Restart Radio: The “Red Ring of Death” and new repair businesses

Restarter Faraz spent three hours helping an Xbox 360 owner deal with the infamous “Red Ring of Death” fault on his game console, and he joined us to talk about the experience.

We learned that the overheating game consoles are an iconic fault, that Microsoft execs valued at $1 billion. And it turns out that a whole online economy sprung up to deal with the problem – including repair kits and full-service repairs.

We talked about how a number of common repairs are available as a service on eBay, and how there might be space for better online marketplaces and platforms to broker repairs. We also talked about how pop-up repair might be a real-world analog to online repairs, and the limits of these new approaches.

Links

• “It was ‘sickening’ says ex-Xbox boss says about Xbox’s 360 Red Ring of Death”
• iFixit Red Ring of Death repair kit (and video)
• eBay Kindle repair service
• eBay category: GPU reballing
• BBC: Repair businesses provide an antidote to throw-away culture

[Feature image “Read Ring of Death” by Flickr user Ray M is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

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