Xbox at a crossroads: 25 years later, Microsoft is done playing around

Xbox at a gamescom briefing in 2014. Microsoft is pressing its games division to turn a profit. (Microsoft Photo) In 2007, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 consoles started dying — overheating until three lights on the front blinked red, a defect gamers came to call the “red ring of death.” Microsoft’s response was to extend the warranty on every machine and take a charge of more than $1 billion to fix the problem, making it one of the costliest product failures in the company’s history.