The decision affect all original Xbox consoles, no matter if they are still under warranty or not.

That’s sour news for Japanese buyers, but the Redmond company packed the announcement with a nice deal to sweeten things up. The good news is that Xbox owners will be able to change their old consoles with brand new Xbox 360’s at no charge.

The bad news is that the deal will only apply to original Xbox consoles still under warranty.

Considering the facts, Microsoft’s offers is actually meant to boost the company image rather than provide actual results. After all, you’d have to be a very later adopter to have that console still covered by the warranty contract.

Furthermore, most of the few Japanese gamers that had been lured to buy Microsoft’s products have either switched to the new 360 model some time ago or just given up on the console altogether.