Microsoft is to take a record charge after deciding to extend the Xbox 360's warranty to three years.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Microsoft said it will take a charge of as much as $1.15 billion to extend Xbox 360 warranty coverage to three years. The company said it has been required to make an "unacceptable number" of repairs to the game machines since they went on sale in November 2005. The extended warranty covers a specific problem that causes the machines to fail."
This follows our stories earlier asking What is the real failure rate of the Xbox 360? (31 May) and Microsoft's attempts to evade the question in earlier interviews.
This will only cover the "three flashing red lights" problem - and though Microsoft has published an FAQ on its site, the key FAQ remains open:
Q: Have you identified a root cause that can lead to failure?
A: There is not a single issue that we can point to as being a problem. We test the product extensively, including accelerated life testing, but the nature of the console itself is very complex, as it's a consumer electronic product that contains more than 1,700 different components and 500 million transistors.
Oh, those transistors again. Has nobody told Microsoft? Transistors don't fail. It's big hardware that fails. We'll have more next week - and in the next few days - but the fact is that the motherboard seems to warp when it gets warm.
