360 failure rate 54.2%

[Alishe]

I left my 360 on for the majority of 2 years after FFXI was released on it. Bought the 360 on launch day and have never had any issues with it, hell my cat even knocked it off of the TV.

[jimbo]

YouTube - Game


gameboy that survived a bomb

[Ramor]

my 360 has been fine, with the exception of a scratched disk when i knocked it over i haven't had any problems with it (it now lies flat on the floor so no more falling over!)

i get the feeling some of these people just weren't treating their 360s all that well, though 54% is still fucktardedly high

[Shojin]

Count yourself in the lucky 46%.

[MisterBob]

my 360 has been fine, with the exception of a scratched disk when i knocked it over i haven't had any problems with it (it now lies flat on the floor so no more falling over!)

i get the feeling some of these people just weren't treating their 360s all that well, though 54% is still fucktardedly high

I'd be careful of actually believing the 54% statistic.

The 360 failure rate is certainly high, but they don't go into detail as to how well they gathered data for the poll, and 5000 is a very small sample size.

Additionally, what defines a console "owner" in the poll? Is an owner some 12 year old console fanboy who decided he hates every console he doesn't own, and thus voted that his 360 broke?


I've had a launch 360 with no problems, so have a handful of friends. Could just be dumb luck, but I suspect treating it well + proper ventilation play a strong role in preventing whatever soldering defect there was from actually causing a problem.

[Weltall]

I have a friend who is on his 6th or 7th one, and he treats it well. Aparently, over half of them are just crap.

[viperlasson]

I have a HDMI xbox360, bought it when halo 3 came out, no problems at all. Same with my friends too.

[Shojin]

I'd be careful of actually believing the 54% statistic.

The 360 failure rate is certainly high, but they don't go into detail as to how well they gathered data for the poll, and 5000 is a very small sample size.

Additionally, what defines a console "owner" in the poll? Is an owner some 12 year old console fanboy who decided he hates every console he doesn't own, and thus voted that his 360 broke?


I've had a launch 360 with no problems, so have a handful of friends. Could just be dumb luck, but I suspect treating it well + proper ventilation play a strong role in preventing whatever soldering defect there was from actually causing a problem.

2700 people out of 5000 isn't still ridiculously high? If you look at the people that have posted in this thread, I'd say around half of them have had a 360/friends 360 crap out on them, I'd say the figure is probably pretty accurate. And if you read the end of the article, every writer/editor at Joystiq has had their 360 break on them, and suggest that they think it is probably higher. And I don't think the survey even takes in to account people that have had multiple Xbox 360's die on them.

While admittedly some of them may have broken due to stupid owners, doesn't negate the fact that the majority of the time when you buy a 360, you're taking a gamble and hoping you got one that was decently built. That shit isn't right. Like a poster above me mention, MS rushed to get their consoles out before Sony and Nintendo, and in doing so most probably rushed the testing process and now they are paying for it, and apparently earning some more money from the people who's 360's break out of warranty and go out and buy a new one.

[Maguspk]

His point is that the polled aren't a good sampling.

Even if all the failure poll results are true, you have to take into account that the people who had them fail are going to be much more vocal than the ones who haven't had a problem. 54% seems much too high.

That being said, I got a 360 around H3 release and it's been fine, I keep it elevated and make sure the vents can work properly (most people sit it on the vents which is just stupid and explains a lot of the failures). All of my friends have had theirs fail at some point though, but they use them a ton and I suspect the overuse and poor ventilation were to blame more than a defect.

lol@tags, 360 542% failure rate, holy shi-

edit: It's also worth mentioning that for each 360 failure I've heard about, the person was able to get the entire console replaced by Microsoft for free, we joked among my group of friends about how Microsoft's customer service was so great, because it really was. Even down to headsets and controllers, when those broke, all it took was a call to Microsoft and you had a new one soon thereafter.

[Kurokikaze]

I bought my 360 October 07 and got my first RRoD November 08, had to send it in for repairs. Was pretty funny though cause 5/7 people in my suite on campus got RRoDs within the same month.

[Shojin]

It was nice of them to extend the warranty for RROD failures, (and I think the E74 failure too? I'm not sure) but when you know full well that the console you made has a high tendency to overheat and damage hardware, what do you expect them to do? Peoples consoles were breaking due to other things and they had to force an RROD on their console to get MS to replace it for free (which is why there are tons of guides on how to RROD your 360 on the web). But unless I'm mistaken, they don't replace hardware out of warranty.

They had a class action law suit filed against them end of last year which if it hasn't already failed, probably will. Link: Xbox 360 RROD class action lawsuit filed in California | The Industry Standard

[Cow_k]

I got an Elite 2.5 years ago and it's still running fine.

Ironically, my Wii died about 4 months after getting it. Had some weird GPU problems that were only explained through some web site as having to do with keeping Wiiconnect on. Was sort of frustrating if that's the case since Nintendo seems to expect you to keep that on all the time.

[Jaybar]

My bro's Xbax RRoD'd about one year after he had purchased it. He got a replacement (note: not repaired) version like 1 month later and works fine 1.5years later.

My friend's broke about 2 years after he purchased (he got his first month of distribution). He was too lazy and too stupid to send it in, and by the time he told me about it his warranty was already up.

[kuronosan]

I'm glad I have a Wii.

[Boyiee]

I'm still on my first 360 from several years ago, but I don't play it like, at all.

Don't play my Wii either.

I play my PS3 some though, madden and once in a while something else. Funny thing about 360 is for the past... idk, 6months it's been at my sisters cause her's RROD'd, i should be getting it back soon so it can return to collecting dust.

[Baelorn]

only 3.8% said they'd never buy another Xbox due to high failure rate.

This is the really disturbing part imo. It's like people are saying it's okay to put out shitty hardware.

[Zosi]

There are tons of things wrong with this survey.

For one thing, polling subscribers to any video game magazine is going to heavily bias your survey towards early adopters - these are people who probably bought launch 360s that were heavily hit by RRoD. Second, these are life-time figures. It's obvious that launch 360s had an *insanely* high failure rate, but where's the data on currently-sold 360s, which is much more relevant? Third, and perhaps most interestingly, whatever the number is, it doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference. Everyone over the age of 12 knows that 360s have a higher relative failure rate - and they still sell massive quantities of both consoles and games. Having a lower failure rate doesn't seem to be doing Sony much good, even with the rather extremely bad publicity the 360 has gotten.

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, I own an Xbox 360, a PS2 (which I absolutely love), a Nintendo DS Lite and a Dreamcast. I'm not much of a fanboy in terms of consoles. I was concerned about getting a 360 because of the failure rates, but I did a fair bit of research and I'm very happy with my 360. If the PS3 slim announcement that's coming ends up being accurate and they drop the price to $300, I'll very seriously consider picking one up too. I don't hate Sony, I just think that MS made a better product this generation.

[Shojin]

There are tons of things wrong with this survey.

For one thing, polling subscribers to any video game magazine is going to heavily bias your survey towards early adopters - these are people who probably bought launch 360s that were heavily hit by RRoD. Second, these are life-time figures. It's obvious that launch 360s had an *insanely* high failure rate, but where's the data on currently-sold 360s, which is much more relevant? Third, and perhaps most interestingly, whatever the number is, it doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference. Everyone over the age of 12 knows that 360s have a higher relative failure rate - and they still sell massive quantities of both consoles and games. Having a lower failure rate doesn't seem to be doing Sony much good, even with the rather extremely bad publicity the 360 has gotten.

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, I own an Xbox 360, a PS2 (which I absolutely love), a Nintendo DS Lite and a Dreamcast. I'm not much of a fanboy in terms of consoles. I was concerned about getting a 360 because of the failure rates, but I did a fair bit of research and I'm very happy with my 360. If the PS3 slim announcement that's coming ends up being accurate and they drop the price to $300, I'll very seriously consider picking one up too. I don't hate Sony, I just think that MS made a better product this generation.

Well,

1. Why would it not be lifetime? Does having an older model of Xbox 360 RROD on you exempt it from counting towards the failure %? It is the same for all consoles. As I already said, this survey doesn't even take in to account multiple 360 failures some people have had happen to them, people on their 5th/6th Xbox.

2. Why does it matter on current 360's when retailers are still selling the original Zephyrs and Falcons? Jaspers have only started being sold somewhat recently and yes while it is supposed to help against RROD (which I already stated in this thread), they don't label them as Jaspers and you have to look at the sticker on the Xbox to even find out if it is a Jasper model. The launch PS3's were the most likely to YLOD, the newer models have lower power consumption and I've been told significantly reduce or even eliminate the problem, but they aren't only surveying the new PS3's.

3. Yes, everyone knows 360 failure rate is high, just this figure is significantly higher than most expected. Whether these results are skewed or not, I can't say.

4. No one ever said it was doing Sony any good, but if you want to say things like that, then the Wii which has the lowest failure rate out of all 3 has shit over both PS3 and Xbox in terms of sales.

As for the 3.8% that would probably buy another (which could actually improve MS's sales), the reason which I have heard; a lot of these people have invested a lot of money in the Xbox in the way of wireless adapter, bigger HDD, games/XBLA games, controllers etc. and a lot of people don't want to just give that up.

[Kurokikaze]

This is the really disturbing part imo. It's like people are saying it's okay to put out shitty hardware.

No kidding man... I would definitely not buy another 360 if this one gets to the point where I can't send it in for free repairs. Bad tray/not reading disks? Wrap 360 in a towel and leave it on for a few hours => RRoD => Send it in => ??? => Profit.

[Zosi]

Well,

1. Why would it not be lifetime? Does having an older model of Xbox 360 RROD on you exempt it from counting towards the failure %? It is the same for all consoles. As I already said, this survey doesn't even take in to account multiple 360 failures some people have had happen to them, people on their 5th/6th Xbox.

Because it ignores TIME. Guess what? The lifetime failure rates of PS3s is 100% - over a long enough lifetime. The installed bases of Xboxes and PS3s aren't equally old, particularly in America where there was more than a year difference in release dates. Four year old consoles are more likely to fail than three year old consoles, particularly if they're from a generation that was known for design flaws.

2. Why does it matter on current 360's when retailers are still selling the original Zephyrs and Falcons? Jaspers have only started being sold somewhat recently and yes while it is supposed to help against RROD (which I already stated in this thread), they don't label them as Jaspers and you have to look at the sticker on the Xbox to even find out if it is a Jasper model. The launch PS3's were the most likely to YLOD, the newer models have lower power consumption and I've been told significantly reduce or even eliminate the problem, but they aren't only surveying the new PS3's.

See previous comment about useless "lifetime failure rate", and add in that Jasper has been shipped to retailers for almost a year now. 360s actually sell fairly well, the odd old box sitting on the shelf doesn't invalidate the fact that Zephyrs don't make up something crazy like 75% of sold Xboxes nowadays. As for the PS3, the YLOD problem was pretty minor, it's not hard to believe the 10% number. The real number nowadays is probably lower - I'd guess around 5-6%. Similarly, your chances of getting a RRoD 360 off a retail shelf right now aren't 54% - I'd say 20-25% at absolute *maximum*, probably under 20% and going down. High, but not insane.

3. Yes, everyone knows 360 failure rate is high, just this figure is significantly higher than most expected. Whether these results are skewed or not, I can't say.

You don't want to say. There's a difference. There's no shortage of reasons to question the validity of the poll.

4. No one ever said it was doing Sony any good, but if you want to say things like that, then the Wii which has the lowest failure rate out of all 3 has shit over both PS3 and Xbox in terms of sales.

Nice job completely missing the point. It doesn't really do Nintendo any good either - you'd have to be pretty silly to say that the Wii outsells the PS3 and Xbox for any reason that involves failure rates.

As for the 3.8% that would probably buy another (which could actually improve MS's sales), the reason which I have heard; a lot of these people have invested a lot of money in the Xbox in the way of wireless adapter, bigger HDD, games/XBLA games, controllers etc. and a lot of people don't want to just give that up.

You can resell everything except XBLA games at GameStop to buy shiny new PS3 accessories/games. Also, it's 3.8% that would NOT buy another 360, and most people who have RRoD problems don't *have* to buy another.