The Seattle Post Intelligencer has a very interesting interview with someone close to the dreaded “red ring of death” (RROD) failures that the Xbox 360 has suffered since its launch. The anonymous source gives some interesting insights into why so many Xbox 360s might have croaked, with reasons ranging from motherboard timing problems, to poor heat dissipation, to defective or insufficient heat sinks, and more.

Apparently, Microsoft was so focused on beating Sony this cycle that the 360 was rushed to market when all indications were that it had serious flaws. He also revealed that the newer, cooler running processors installed in the new Xbox 360s have reduced the console’s failure rate from 30 to 10 percent. Quite an improvement, but still unacceptably high compared to its rivals the Nintendo Wii and PS3. Read the full interview here.