GCDC: Microsoft Steering For Your Love
230,000. That's the rough number of Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheels Microsoft may have to fix after 50 people complained the controllers were overheating and emitting smoke.
That's right. Smoke.
Apparently it only happens when you plug the wheel into an electrical outlet. Batteries pose no problem, according to Microsoft, and if you contact the company directly, they'll send you a replacement power supply to rectify the problem. They're calling this a "precautionary measure," not a mandatory recall.
Okay, whoa horsey, hold on here -- they're saying nearly a quarter million of these things got all the way to retail without anyone catching this? It sounds like the issue lies in the power supply, not the wheel itself...so anyone care to guess who the power supply OEM was? Any wild stabs? (*cough* China? *cough*) Could this be another story where outsourcing to countries with "alternative" safety standards is coming back to bite? (Whatever the case, I thought QA stood for "quality assurance," not "quick-approve," and how do you miss something like heat intense enough to make a $130 gaming peripheral smolder?)
At least Microsoft's reacting on the level. All those malfunctioning Xbox 360s are going to cost it $1 billion, it had to extend its Xbox 360 warranty from one to three years, its July NPD sales are down 18% on the previous year, and now it has upwards of a quarter of a million steering wheels to patch up.
Ouch.
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I've developed and patented a product that will add a safety margin for when you're using unreliable electronics that smoke up and catch fire, like Xboxes, battery chargers, laptops, etc. It's a power strip that cuts off power when it detects smoke. I'm looking for a manufacturer for it, so it's not available yet. See SmokeShutoff.com for details. Plus go to my blog to see the zillions of news stories I've collected about devices catching fire in homes.
That's weird, I'm not signed in as rockinrandy1965. Some kind of glitch?