10 Big Industry Gaffs Gaming Companies Want You To Forget
9. The Red Ring Of Death Breaks Records For Failure Rates (Microsoft)
Almost everyone who bought an Xbox 360 from 2005-2010 experienced some sort of hardware failure, which is pretty bad considering the console was such a huge commercial success. A Game Informer survey actually pointed the console's failure rate at a record 54.2%, absolutely dwarfing other competing consoles' and consequentially faming the 360 for its notorious hardware difficulties. Everything from the RRoD to the E74 screen and even constant scratching of discs came to define the 360's negative traits quite immaculately, even if the console itself served those who purchased it well in certain areas. Whilst Microsoft's successor to the original Xbox was far from the only console to experience hardware failures, the sheer scale of their occurrences meant that its early years in particular haven't been too fondly remembered. Indeed, the RRoD is almost synonymous with the Xbox brand at this stage - it's not really something Microsoft can evade even if they tried to.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
