Things That Suck: Red Lights

Things That Suck: Red Lights

09.12.10

Due to events that transpired last Friday I requested to write the Things That Suck blog this week.

Every Thursday DYHP talks about something that's overated, useless, or just plain sucks. This week I discuss red lights. No, I'm not talking about the traffic kind, (even though one of those did cost me three hundred dollars, maybe that's another blog) I'm talking about the red light that rears it's ugly head in the front of your Xbox. Yes, that red light, or specifically the "Red Ring of Death". Now imagine, if you will, you pass the Traget on your way to work and you realize, "Hey, I have enough time to run in there and get Rock Band 3". So now you've made your purchase and you've been waiting all day to get home and play it, but then things take an ugly turn. Your new game gets all the way to the "Start" screen and then just freezes. That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach saved for fear and the death of a loved one begins to show. You try again and again to restart the Xbox with no avail until finally, with sweaty palms, you unplug and plug the power cord. Before pressing the button you think, "It's not a Red Ring. This thing happens to other people not me, not me." However, God does not smile upon you this day as you soon realize your fate is sealed, and it comes in the form of a Red Ring. This happened to me last Friday as it has happened to countless people in the past. Two hours later, after I finished crying, I realized I needed to talk about this and I figured what better therapy than a blog.

Redring

Hello Fred, I've come to ruin your holiday and rape your soul.

But having all your hopes and dreams of gaming bliss ruined in an instant isn't the only reason "Red Rings of Death" suck...

The Xbox is by far my favorite of the next gen consoles but it does have a lot of problems and a plethora of ways for it to fail. The "Red Ring" itself is an indicator of four types of Xbox failure. One red light for hardware failure, two for overheating, three for general hardware failure, and four for AV cable error. On top of that it was reported that earlier models of the Xbox used to scratch game discs as they were being played. Xbox is famous for their rate of failure a scan be seen from this article, "Since its release on November 22, 2005, many articles have appeared in the media portraying the Xbox 360's failure rates, with the latest estimate by warranty provider SquareTrade to be 23.7%, and the highest estimate being 54.2% by a Game Informer survey. There has been legal action taken attempting to hold Microsoft responsible for the Xbox 360's failure rate and provide compensation for those affected." Some even speculate that Microsoft know about these problems before it's release but wanted to beat PS3 and Wii to market.

brokenxbox

This is another indicator of overheating

Aside from complete disregard for consumers shown by the company "Red Rings" also suck because of the mony they cost you. Recently Microsoft extended their one year warrenty to a new three year warrenty but I feel with the amount of "Red Rings" it should be a little longer than that. When I dropped off my Xbox at the UPS store the guy told me he sees about tow of these a week. If your warrenty has run out it costs one hundred and twenty dollars to fix (the same price as a refurbished Xbox in most stores) and takes at least two weeks for it to be shipped back to you. That would all be fine if the fix actually solved the problem but for some, like my friend Decky, the Xbox could "Red Ring" again shortly after it's return which means another one hundred and twenty dollars.

hungrychildren

Daddy says we can't eat because he needs another Xbox

Before I tell you the the greatest reason why the "Red Ring of Death" sucks I want to say that this is not an endorsement for another system over Xbox, I'm only talking about it because I have one and it happened to me. In fact, the PS3 has it's "Yellow Light of Death" (I'm assuming the Wii has something but no one's played it long enough to find out). Now onto the worst thing about the "Red Ring of Death", the knowledge that after everything I wrote about I would still purchase another Xbox after it happened. My Xbox thankfully was still under warranty but I was still prepared to buy a new one a few days after it happened. "Red Rings" suck because it proves that Bill Gates is all powerful and he has us under his control.

billgates