For as long as the Xbox 360 has been out it's drawn criticism for its high failure rate and proneness to a number of possible faults. Whenever one of these faults occurs, the green "ring of light" changes colour to the red (and subsequently named) "ring of death," with the number of lit quadrants reflecting the type of problem. The above image, with three lit quadrants shows a hardware error. However if that's not choice enough for you, one quadrant also means a general hardware failure and two means the console is overheating. Though I suspect many of you 360 gamers are already well aware of this.

Microsoft did offer a year's warranty on their 360s, with no warranty on any replacements. Once that warranty was up, it'd set you back 80 quid just to have your console working (as it should be.) Microsoft has since extended this warranty to three years from the date of purchase.

Microsoft's Peter Moore, Head of Xbox and Microsoft Games division had stated that "as of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge-including shipping-for three years from the console's purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past."