UK-based game console repair company Micromart has been
fixing video game systems for over a decade. On its website it advertises that it will repair
PlayStation 2, original Xbox, PSP and replace screens for other handheld
systems.
Micromart, which used to repair the Xbox 360, recently posted a
notice on its website that it “has now withdrawn from offering a repair service
for the dreaded 3 Red Lights fault.”
The company states that, “This problem is endemic on the
Xbox 360 console and the volume has made this repair non-viable.” Micromart
will also no longer fix Xbox 360 consoles that display screen freezing
problems. The company, however, will continue to support all other repairs to
the consoles.
“We were seeing about 30 a week before we pulled the plug on
the service,” said Micromart’s Jeff Croft to GamesIndustry.
“We saw it over a period of several months and it was just getting worse. It
began towards the end of last year. Once the twelve month warranty finished
then we started to see more and more machines being sent in to be looked at.”
“The work we had done to the console lead us to believe that
basically it was a fault with the motherboard and not something that could be
resolved easily. And it wasn't going to go away,” continued Croft.
“We're not taking
that thing on board; we won't repair them. We originally did some work with it
but it's labour intensive and it isn't really a feasible repair for us to
undertake. We would probably end up charging GBP 100 [$202] for a repair and we
still wouldn't be happy with the end result,” he added.
A recent investigation by DailyTech on Xbox 360 warranty returns revealed that up
to a third of Microsoft’s latest console fail.
