Dean Takahashi looks behind the Red Ring of Death

Having recently finished The Ultimate History of Video Games and recalling our own sordid affair, I was swayed into reading this lengthy article by Dean Takahasi. Delving back to their first days of next-gen research in 2002, the article chronicles Microsoft’s rush to market with the Xbox 360 and the price they paid for it (it’s somewhere in the billions).

Focused on the Red Ring of Death, the six-page article digs up more dirt than you’ve likely heard on the infamous — and seemingly inevitable — hardware malfunction. The article also has the distinction of leading to the firing of a named source who divulged some of the dirtiest bits.