It seems that no matter how hard Microsoft claims that its Xbox 360 failure rate is overblown by the press and consumers, there always seems to be more information that is released which indicates otherwise.
The latest group to sound off about 360 failure incidents is UK game console repair company, Micromart Ltd. The service business has been repairing all sorts of game consoles for the last 10 years.
But now, they have announced that they will no longer take in Xbox 360s for repairs because they believe the design of the 360 is faulty – even repaired machines still fail after only several weeks of use.
According to questions presented to Micromart by weplay.com, the company believes that 360s manufactured after October 2006 exhibit the tendency to show the "red ring of death" status message, which basically indicates that the console is dead and cannot be revive
Micromart thinks this is due to the new lead-free solder that was used with the GPU – the heat from the chip dries out the solder and causes overheating. Result — the red ring of death and an expensive repair bill for the 360 owner.
In tne meantime, the explaination that the problm is "not widespread" by Microsoft is wearing thin as growing numbers of broken Xbox 360s make their trek to the repair shop.
