[Noobie]

History of XBOX 360 RROD

"Microsoft decided late to add a hard disk drive to most of the machines. It also came up late with a plan to add wireless controllers; all of the previous consoles shipped with wired controllers. The hard drive blocked a lot of the air flow on one side of the machine," Takahashi wrote. "And the wireless modules had to have enough of their own space to ensure that there was no electrical interference. In the end, the machine was a series of compromises."

Incredibly low yields were the norm for a long time, warnings from engineers were ignored, problems were swept under the rug and gamers put up with lousy customer service to try to get their system replaced. The piece also lists an Ars Technica thread as one of the ways consumers put pressure on Microsoft to get the company to face up to their mistakes.

When Microsoft finally did, the public relations damage had long been done. Many gamers switched over to the stable PlayStation 3 after suffering through multiple dead systems, and the term "Red Rings of Death" had entered the gaming lexicon. "To conclude, the video game industry has never seen a consumer problem as bad as the 'red rings of death' and the size of the $1.15 billion charge stands as one of the biggest liability glitches in consumer electronics history," Takahashi claims. It's a hard statement to dispute.