8 Biggest Xbox Risks (That Totally Backfired)
3. The Red Ring Of Death
The seventh generation of consoles was always going to be huge. Microsoft had hit a hell of an opening salvo with the Xbox and its online services and a stack of solid games. However, their competition was PlayStation, who were standing tall in the ring looking to follow-up the best selling console of all time.
Microsoft knew that it's best chances were to get a head-start and so the Xbox 360 launched a full year before the PlayStation 3. As such, it entered the market place as the uncontested most powerful and most desirable console in the market. However, this wound being the monkey paw for the system.
If you were a long-time Xbox 360 owner, it was almost a sure thing that you experienced the Red Ring of Death at least once. Faulty connectors caused the system to brick, flashing three red lights as it's death knell. The memes and videos of Xboxs being destroyed in anguish were a way to express shared grief.
Xbox 360s were all ticking time-bombs. Microsoft were forced to halt production of the console to investigate, identify and correct the issue to mitigate the fallout. In the "Power On" Xbox documentary series, it was estimated that the company lost over $1B in revenue over this little red curse.
Much worse, it damaged the company's image when the news became mainstream, making such a fast-track release a regrettable decision in retrospect.