What's one Red Ring of Death between friends?

by Jem Alexander { May 6th 2007 at 7:30PM }

We like pictures. You guys must know this, because one of you (allmodcons) has sent us one. A photograph snapped at the Union Square Gamestop in New York City. You can see a cropped version to the right, if you're feeling too lazy to click through. It's an Xbox 360 display case with an unfortunate case of Red-Ring-of-Death-itis. That's the proper medical name, I've heard.

I'll admit that when I saw the image schadenfreude got the better of me. I took some pleasure in Gamestop's misfortune and smiled to myself. Doing so without any malice toward the Xbox 360 console itself or its owners, however. We at PS3 Fanboy love our 360 owning brothers (and sisters). Don't spread this too far, but some of us even own one ourselves. Crazy, eh? We may tease them about their embarrassing hiccups from time to time, but like the well-intentioned siblings that they are they give as good as they get. We'll be the first to mention the number of times the PS3 has overheated at a retail booth (or even at the TGS), or its low sales figures. Remember the Xbox 360 dressed up as a PS3? That was pretty embarrassing, too.

A bit of good natured ribbing on each side makes things a bit more fun and interesting, I think. That's why it's OK to have a chuckle at pictures like this from time to time.

Console war? More like a console pillow-fight.

[Thanks Nick]

Tags: Gamestop, Red Ring of Death, RedRingOfDeath, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mike @ May 6th 2007 7:35PM

How many bricked consoles before microsoft will issue a recall?

humpty @ May 6th 2007 7:49PM

Cant wait for the inevitable pictures of an Elite with the RRoD.. you know its coming; only a matter of time.

thatpspkid @ May 6th 2007 7:51PM

my local walmart's 360 has had the red ring of death for like four weeks now. lol I find that funny.

massive_98 @ May 6th 2007 7:55PM

>>>>
Hmmmm. I see a fanboy war coming. Only a matter of time before some 360 fanboy's point out some PS3 flaws
>>>>
Well might as well start it off. 360 online is way to expensive for what your paying for, its only marginly better than the PSN (WHICH IS FREE!)
>>>>
Just to be fair its no suprise the thing over heated. Look its in a plastic bubble with a inefficient light underneath. You could bake cookies in there.

massive_98 @ May 6th 2007 7:56PM

I love the shot of the DS's in the backround. Must be a Nintendo picture.

Real Gambler @ May 6th 2007 8:19PM

Wow, talk about airtight enclosure. Cannot even see if there's a fan anywhere. You really have to love marketing guys who come with stands like that! Somebody should put an egg in that box to see how long it would take to cook it!

My question though is: It's not truly a ring of death. It's missing one segment. I don't own a 360, and I'm really curious. Should it be a ring. Or is it like three segments turning around?

argoknight @ May 7th 2007 12:18AM

i get more pleasure out of the fact that this happened to gamestop than the fact that its another microsoft failure.

Colin @ May 6th 2007 8:50PM

Hooray...Scott's back.

Hoffer @ May 6th 2007 9:02PM

I saw a display 360 red ringed at Target once a couple months back. I've also experienced it myself.

apease @ May 6th 2007 9:03PM

It's the true ring of death. Every time there's a red ring of death story on other sites, they post a picture with all four segments lit up, and 360 owners mention that the full ring means a cable is unplugged (or something like that). Why the blogs (kotaku, etc) always post the wrong picture is beyond me.

It's okay, scott's just a little sensitive about the red rings. I would be too, knowing my $400 investment is known to suddenly break at an unusually high rate. Seriously, teasing them about red rings is a bit of a low blow, especially since there's no ps3 equivalent hardware wise.

Tyler @ May 6th 2007 9:10PM

Red Ring at local game stop, i was sure to take a picture!

@Scott Need a hug?

Tremada @ May 6th 2007 9:20PM

I was thinking about getting an Xbox before, until I heard of the high rate of system failure. But this pic seems that the case caused the RRoD. If they ever fix it I might get one. I really want to try Dead Rising.

ndoerr @ May 6th 2007 9:19PM

I'm surprised there were actually DS's in stock... the stores around here never have any. Oh, should I be looking at the defunct 360? Sorry, I'm not one to point out things I see all the time =P

I'm kidding! I couldn't help myself.

Bored @ May 6th 2007 10:01PM

Yes there is an equivalent for the PS3. It just beeps, and lits a red LED in case of total hardware death. Or if it's an OS problem, it shows a screen with a message telling you to contact consumer service, etc.

I only saw this in a couple of videos in youtube a long time ago, during the US/Japan launch. Never happened to me though, and haven't really heard of anybody it happened to either.

Both Sony and MS learned their lessons since last gen: Sony learned how to make their hardware more reliable and MS learned how to be nicer to costumers with faulty units. Best thing would have been if BOTH made lasting hardware though.

mccomber @ May 6th 2007 10:09PM

I'd agree with you Scott, if it wasn't for the fact that the whole damn post was pretty tongue in cheek, "yeah, we're poking you guys and trying to get a rise" and generally sarcastic and light-hearted. If it had only been the first paragraph and the picture; yeah, that would be pretty bad. But considering the second pointing out the fact that the ps3 has it's issues, and that many of the ps3fanboys own both (or will one day, when they finally add wifi...) I'd say it's pretty harmless.
Besides, if there wasn't at least a small party of you that enjoyed these sorts of posts, you wouldn't be over here, would you?

kingofwale @ May 6th 2007 10:22PM

>And can you honestly disagree with me Colin (on my post)?

I would assume the sarcastic comments would suffice.

Frosty @ May 6th 2007 10:48PM

I really am curious about this topic. I have a system with a November 2005 manufacture date and I have not had one problem with my 360. The longest I've ever played it though is probably 4 or 5 hours straight. But other than that I really am convinced that it was a bad batch of 360s that had this problem or poor handling of the system. Anyways that's my two sense.

Now watch my 360 brick because of this post :)

*knocks on wood.

mccomber @ May 6th 2007 10:59PM

I do agree with you on that Scott, it's not a good story at all. This has basically nothing to do with the ps3, and like you said, they toss in some bad stuff about the ps3 to make it "ok". At least the 360 being killed by a ps3 had a guest spot by the ps3... but, I guess since I'm on the pointing side of this post, I'm more ok with it. I do agree though, we need more ps3 news posts, or at least ps3 related posts.
On the other hand, what else are they going to blog about, the wealth of games coming out in the next 2 months? Calling All Cars newest release date? How much fun Home is, if you get to be a part of it right now?
If I didn't have gamefly to play the games not worth actually buying, my ps3 would be a folding machine right now. Well, that and a ps2 emulator.

Magma @ May 6th 2007 11:29PM

That, and scott's an idiot.

OWNAGE @ May 6th 2007 11:56PM

I work for best buy and do you know how many xbox 360 we went through from first day of launch till now just a little over 20 and thats real talk so for all you 360 fanboys out there dont get mad and up tight blame microsoft they made the system not you all. lets just face the facts the game system is just as unstable as there operating systems! Thats real talk!!

ndoerr @ May 7th 2007 12:26AM

Also keep in mind that weekends are very, very, very slow for news. So if we get a silly picture, it's weekend fodder. We could just not do anything on weekends (not like we do a lot anyway), but we'd like to give a few laughs out there. Is that really so bad?

And mccomber hit the nail on the head -- there's nothing really going on in the news other than screenshots, trailers, and release dates. Eventually, perhaps.

RobG @ May 7th 2007 1:33AM

What a joke. Congratulations you found a red ringed 360 in a kiosk. How many times have you walked up to a PS3 kiosk and seen it locked up or turned off. These kiosks are not a very good indicator as to a real life performance. They all run in very tight poorly ventilated enclosures. I have a launch 360 that has been 100% since the day I got it. Fanboys on both sides need to take a break from their corporate masters and play what they like and don't hate on someone else because of what they enjoy.

ThomStarBoy @ May 7th 2007 4:14AM

I see this everyday I go into work (a Best Buy in Canada... don't hurt me). The other demo we've got up has constant disk read issues and often times will refuse to keep the disk drive shut.

Justin @ May 7th 2007 9:05AM

My 360 (which is my secondary choice for gaming), i can honestly say has never once bricked, nor have i seen the RRoD. And I've had it since about March 06. However, I also hardly play the damn thing...so I don't know if I give it much of a chance to lock up.

The PS3 has been on for HOURS at a time, never locking up...and never scratching a disc when you mistakenly graze the system unlike my 360 (viva la Rainbow Six: Vegas).

Lucky I work at a Hollywood Video so I just switched my disc and was good to go. B-)

Ciaran Gallagher @ May 7th 2007 10:10AM

At one point last year, all three video game stores in my town had red ring 360's...

Andir3.0 @ May 7th 2007 10:57AM

So, what's the difference with "scott" posting negative PS3 comments on just about every PS3 article and the bloggers posting negative news about the competition every so often?

pattrips @ May 7th 2007 11:35AM

Omg, this author is a total moron, ITS GAMESTOP YOU TWIT not GAMESPOT, my god, not only is this article flamebait....but mixing gamestop with gamespot makes you look like a total idiot(you are such a professional...not)...nice going man your on a roll.

Can't wait to see some more pictures from that "gamespot" in new york... nice

SuicideNinja @ May 7th 2007 11:54AM

"Hmmmm. I see a fanboy war coming. Only a matter of time before some 360 fanboy's point out some PS3 flaws"

Nah. But it was bound to happen to another console maker. The number of DRE's on PS2's was pretty ridiculous.

I've already had finicky issues with it reading Resistance...slight smudge on the outermost ring of the disc. I didn't even see it until super-close inspection. Does Blu-ray go from the outside in or something?

ez054098 @ May 7th 2007 1:40PM

They have to report on 360 news like this because there isn't anything happening with the PS3. Why not a post about this weeks PS3 releases? oops, there are none AGAIN!

You want to talk about bricks? I have a $600 brink and it's name is PS3.

Andir3.0 @ May 7th 2007 2:35PM

@"scott": Blogs are not "News".

razer @ May 7th 2007 3:03PM

"35. They have to report on 360 news like this because there isn't anything happening with the PS3. Why not a post about this weeks PS3 releases? oops, there are none AGAIN!

You want to talk about bricks? I have a $600 brink and it's name is PS3."

QFT!!

Lars @ May 7th 2007 3:14PM

Seconding mccomber and disagreeing with the others, as *obviously* it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Yes, it's a silly picture, but it's also a pretty good post. Instead of just saying, "Whoo, look at this thing sucking, neener neener," the author's taken a bit of contentious fluff and made it amusing, instead of abrasive.

At least he has a sense of humor -- which one can't say about the comments here.

oldxskoolxhollywood @ May 8th 2007 8:48PM

ok, i'm sick and tired of this site doing almost nothing but 360-bashing. how many times does 360fanboy rip on the ps3? maybe once a week or so. ps3fanboy goes so far as to make entire posts on how much they hate the 360 atleast once a day. ive held my tounge for too long, im just going to come out and say it: the ps3 is a total dud. the playstation network is a debacle, folding@home isnt a game so stop bragging about it, $ony doesnt care about any of you, only your money (and japan), the 360 will get mgs4, the ps3 isnt fun, ive never seen a ps3 kiosk that works without freezing or even turns on, the 360 will get ff13, the wii may have only a 5th of the ps3's power, but still manages to be eons ahead of it, the ps3 stole the guide button idea, and motion sensing, and xbox live arcade, the ps3 is the new xbox 1: its big, its a year late, its expensive, and its never going to catch up to the 360 (or ps2 in xbox 1's case), home is a rip off of Mii/the sims, blu-ray is gaytarded, resistance:fom isnt that great, lair is overrated, gta IV on the 360 will outsell the ps3 version, halo 3 will destroy the ps3 with great intensity, look at the sales charts, and whatever happened to rumble?...... reflect on that please....

Alex Cormier @ May 7th 2007 5:54PM

This place has gotten really pathetic. Time to remove from my bookmarks.

erivera3 @ May 7th 2007 5:56PM

I will have to agree that the 360 owns the PS3 in every category.

Don't blink PS3 owners, or you might miss your next "exclusive" being taken over by the 360!

Anyhow, I think it is in good fun and good fanboy spirit that the PS3 boys posted this article. If they didn't have this to report they'd have no news at all; not that this is really "news" but they don't have nearly enough high quality games to post about either. Sad really...