None of that explains why, in your previous post, you imply this would help 360 sell more.  It doesn't matter about the warranty or the free fix - why would it encourage people to buy?

People don't buy because of anything like this.  If MS offered money refund on the console if you got the error then that might drive more sales as in fact you stand to gain if you get the error.

At the end of the day this is another blow for 360 quality of built and increases the odds you're going to lose you console for a while and have the inconvenice of waiting for a new one.  That's not an advantage no matter how you spin it.

Sorry - but your logic doesn't compute IMHO.

Reasonable, your question has already been answered, by me a couple of posts ago

I said what I said because the E74 error may have held a few people back from buying one, because the E74 error wasn't covered with any warranty.

Funny how they're acting now that the problem has become more common. I think they should have done it in the first place - clearly they knew of the possibility if they really added an error like this. Now they're just trying to save their face.

Sorry, I just can't see this as a purely good thing, even if it is a good thing.

it's good to hear that Microsoft cares, since i bought the X360 and i'm hoping that when i press that green button, it won't be red or give a E74 error.

Zkuq, that doesn't really make sense

As an example, the software developers might say
"Alright, if there is no communication between the harddrive and the motherboard, we want the 360 to output E34. If there is not enough power coming in to run everything, output E35 (and so on)"

The PS3 and Wii will no doubt have a similar set of definitions. It's not as if E74 is a specific thing that MS knew would happen - clearly there're at least 74 of these potential errors. It just so happened that this one was more probable than the others

Google yields plenty of cases and coverage (near RRoD results).

I think nowadays E-74 is mainly just RRoD, maybe they changed the default behaviour (for some problems) with a firmware update (XNE) so it costs them less (not covered by extended warranty) or so they hoped. It seems so and this wouldn't surprise me at all.

They denied major problems with regard to the original RRoD as well, up to the point of class action lawsuits (like now with E-74) and having to report to shareholders. In a recent lawsuit Microsoft employees testified Microsoft was aware of disc scratching issues before launch, other documents support the notion of Microsoft having been aware of RRoD before launch as well (but how couldn't they have been, considering mass failure of launch units... )

Did Microsoft just replace the way the 360 reports a general error condition? The newer models just report an E74 instead of 3 rings, or is this a different problem?

"After investigating the issue, we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console. "

I think it may be a mixture. And not only for new units, but for firmware updated older units as well.

I think the word "investigating" may be an exaggerated word here.

It likely won't. Slim models usually output a lot less heat and many any lingering heat related issues will essentially vanish.