) a group of Xbox team leaders met in his basement to discuss a huge problem: widespread reports of dead Xbox 360 game consoles.
Advert
"At the end of a long, difficult conversation, we took a deep breath and decided to extend our warranty to three years and repair or replace every console affected," Bach wrote.
That last bit, about the warranty extension to three years and the promise to "repair or replace" Xbox 360 consoles is the part that cost the company $1 billion.
"It was the biggest decision I made in my 22 years at Microsoft, no question," Bach told TechInsider in an interview.
Advert
The Red Ring of Death is a problem that initially came about because with the 360, Microsoft had put 'style over substance', basically.
The original Xbox had been ugly as sin, that's no secret, it was not something you wanted people visiting your house to see.
Bach knew this. "It was 'our' ugly, but it was still not a gorgeous thing," he said.
Advert
So when it came to the 360 the team behind the console concentrated on designing something that would be pleasing to the eye first, and fitting all the guts inside the console was a secondary thought.
Writing on the situation Bach noted that "We started with design at the front of the process, and we said, 'This has to be designed with a designer's sensibility.' So the enclosure [the console's shell] work we did was done relatively early. Not locked in stone, but we have a shell under which we want to fit. So then the engineering team goes and puts things in the shell."
Obviously, once the console was finished Microsoft vigorously tested it to make sure the hardware was good and the box did not overheat but The Red Ring of Death was not something they came across.
Advert
However, several months after launch complaints started to trickle in, Bach told TechInsider.
"It's a three red lights thing, which unfortunately for us doesn't tell us anything. It doesn't tell you squat about why, but the hardware is saying to us 'I'm finished and I'm not going to start again.' It could've been almost anything."
Eventually Microsoft saw the scope of the problem and that's when Bach made the "$1 billion decision."
Writing in his book, Bach said "I was hugely disappointed and humbled by the entire episode, and that angst left a mark on me that exists today."
Incredibly, it wasn't until five years later in 2010 and the birth of the Xbox 360 "S" model that finally rectified the problem.
"It wasn't really until we shipped the next form factor of the product that the [Red Ring of Death problem] was completely gone," Bach told TI.
In retrospect, The Red Ring of Death could have easily been a very very expensive disaster for the company. However the huge success of the 360 meant it was an issue that could be overcome, and it was one that was very well doubt with by Bach.
Words by Matthew Cooper
Lead Image Credit: YouTube
Featured Image Credit: