Xbox Buyers Get Extended Warranty, Repairs Paid Back Retroactively

Struggling to face crushing competition from Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft rushed to extend the warranty of its Xbox 360 gaming console to one year. Microsoft initially offered only 90 days of warranty on the Xbox 360. The warranty extension applies to customers in the United States and Canada only.

The decision is also retroactive, to Microsoft customers who still are in their first year since they purchased the Xbox. If their product already needed repairs, the Redmond company will reimburse in full the servicing costs. Users should get their checks in about ten weeks from now. Reimbursements will be automatically distributed, so customers need not contact Microsoft.

Up to now, Xbox 360 buyers in the United States and Canada were at a disadvantage, because the standard one year Xbox 360 warranty was available throughout most of the rest of the world.

"Customer satisfaction is a central focus and priority for the Xbox 360 system," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of Global Marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "In addition to jaw-dropping features such as high-definition graphics, an amazing catalog of over 160 games, and social online and entertainment experiences on Xbox Live®, the Xbox 360 system now offers this extended warranty upgrade. It is truly the industry’s most compelling home entertainment offering."

Despite the impressive number of consoles that Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, wants to see in our living rooms by the end of this year, the Xbox platform is still lagging and it is still producing losses. And, according to the high ranked official from Redmond, it will still be a financial black hole until 2008. "To be clear, we have said that in fiscal 08, entertainment and devices makes money. That’s not exactly Xbox. We don’t break profit down by business. And there are parts of entertainment and devices that make money. Xbox doesn’t. Xbox has to make significant progress to enable E&D to get there. We feel we are on track," he said in an interview last month with the San Jose Mercury News.

He was also confident that Xbox 360 will reach the 10 million-pieces-sold landmark, thanks to... logic: "The second thing is frankly our value proposition is just better. Our console is at $299 and $399. Sony is going to have a pretty limited supply of consoles at $499 and $599. Consumers want to buy during the holiday. We're going to be a great logical choice for them."

Customers who have questions regarding this policy change or experience any hardware issues should visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/contact where they can check their warranty status, find troubleshooting information for common issues and find Xbox support contact information.