But since it's smaller, it will also have less cooling (supposedly), which is enough to make me not want to buy on day 1. I'll see how it goes.

Ah - I see what you mean.  I work in retail forecasting and we'd never call that a boost, that's why I didn't get it.

What you mean is you think this will negate any lost sales from the error, I see.  I personally wouldn't call this a boost but I agree that if it was giving a negative effect then MS reaction will help.

For me a boost has to be an increase to the baseline demand - what you and Jeronimo66 are describing is removing something causing a negative effect on baseline demand.

For the record I doubt the error was causing any lost sales as it didn't seem to get enough coverage IMHO so I doubt the baseline was impacted much by this and neither do I think the resoluion will change much either.

Terminology's a bitch though when conversing, isn't it?

That would be pretty sad if they still have the hardware defect, but just changed how it is displayed.  I will give MS the benefit of the doubt and hope that the E74 is a different problem.  

For what it's worth, my 360 got the E74 error last July but it quickly turned into a full RROD. So I think they're closely related problems.

The procedure to temporary fix E-74 errors yourself is usually the same as for most RRoD problems. Get a heatgun and heat the GPU/scaler...

^badge - I agree with the theory that the E74 is related to how the HDMI port is attached to the motherboard. Did you use the HDMI port, and did you move your xbox frequently? I had a few friends that got the E74 and that seems like a possible cause.

They do that everytime basically, first the RROD, they denied it and told people out of warranty to pay for repair ... a class action was about to strike -> they extended the warranty, in the meantime countless people bought a replacement.

The RROD has become less common, while E74 has become the new main problem encountered : they deny it and ask money for repair ... a class action is just about to strike -> they extend the warranty, in the meantime countless people have bought a replacement.

I bet you the next extention will be for E71 or E73.

Well there are plenty of reports for older units with E-74 (lacking a HDMI port). I think it's the GPU unit overheating for most problems (which in the past would mean RRoD), most evidence I have heard about seems to point this way.

Mine from 2006 is still working. I purchased the original three year warranty. Does that mean it won't run out til 2011 now?

No, sadly I think not. You probably bought a dealer warranty, Microsoft provides manufacturer warranty. So you had an overlap of warrantees.

Here in the EU dealer warranty is 3 years for these consoles by default (so people don't pay extra for warranty you already have, the main difference is that you may need to write an angry letter to your dealer if they don't comply with covering all costs, trying to hide behind expired manufacturer warranty, which isn't your problem).