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" Yesterday, Microsoft issued a grand mea culpa to the gaming community by extending the one-year warranty on all Xbox 360s to three years. For some time now, many people in the gaming community have been noting a high rate of &amp;quot;general hardware failures&amp;quot; (sometimes known as &amp;quot;the ring of death&amp;quot; because of the signature three flashing red lights around the power button).  Microsoft hasn&amp;#039;t released any official statistics on the failure rate, but the open letter of apology from Peter Moore, head of Microsoft&amp;#039;s Interactive Entertainment Business division indicates that it is high enough to be considered a major problem\u2014and an expensive one (initial reports say that the warranty extension will cost Microsoft one billion dollars).  In addition to the extended warranty, Microsoft has promised to retroactively reimburse 360 owners who have already paid to have the ring of death failure fixed. Affected Xbox owners who have or have had the problem should call Microsoft customer service at 1-800-469-9269.  Be sure to check back next week for more gaming news (and video) from the E3 conference in Los Angeles. \u2014Glenn Derene "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a1851/4218954/>