The Red Ring of Death haunted all my friends, and then it came for me

Hidden from the hustle and bustle of Jamaica Avenue, down a winding flight of stairs, the store looked like a mausoleum, with stacks of busted PS2s, OG Xboxes, and GameCubes lining the walls. This little shop in the Jamaica Colosseum Mall was the same place I once bought from splinter group on PS2, doom 3 for Xbox and the Halo 2 multiplayer map pack, among many others. But the dead consoles served as a chilling reminder that, no matter how vivid the worlds those crates produced, our dream machines would sooner or later cease to function.

Back in late 2005, as I stood on the cusp of a new generation of consoles, I intellectually understood that some of the new, cutting-edge Xbox 360s and yet to be released PlayStation 3s would die one day. Maybe in another decade, this store would be filled with hourglass-shaped white monoliths and gleaming black Foreman grilles. But not yet. It was, after all, the beginning of a new era.

Back then, my teenage social circle was busy arguing about silly console wars and arguing at fast-food restaurants about whether or not kill zone 2‘s 2005 E3 demo was real, or our PlayStation Assurances from friends that once we’ve seen the next generation SOCOMwould we go gloriole and Xbox forever. But there was one thing we all agreed on: we were all excited by the wild new possibilities these new machines promised. HD graphics, better custom music playlists, a conclusion (finally!) to this halo 2and the promise of true next-gen experiences like war implements. What a time to be alive.

And in an era of expensive texting plans and limited social media, the online functionality of the new HD consoles would soon mark a shift in our social lives. In fact, this was the reason why many of us were looking for broadband internet. United online, our circle would surely remain as bright as the conspicuous rings on the Xbox 360 itself.

We’ve all saved enough from the random jobs we had back then to buy 360s and fulfill the escape wish that beckoned after the last period was over. Our afternoons were filled with lap after lap halo 2 (ultimately halo 3), diatribes, arguments about whether Korn without a head would be better off figuring out how best to apply war implements cover tactics too glorioleconvince someone to give something Lost Planet Give it a try, order Chinese take-out (with one friend in particular missing out on the bill. We’re good now, aren’t we?), trade in burnt Incubus and HIM discographies to get them onto our 360 hard drives rip Lamb Of God sacramentand say things like, “Oh my god, did you see that mass effect is there a game coming out?” “oblivion looks crazy!” and “Would you kindly die so I can take your sniper rifle?” Single player or multiplayer, games have never felt more exciting or promising.

But between the roar of shooting rampages and chainsaw aliens, the talk occasionally centered on the rumors circulating on forums that Xbox 360s were suddenly failing. It was always the same: a black screen, a bunch of red lights around the power button, and silence. This failure soon had a name: The Red Ring of Death, or RRoD for short. I started out as a skeptic and soon became a denier. “This can’t happen to us,” I thought. We all relied on the 360 ​​to keep in touch and play together as we approached adulthood. It could not happen to us.

The apparent cause was always different: different people played different games for different periods of time. After all, it seemed these stories had only one thing in common, and that was that three-quarters of the power button turned red like a traffic light. Surely, I thought, people just need to take better care of their machines. It didn’t feel right. It made no sense. It wasn’t the 360’s time to die. We all thought it was still in its prime. Even in our best days.

We thought wrong.

The first of us to fall victim was hit hardest. Over the course of a few years, a certain friend went through four Xbox 360s. At this point, our social circle was in panic mode. We tried to become experts on which models shipped when, trying to piece together the internet anecdotes with what we heard from victims we knew personally. Which 360s were the most vulnerable? Were launch models okay? That halo 3 edition? The elite? Does horizontal or vertical alignment matter? The panic of losing our machines made it hard to be sure. But it wasn’t just about missing out gloriole Nights. The 360 ​​had become a central part of our socialization.

After high school, we all started to drift apart physically. Sure, MySpace was one thing, but it was Xbox Live that really kept our social circle intact. We didn’t just play there, we also talked about music, films and life. All of it. Live became something of a digital safe space as we faced the challenges of growing up.

But the red rings have been chasing us online. When one of us fell on her, much like the error sign on the machine itself, part of that social circle went dark. Microsoft’s repair program was generous, but we couldn’t shake the fear of spending another three or four hundred dollars. We worried about how much time to spend on the machine. How much time we should spend together.

We all feared we were playing on borrowed time. A game of Capture the Flag could be stopped red. Some, like myself, tried to get to the bottom of the denial. How could the problem possibly be so widespread? But if someone with a halo 3 Edition finally got the error that the inevitability of death was too naked to deny. At one point, there’s even someone on an Elite RRoDed that we were sure was bulletproof. I remember a brief exchange of text. “I did everything to keep it safe! I had three feet of clearance around it and an intercooler! How’s that going?”

The repairs took weeks. And in the rush of moving from high school to college and finding full-time jobs, these weeks have made it difficult to keep up with one another and stay in touch. A 360 degree dying meant you wouldn’t speak to anyone for weeks. Forget rounds of gloriole. Not only were we robbed of our favorite game, the red rings were actively pulling us apart.

The red rings of death became a mist that swallowed each of us, one by one. Somehow my launch console was spared, but the fear of it hitting me got too big. Towards the end of the decade, I began exploring the PlayStation 3’s library and tried to persuade friends to do the same. But the damage was done. As time wore on, the Xbox 360, once central to my social circle, hasn’t simply let us down. It killed us, one by one.

Over the years that everyone else I knew was suffering from red rings, things started to settle down. Newer Xbox models seemed to address the underlying overheating issue, but our online social circle was smaller at the time.

Nevertheless, the 360 ​​generation was far from over. We had survived the worst and still had great games to look forward to. One evening I, the sole survivor, sat down to start a new one mass effect Play through to prepare for the sequel.

But it shouldn’t be. A terribly familiar array of lights appeared on the front of my Xbox, denying me access to the future world of the sci-fi roleplaying game. After tearing up all my friends, the red ring of death had finally come for me.