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Confidential Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death" Source Responds
My source inside the Xbox team posted a response on my Seattle PI reader blog to some of the questions asked in comments.
This whole story started as follow up to another comment made by my source on a story on the Red Ring of Death warranty extension on the Microsoft news blog run by the Seattle PI's Todd Bishop. I wrote a response and invited the commentator to an interview if they could prove that they worked at Microsoft on the Xbox. A few months later my source came across my blog post and they responded. I was able to verify who they were and that they were a major player in the design of the Xbox and Xbox 360 and were a very credible source. They spent a long time working on the Xbox team and probably knew more about the inner workings of the Xbox 360 than Bill Gates.
I went with this story because I do think that it's news worthy and it shed some light and confirmed some major theories about the Xbox 360 hardware problems. I still love playing games and watching movies Xbox 360, I just hope that it outlives my original NES that eventually succumbed to faulty cartridge connectors. But looking at the facts out there about problems I am not sure that it is going to do that.
I know that the truth about rushed designs and over heated motherboards is not as sexy as some of the wilder theories out there. Sorry that it's not Zombie Elvis and UFO's killing Xboxes in the middle of the night. I also have a creeping theory in the back of my mind is that one of the reasons why Microsoft keeps the Xbox 360 Core/Arcade SKU on the market is for a cheaper Xbox 360 for gamers that don't want to take their chances on getting a repair job and want a new Xbox to play the games that they already spent their money on.
I am still going to continue to play Dead Rising despite the fact that it pushes the hardware possibly to the point of failure. (As an unrelated side note I think the timing belt broke on my car and I had to have it towed tonight. My car had an RROD and is in the repair shop)
As a side note to other bloggers out there, I learned a lesson on my previous post about publishing an article before you do decent job proof reading.
For the nickname "toddhol" that they used I think they meant Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group.
Here is their response:
Hi everyone. I understand the questions you all have. I hope you understand that it's a bit overwhelming to try and answer everything in real time. After tonight, I'm going to ask Jake (or Jacob?) to field your questions and funnel them to me for answers. Then we can do that in an organized way. But for now, I'm going to try and answer some that I thought were most important.
First, why the secrecy?
MS knows who I am. That's why I'm not concerned about self identifying to them in these postings with details only they would know, as some here have pointed out. The people who founded Xbox hw number 10. 1 left to go be the VP of manufacturing at Qualcomm, 1 left to go be the GM of engineering at Zune, 1 left after only 2 months in ‘99 due to conflicts with toddhol. He works on Surface now. The rest still work on Xbox. I am the only one who left the company entirely.
I am not concerned about MS knowing who I am. They are worried about me revealing their problems. Not the other way around. Plus, I have contacted every single attorney who has filed a lawsuit against MS and offered to help. Some have accepted, and that work is in progress. We'll talk about that in another post. It's very interesting, I just don't want a bunch of fan boys trying to hack my home PC (that I use for work). Harass my kids, call my house, etc.
Second, why now?
Well, it's not just now. I've been reaching out since before the product went into manufacturing. I left before launch. But many employees continued to contact me about the problems with the product and its launch. I did my best to help them figure out how to mitigate the problems caused my bad management decisions, and test the boxes right. Sometimes my ideas worked, sometimes they didn't. I then started to contact reporters. Sometimes it went no where. Sometimes, it resulted in a spectacular thing, like the ambush interview with toddhol just before MS admitted guilt. But still, it happened too slowly for me. That's one reason I'm doing this now.
When those articles were posted last July, I chimed in as a commentator. That's when Jake invited me for an interview. But I didn't see it then. It was only recently when I goog'ed "xboxfounder" on a whim that I found that old invite. So I contacted him to see if he was still interested. I sent him a current resume from my current work email account, and he believed me. If you guys don't, then tell me what you need to see as proof. And I will provide that.
Last: My motivation.
I have always been in a position to stand up for the customer. MS stopped me from doing that. They need to pay the price now. If you guys won't get together and make that happen, you have no hope for the future with them. It's not my fight, but I am here fighting. You decide what you want to do. And then do it!
Jake at January 21, 2008 
Games
Comments
You realize that this won't kill the Fanboy chatter, right? ;)
Still, it's great to know that MS' dirty little secrets aren't so safe anymore. Can we expect more?
Posted by: hellblazerusa at January 21, 2008 4:57 AM
Great this this guy is spilling the beans but anyone with hardware knowledge pretty much knew and or assumed everything he is saying so I dont know who he is informing. I think he just wants to rattle cages but why he does I have no clue. All this info was posted to xbox-scene back before ms extended the warranty and the info came from modders and hackers interested in the 360.
Im glad he is coming out, i love info like this but the white knight riff at the end makes his articles stink of selfish reasoning. He isnt helping any customer by putting this info out there. This info wont change the way ms does things one bit nor will it help anyone sue them because they are fixing the ones that are dead withing 3 years of purchase.
Posted by: d0x at January 21, 2008 3:58 PM
Even though many people with electrical engineering knowledge and experience modding consoles identified most of the rrod causes a long time ago, the educated gamer/consumer or even someone reverse engineering the 360 making these claims isn't quite as credible or brave as a former xbox team employee who was directly involved in design and testing of the 360.
It's a breath of fresh air, that sadly never came from Microsoft. My launch xenon still works though, just much hotter than my ps3. ;)
Posted by: sp0000 at January 21, 2008 10:00 PM
The difference is INTENT. Everyone knew and could prove what the technical/engineering issues were with the XBOX 360.
This guy can prove that is was KNOW my MS before release, and they KNOWINGLY committed to getting the problem out.
MS can no longer rely on the "some manufacturing issues were responsible" defense.
Posted by: Van at January 22, 2008 2:23 AM
MS wanted to be first out the gate this time and rushed it to get there. They assumed that any problems could be taken care of after it was released.
My launch day 360 crashed and died and I am now on my 4th 360, and no I dont wrap it in blankets and it has plenty of breathing room.I hope to god if there is a "720" that they have learned from their mistakes.........To Be Continued
Posted by: brian at January 22, 2008 12:30 PM
so, is it possible that the issue has been fixed and we're simply seeing older units (older than falcon?) dying as they are destined to?
If so, we should see the end of abnormally high numbers of failures end in about a year or so, right?
Posted by: p-niiice at January 22, 2008 3:08 PM
I hope no one is suggesting that it requires someone's testimony to convince them that Microsoft had to know about this long, long ago. It's not lik e no one is inspecting this hardware. If the problem is widespread then they certainly know about it before it goes out the door.
Posted by: drink at January 25, 2008 4:19 PM
How do we resolve this problem? What is Microsoft doing about it? Could you please post this information so I know how to proceed in getting it fixed. Thanks all...
Posted by: kj at April 30, 2008 7:17 AM
