While a skull and crossbones may have struck time into ancient mariners’ hearts, another image is far more unsettling to gamers – the Red Ring of Death. Artist Jonah Block understands that, and his design called Red Ring Jolly Roger drives that point home. And, for one day only, you can purchase your own Red Ring Jolly Roger t-shirt from Tee Fury…

Xbox 360s die sometimes. It’s an established fact. The older models, and sometimes even newer ones, often succumb to the dreaded Red Ring of Death. And, if your particular console is no longer under warranty, you may just find yourself with a very expensive white or black brick.

Artist Alexis Vanamois has created something to help those who’ve experienced such a loss – a RROD coffin. This coffin, which was first highlighted by PC World, is a very stylish and somber, black container. It has specially crafted holes to place both your Xbox 360 and controller, and a RROD symbol on the top. Classy. Little satin pillows to put under the console and controller would be a nice touch, but I’m sure you can do that on your own after you buy one…

In theory, the iPad seems like an absolutely incredible idea.

Then again, that’s what a company does when it’s doing something new for itself and its customers. It trie to make it seem much better than it actually is. So, you’re probably wondering what could go wrong.

Well, entirely too much can go wrong.

Well dear readers, I have just dealt with the tragedy that many Xbox 360 users have dealt with, the dreaded Red Ring of Death (ie when your 360 suddenly stops working altogether and you see three fed lights around the power button).

There is seemingly little you can do except send it to Microsoft for repairs (assuming the warranty is still good) or buy a new one and hope the same thing doesn’t happen.

Last weekend I became another statistic of the ever-growing epidemic that has been plaguing Xbox 360 owners for some time: My Xbox 360 finally red ringed.

So I ventured out two days before Christmas trying to find a Nintendo Wii err, I mean, an Xbox 360.

It should be noted that I was after no ordinary Xbox 360. No I was after one of the fabled red-ring immune Jasper-chipped Xbox 360s.

The newest iteration on the Xbox 360 has a 65-nanometer graphics chip that supposedly uses less power thus theoretically slowing down, if not hopefully all-together ridding, the Red Ring of Death epidemic…

Oh Microsoft, first you allegedly knew about the “Red Ring of Death” issues before you launched the console and know, according to some unsealed court documents, you knew your system would cause damage to consumer’s discs thanks to defected disc drives.

Earlier this month, Kotaku reported that an Illinois man, Jason Johnson, sued Microsoft for $50,000 in damages, after his replacement console (for one that Red Ringed a year earlier) damaged three games, rendering them all unplayable.

Now, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Microsoft was previously aware that shifting the console while a disc was playing would cause the disc to become damaged. In the documents, Microsoft…

The infamous Red Ring of Death (RROD) has been a plague on the conscience of Xbox 360 owners since the system debuted. Playing a round of Halo 3 or exploring the world of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, only to have your system freeze up and then instantly parish is not something gamers wanted on their minds, especially considering that it might take two weeks – or longer – to get their systems back.

I know it’s something I think about whenever I turn my system on and I bet it’s on your mind as well. Now however, it looks like the RRODepidemic may be something of the past as Microsoft has started introducing Jasper chips into fresh Xbox 360s hitting retail shelves.

VentureBeat has exposed some details on the newly outfitted Xbox 360s, including why the systems should be RROD-proof.

For starters, the new systems will pack a 65-nanometer graphics chip (down from 90-nanometers) that will…

One of the least important but most hilarious stories to come out of this year’s Game Developers’ Conference came from the BBC back on Tuesday (February 19, 2008).

Among the demo XBox 360s Microsoft had in their booth, one malfunctioned, showing off one of the 360′s most “popular” features: the Red Ring of Death..

SquareTrade, a firm that deals in warranties for electronics, analyzed the data taken from more than a thousand warranty purchases. It found that the Xbox 360 has a failure rate of about 16.4%, making it much more malfunction prone than the Playstation3 and Wii, which have a failure rate of only 3%. According to 1UP, they were far above Microsoft’s own estimates, which were, ironically, also 3%.

Sixty percent of those 360 failures were due to the system’s infamous “Red Ring of Death,” where 3 flashing LED lights go on around the power button to indicate a…

Microsoft Gaming reported a $1.89 billion loss for the fiscal year ending in June 2007. Yeah you read that right, I said billion. You know, nine zeros. This is an increase of 47% from last year’s $1.28 billion operating loss. Even as I sat there reviewing the information in shock, my drink mysteriously caught in limbo between coaster and mouth, I figured out the cause before I read it, unreliable hardware! (Did somebody say red lights?) Though the gaming giant saw $6.08 billion in annual revenue it still wound up in the hole for the year, attributing the loss primarily to …