At this point, we all know that Microsoft has finally extended their Xbox 360 warranty to include the infamous E-74 error.  Was this enough?  To be honest, I feel as if Microsoft has still committed a crime here.  While it is great that they will be refunding money to anyone who paid to get their fried E-74 system fixed, this is still too little in my opinion. What about the people who gave up and bought another system or tried to fix the console themselves since it wasn’t under warranty?

When Microsoft initially extended all warranties, this did not include E-74 and they were sneaky about it.  Not all systems brick due to overheating.  There are actually many failures that may cause your system to permanently go under.  From my current understanding, the E-74 on older systems (which is most likely video failure) would show up like a regular “red ring of death”.  Microsoft apparently disabled the 4 rings for most newer consoles such as the Elite systems to show simply one ring failure, which would also mean that they wouldn’t have to cover the console under their extended warranty (this is the warranty that they proudly talk about all the time).  For all I know, this might be illegal as well.  I’m no lawyer, so I can’t say, but it seems like deceptive fraud to me…

How shady can Microsoft possibly get?  My personal opinion on the matter is that Microsoft designed the Xbox 360 as cheaply as possible, without any concern for consumers.  They pushed the console out the door to beat Sony and Nintendo, yet paid no attention to the system flaws that they knew existed.  They basically unleashed a defective product on consumers and continue to do so today.  People keep talking about the Xbox 720 rumors and wondering when the next Microsoft console will come out.  I have 0% confidence that Microsoft will ever create a game console that is remotely reliable.  The original Xbox was pretty bad, the Xbox 360 was simply horrific in reliability.  What’s next?  Microsoft’s skills are better suited for the software side of things.  They have created some pretty good games with their studio and should probably focus on the game side of things.  Let Sony and Nintendo make the hardware, since their systems are very reliable.