GameStop has been repairing, reselling red-ringed Xbox 360s since 2009

Shawn Knight

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report gamestop xbox microsoft gaming xbox 360 gaming console games red ring of death

The Xbox 360 remains a favorite among millions of gamers even nearly 10 years after its November 2005 debut. Unfortunately for Microsoft and buyers alike, the console was plagued by a high failure rate over an issue that became known as the Red Ring of Death.

While the company has never issued statistics related to the 360’s failure rate, they did address the matter early on by rolling out an extended three-year warranty for affected consoles.

Of course, not every dead console made it back into the hands of Microsoft for repair or replacement and that was just fine for one brick-and-mortar games retailer.

As outlined in a recent piece from Bloomberg, GameStop has been capitalizing on Microsoft’s misfortunes since 2009. In addition to its lucrative trade-in system which represents 27 percent of the company’s revenue, they figured out to how effectively repair the Red Ring of Death.

GameStop built a machine that is able to heat up the top of the system while simultaneously cooling it from below, thus repairing the faulty internal connection that leads to the hardware error. They’ve streamlined and perfected the process which is now carried out by a $10-per-hour labor operator.

Repaired systems are then sold as refurbished and can fetch close to its original price, further padding the company’s profits.

The method will no doubt squander away as the console continues to age and gamers migrate to next generation systems from both Microsoft and Sony, but it’s interesting to hear of yet another way that GameStop has remained relevant in the face of an ongoing migration to digital downloads.

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"Repaired systems are then sold as refurbished and can fetch close to its original price"
wow.. ripped off much?
 
"Repaired systems are then sold as refurbished and can fetch close to its original price"
wow.. ripped off much?
Ask yourself this.
  1. Which would be worse, filling our land fills with devices that can be used or actually using them?
  2. Which is worse the company creating devices that require repair or the repair technician who makes a living fixing the crap that shouldn't have broken to begin with?
 
Does gamestop offer a warranty on their refurbished consoles? That's they only way I can see justifying selling the consoles back at near full price UNLESS their method is a permanent fix for that particular issue of red rings. Otherwise, if the problem can happen once it can happen again. Unless this some one time fix or close to it, it's worse than selling a faulty console that at least has a warranty. Otherwise it's just a temporarily fixed but still faulty console...
 
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