20 Most Embarrassing Video Game Moments Since 2000

12. The Red Ring Of Death

There was a time during the infancy of the Xbox 360 where users would hold their breath before turning on their console. Once on, they'd either let out a sigh of relief or burst into an explosion of anger. That anger was caused by one thing that plagued the Xbox 360 - The Red Ring of Death.

The RRoD was caused by "general hardware failure" and meant your Xbox 360 was toast. The Internet exploded with ways to fix the problem, with the most popular method seeing users wrap their console in a towel. It essentially cooked the hardware back into working, albeit extremely temporarily.

The hardware failures became such a problem and such a common issue that Microsoft eventually extended all original 360 warranties by three years. However, this warranty would ultimately only cover "general hardware failures." If your Xbox 360 was subject to the RRoD, you'd have to send it to Microsoft for repairs. This meant being without your system for anywhere around three weeks, which just added insult to injury.

There's never been an official number on just how common the failure was. Polls and surveys put the failure rate at anywhere from 25% to 50%, which means there's a chance that half of those who bought 360s early on experienced the RRoD. The problem will forever go down as one of Microsoft's biggest blunders, but not their only.