Xbox's Recent Battery Issue Was A Reminder To 'Earn Every Hour' With Players, Says Boss

Last week, we published a story about how Xbox had been offering free rechargeable batteries to fans who had been affected by an issue where no AA batteries were included with their new controller, and Xbox boss Asha Sharma was apparently very pleased with how her team dealt with the situation.

This comes from the same The Verge report that quoted Asha Sharma's plans for deeper investment in Xbox platform foundations, and it mentions at the end how Sharma highlighted to her employees that the battery issue was handled quickly and efficiently by her team, while ensuring that a suitable apology (the free battery) was part of the deal.

Xbox's new boss even reportedly said it was a reminder that Xbox and gaming businesses in general need to "earn every hour" with players, and that prioritising their experience is something that Xbox's decisions must incorporate.

Of course, this is not the first time Xbox has done something like this — the most obvious example is with the Red Ring of Death situation, in which Microsoft spent insane amounts of money trying to make up for players' broken consoles.

Former Xbox boss Peter Moore actually mentioned in an interview last year that if Microsoft hadn't been willing to fix those RRoD Xbox 360 consoles, then Xbox as a brand might not have been around today.

Anyway, this is yet another example of positive messaging coming out of Xbox right now, and we certainly commend the team for reacting to this situation as they did. With any luck, mistakes like this won't be made going forward, but it's nice to know that Xbox is committed to doing something about them should they arise.

Were you affected by the recent AA battery issue? Let us know down in the comments section below.