My Twitter feed just alerted me to a post on Joystiq from early this afternoon that hit a little too close to home. Just when we, the gaming community, thought Microsoft had put the costly Red Ring of Death (RROD) disaster behind them with the olive branch of an extended 3-year warranty, up from the ashes of a million overheated Xboxes crawls a new contender in the fight to alienate an entire fan base – the E74 error message.
Just last month, I was a victim of this disheartening message, which is, of course, accompanied by a red light. Just ONE red light. Keep in mind, Microsoft’s extended warranty plan only covers THREE red lights. Not one, not two, not four. To say I was livid upon learning that fact would be an understatement as vast as Bill Gates’ Scrooge McDuck-size pile of cash (and gold coins, presumably). As anyone who’s interacted with Microsoft’s customer service can surely attest, phone calls and e-mail got me nowhere. I spent $500 on an Elite barely over 18 months ago and I can’t get anything but a canned response from the help-desk handbook-monkey on the other end of the line.
Until the Joystiq post, I presumed my hardware failure was just bad luck. I bought the machine knowing there could be issues, but hoping the newer Elite might be immune. Obviously, I was wrong – on both counts. Pay special attention to Update 1 of the Joystiq E74 post. There are some interesting statistical trends involving the error message, along with an ever-expanding population of gamers experiencing the problem (and voicing their displeasure, of course… this is the internet, after all).
Some conspiracy theorists have gone so far as to speculate that Microsoft made some adjustments with the New Xbox Experience, effectively replacing the RROD with an E74 error, thus negating the extended warranty. Shady, for sure, but ultimately possible. Hopefully, those intrepid Woodward and Bernstein’s of the gaming community will continue digging up dirt, because it seems more and more people will be paying attention.
You want to know the most vile and nauseating part of this story – I immediately went out and bought another Xbox 360. I realize that fact sort of undermines my claims of furious rage and I felt filthy doing it, but I had to. Many of my friends are finally on Live and there’s a slew of games I still want to play. Yes, Microsoft has me by the stones, and new releases like Resident Evil 5 and Halo Wars only serve to tighten the grip.
Fortunately, I only had to spring for an Arcade system since I have all the necessary extras, and I got it cheap thanks to Circuit City’s liquidation sale. Here’s where I’d like to make a comment about my new system containing the upgraded, cooler running chip set and better architecture, but I honestly don’t know if it will make any difference. It seems like Microsoft “fixes” the latest hardware issue just in time for the next one to arrive.
By the way, if anyone has any tips on how to purposely RROD an Xbox 360, feel free to leave them in the comments… the stupid thing keeps automatically shutting off before it has a chance to fully melt down.
By Tim Graffam
E74 is actually nothing new, and has been around just as long as the RROD. My first system suffered an E74 mere days before the dreaded RROD hit home. This was also before Microsoft offered the 3-year warranty. On the plus side, it was replaced with a brand spanking new unit, NOT a refurb, on the downside, they billed me $160 and it took me 8 months to get a refund when they changed the warranty policy, and i had to hassle the hell out of them for that. Why Joystiq chose to focus on this particular problem now kind of baffles me. Perhaps now that the frequency of Red Rings has died out, it’s only now people are realizing that this other, less frequent problem exists?
E74 is actually nothing new, and has been around just as long as the RROD. My first system suffered an E74 mere days before the dreaded RROD hit home. This was also before Microsoft offered the 3-year warranty. On the plus side, it was replaced with a brand spanking new unit, NOT a refurb, on the downside, they billed me $160 and it took me 8 months to get a refund when they changed the warranty policy, and i had to hassle the hell out of them for that. Why Joystiq chose to focus on this particular problem now kind of baffles me. Perhaps now that the frequency of Red Rings has died out, it’s only now people are realizing that this other, less frequent problem exists?
Forgot to mention excellent post. Can’t wait to reading your next one!
have tried a few different ways to fix my xBox using the youtube guides, etc… still getting the E70 error.