Xbox is Selling a Red Ring of Death Poster for $25 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 February 2022 / 2,817 Views
Microsoft's Xbox 360 had the infamous "Red Ring of Death" issue that cost the company $1 billion to fix. In a strange turn of events the company is now selling a "Red Ring of Death" premium print that is 18" x 24" for $25 as part of the 20th anniversary of Xbox.
"The Xbox Gear Shop is commemorating the release of Power On: The Story of Xbox docuseries with a poster print series featuring the promotional art and episode title cards," reads the product details.
There are seven premium prints in total.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
As bad as Apple selling their cloth for $15.
Not something I would be proud of to be honest.
They doing it to recoup that billion lol ,but still charging $25.00 for a cheap looking poster proclaiming a failure is a smack in the face for all those it affected,this is a lot different from the Xbox fridges situation where they had some fun and made some money by embracing that meme.
Our new products are tiny, so the fridge meme is funny and can do little harm. Let's embrace it and profit from it since it can fit the gaming space!
-"Finally, MS is starting to get it."
Our old product was rushed to market and was unreliable, which made our customers quite unhappy from the lack of gaming due to the RROD. Let's embrace it and profit from it while making sure they're continually reminded of it when they look above their fridge!
-"Annnd we're back to X One again..."
I'm not sure about the size bit the meme always seemed to me anyway to revolve around it's shape still I'm sore that they never manufactured the original large sized fridge they originally showed.
It is a bit more about the shape, but what makes it light hearted and no big deal, is the fact that the XBSX is very small and compact. If XBSX was the same shape, but quite comparable to PS5 in size, it wouldn't be as easy to joke about for MS.
This is why they can easily embrace it and put it to good use, which they need to because they are playing catch up.
I'd guess the mini fridge made more business sense overall (and it's also subliminal). They showed the giant fridge, yet sold you a smaller version of it. Kinda like going from XB1 to XBSX.
PS5 is slightly different. It's much larger, and has the router meme, but it's a PS5. It could look like a literal dumpster and it would still be sold out simply because of the PS ecosystems history, especially PS4. SNY however is in a position that they can just ignore minor meme's and it won't matter in the slightest.
Remember it hurt MS more.
Embracing your long resolved mistakes is the easiest way to turn a meme used by haters into a light hearted joke at worst.
For $10, maybe
Nice, will help recover some of the money it lost. I think this would be a cool t-shirt.
For those wondering why MS/Xbox would do this. I think they are making light of their past because they feel good about the future.
We can also look at RROD didn't cause nearly as much loss in consumer mindshare as X1 did, it sold almost double of it.
They responded pretty well to the situation I had mine replaced pretty easily but the second time it happened the newer more reliable chipsets had arrived so I bought one rather than wait and I still have it today, so while most were done through warranty some were rebuys .
Even though RROD affected me my biggest bug bear during that time wasn't RROD it was the drive problem that lead to irreparable discs when the drive decided to grind them up it was a horrible noise and the problem was somewhat lost in the face of RROD
Not really, they responded well after it was blow out. They denied RROD for a long time.
Different circumstances as well. PS3 was a weaker competitor than PS4. While Xbox One was a less appealing console, especially with Kinect and at a higher price.
this is so cool! Microsoft has been sharing their mistakes and failures lately ( nintendo buyout, Lionhead).
I didn't think this would trigger so many people, first of all, this is for their xbox documentary thingy they did (which is well worth the watch), they made a poster for each episode.
Also a lot of people as saying its in bad taste, not sure i agree, the entire expense of the RROD was taken on by Microsoft. They offered to repair any 360 console, no questioned asked, it cost them over a billion.
It says they made a poster of every title card in the docuseries. The Red Ring of Death is one poster out of a series of posters. It probably would have been more weird if they released posters from every episode except that one.
Nice to see a company acknowledge mistakes, learn from them, poke fun of them in hindsight, and not shy away from them. It all helped to shape today's devices and business models. Now if other companies will own up to their mistakes instead of sweeping them under the rug only to pretend that they never happened.
awesome poster. we do not need the red ring of death printed here though; everyone knows what this means.
Not into posters, but I’d buy a shirt.
would make a great shirt, probably would sale large numbers.
Odd flex lol I remember going through 3 360’s at that time before I finally got a 360 that actually worked. Good/bad times :)
Wow that many ? I had one replaced and when that also went RROD the next one I bought myself , I think it was the Jasper chipset but I could be wrong , you would know the various chipsets better than me but I still have it sitting in the garage emblazoned with a red gears sticker and it was in working order when I stored it played many great games on that console.
I went through like eight NES consoles before finally finding one that didn't blink on and off, four PS2's (DRE) before finally get the Slim, three Xbox 360's and have had to ship my Joy Con back to Nintendo once... so far.
Every major manufacture apart from Sega (that I know of) has had some large-scale screw up.
$15 lens cleaning cloths, $40 truck shaped whistles, and $25 small posters of dumb shit. What do all of these companies have in common? A rabid fan base that will throw money at them for any stupid reason.
This is hilarious.
It's not often that a failure is so spectacular that you actually try to make money off of it.
Isn't this technically them selling you on their past failure?, like one which we ended up paying for partially?.
$25 for a poster? it's not even as big as the standard 24" by 36" posters I sometimes buy for like $10. I mean maybe it's thicker, I've got no idea if 0.25mm is thicker than a standard movie poster, but damn.
It was bad for the consumer so I have no problem with them selling it but the profit they gain from it should go to some charity or something.
This is a step beyond the fridge... Taking a meme about your product and turning it into a cool fridge is one thing...
Rrod also effected the consumer. This is in bad taste.
There's owning up to your mistakes...but this is too much IMO
Remember that time you couldn't game for weeks or months because of us?
Well we want to charge you to remind you of that, constantly.
You're welcome, Dave.
RRoD was like 15 years ago. I’m sorry you’re still so upset about it.
Hoping Sony does something for fun for the great PSN hack at some point.
People are to sensitive, have a laugh. It's all in retrospect now.
And people said $55 was too much for PS5 shells? Jesus what a rip off. Not to mention it being in poor taste. "Hey, guys, let's remember the product we rushed to market at your expense, just to beat the PS3 to launch (which ended up getting delayed a year, anyway.)" Hell, if you can prove you had a 360 RROD, they should be handing these out for free.
"Hey, guys, let's remember the product we rushed to market at your expense"
Microsoft literally took all of the expense, repaired or replaced any console. no questions asked, it cost them well over a billion and tarnished the brand, i also know a few people who got a free game out of it, if anything, it was at their expense.
Yea, AFTER they were sued. Up until then they were claiming it was the customers' fault.
$55.00 to much, i agree. 10% of the entire system cost?
One is a random poster that no one should waste their money on, the other is the main way to customize your console, Sony shut down dBrand only to release their own plates, which less options.
Essay Pro