New Xbox 360 Literally Can't Red Ring of Death

The dreaded Red Ring of Death is one of the scariest things that can happen to an Xbox 360 gamer. Those three flashing red lights are the signal of a hardware failure. The only bright side to getting that failure is that it is covered for three years as opposed to just the single year warranty for all other flaws.

The new Xbox 360 announced this week at E3, however, will NEVER get such an error. Does this mean that Microsoft has dealt with all the overheating GPU issues? We hope so – but what we really mean is that the new hardware simply doesn't have the capability to flash any red lights at all.

Joystiq obtained the following spec comparison sheet between the old and the new hardware and it clearly lists that the new hardware can only blink green.

Other new notable features is that the new console supports the Kensington laptop lock if you want to keep it bolted down.

Sadly, the new system doesn't accept any of the old memory units, so those still without hard drives on their Xbox 360 Arcade machines will have a bigger challenge in porting over their game saves.

Marcus Yam is a technology evangelist for Intel Corporation, the latest in a long line of tech-focused roles spanning a more than 20-year career in the industry. As Executive Editor, News on Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, Marcus was responsible for shaping the sites' news output, and he also spent a period as Editor of Outdoors & Sports at Digital Trends.