Microsoft has finally acknowledged that it has a certain responsibility when it comes to all those failed Xbox 360 consoles. The main cause of so many failures, the “red ring of death”, is now covered by a 3 year warranty, and includes those who purchased the console from 2005 as well. However, the warranty only covers the “red ring of death” failures, nothing else. Microsoft’s Peter Moore wrote an open letter to the community, saying:

You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job. Some of you have expressed frustration with the customer experiences you have had with Xbox 360; frustration with having to return your console for service after receiving the general hardware error message on the console.

Finally a proper response to an issue that’s been around for more than a year and half. According to retailers, the failure rate is almost 33%, and according to Microsoft, the new warranty will cost the company over a billion dollars.