On December 2nd, 2005, a scant 10 days after the Xbox 360 arrived at retail, a Chicago resident by the name of Robert E. Byers filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft in district court. Alleging serious component defects in the new video game system, Byers claimed that Microsoft was knowingly shipping defective consoles. “In its rush to be the first to introduce the next generation of electronic gaming consoles in order to increase its market share,” Byers claimed, “Microsoft sold plaintiff and class members defectively designed Xbox 360 game consoles.”
Despite a host of day-one defect reports backing this claim, Byers was immediately ridiculed for bringing his case so soon after the device’s launch — and when Microsoft noted one year later that he had never even called customer support to resolve the matter through official channels and likely had no defective Xbox of his own, the lawsuit lost all remaining credibility. Byers filed for voluntary dismissal in March 2006.
Written off as an attempt to cash in on the console craze, Byers’ case was soon forgotten — but it seems that the man from Chicago was right on the money.
Dean Takahashi wrote the book on Xbox — twice. Now, the veteran journalist has published a six-page expose of the Xbox 360 manufacturing process that is not to be missed. Within, Takahashi provides a picture of a Microsoft thoroughly unready for launch. Accusations aside, the numbers alone are staggering:
- According to an engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Xbox 360 production line had a failure rate of 68% in August 2005.
- The initial yield on the IBM microprocessor was only 16%.
- “the “first pass yield” (before machines were taken off the line to be reworked inside the factory) was never over 70 percent.”
- By the end of March 2006, “more than 500,000 defective consoles that sat in warehouses.”
- Console yield had still only risen to 85% by the beginning of 2008, and now reportedly stands at 92%.
Nearly three years after launch, it’s clear that reports of the Xbox 360’s hardware defects are not “isolated” in any way, shape or form. The Red Ring of Death is practically a pop culture reference, and — as Takahashi notes — a cottage industry. To their credit, Microsoft has dedicated one billion dollars in warranty extension to make things right.
But is $1 billion enough? Over the course of his six-page analysis, Takahashi never once openly accuses Microsoft of deceiving customers, and in fact supposes that it is due to replacing and withholding defective consoles from retail that Microsoft sales have now fallen behind that of the Nintendo Wii. But due to those latent defects that cause the RRoD, defective consoles have nonetheless been bought by unwitting customers — One GameCyte editor has gone through two units already — and Takahashi’s analysis makes it clear that Microsoft, unwilling to listen to reports from its own engineers and testers, is at fault.
Did Byers — who called out the IBM semiconductors in particular — know something we didn’t back in December 2005? And with this latest evidence, should someone take up his once-improbable standard?
GameCyte highly recommends you read the full expose at VentureBeat.
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