Former Microsoft exec Peter Moore recounts the Red Ring of Death chaos

Peter Moore, former Microsoft corporate VP of the Interactive entertainment business and now Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts, recently recounted the horrific times caused by the Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death."

Issues related to the RRoD cost Microsoft more than $1 billion, and left many gamers frustrated. Despite strong global sales of the Xbox 360, it was a constant headache for Microsoft and a number of their frustrated gamers.

"We were seeing failure rates and starting to get reports through customer service. This was a thing where we couldn't actually figure out what was going on," said while speaking to IGN in a recent podcast interview.

"We knew we had a problem. I remember going to Robbie Bach, my boss, and saying, I think we could have a billion-dollar problem here. As we started to do the analysis of what was going on, we were getting the defectors in, it was a challenging problem for our engineers, and we couldn't quite figure out what it was. We knew it was heat related. There were all kinds of fixes. I remember people putting wet towels around the box."

Ultimately, after informing then-CEO Steve Ballmer about the problem, things got underway as quickly as possible to sort out the heat issues. It was a moment where Moore and other executives wondered if the Xbox brand would survive the high-profile problem.

Did you ever suffer a Red Ring of Death?