Xbox 360: 61 Per Cent Failure Rate?

[DC RID3R]

When it comes to the "Three Rings Of Death" (TROD for short), the Xbox 360 is becoming all to familiar with the term. So just how bad is Microsoft's next-gen console's failure rate? Take a look at this survey, which takes a fresh look into the problem, and attempts to update the failure rate situation.
Everywhere you turn, there’s another story of a broken 360 and anyone you speak to has either had their console fail on them, or knows of many others who have. It really is the problem that simply won’t go away.

Well, with Microsoft sticking to its 4 – 5% failure rate story, we figured we’d have another look at our survey, which has at the time of writing attracted 3780 submissions and 2355 comments – the majority of which are from angry owners who feel cheated by the Xbox 360’s build quality and Microsoft’s after sales service.

One example of this was left by Gamertag Jarandco, who commented: “Had original Xbox 360 [die] after about 14 months. Due to it being out of warranty had to pay £80 for it to be fixed, well for them to send me a different one anyway… I disagree with having to pay that after they repaired the American 360s for free, they weren’t very helpful on the phone either!”

At the time of writing, 2,315 (61 per cent) responses to the survey have complained that they’ve got through at least one console, with many having got through even more than that. Obviously we accept that our figures are probably skewed towards the negative, but such a response is still unprecedented and we’re sure that if in a years time we ran a similar survey on our sister site PS-Gamer.com we wouldn’t get anywhere near such a response. In fact, we may well do this… Anyway, it’s not just us who believes this problem is beyond that of other consoles, after getting through 3 consoles, Gamertag henk live left the message: “MS dare to say they don't have a problem (Yeah right), I have been a gamer for 25 years and I never have seen this kind of reliability with a console.”


News Source: http://www.360-gamer.com/news.asp?id=964

[Frak-Frakistan]

and over 90% modded consoles are banned from live.


ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED

[cloporte]

I think M$ should get sued for such a failure rate

and especially since they lie concerning the failure rate they state 5% ?

this is for me completely illegal to sell at that time such a defective product .

Like said before i have never seen this kind of things with any other mass

product .

Shame on you Bill Gates, come again to belgium we have plenty of cream pies

waiting for you ...

[lee6370]

The problem with any survey where you ask people to tell you if the products **** or not is that those that are pissed off are the ones that will complete the survey, so it's no surprise that they have the results that they do.

I can only speak from my own experiance, i know at least a dozen people with 360, and not one has had any probelms.

[Darkest_RaVeN]

Those 2000 or so who complained make up about 0.03% of all 360's sold. But then you have no idea how many of those 360's sold are replacement units....

[stop_loading]

i dont believe it, while I think 4-5% failure rate is bs, most likely it won't exceed 10%, which is still okay

[InsaneNutter]

and over 90% modded consoles are banned from live.

And your point is? sooner or later modded Xbox's got banned im just supprised it didnt happen sooner with the 360.

The problem with any survey where you ask people to tell you if the products **** or not is that those that are pissed off are the ones that will complete the survey, so it's no surprise that they have the results that they do.

I can only speak from my own experiance, i know at least a dozen people with 360, and not one has had any probelms.

Exactly, atleast 10 of my mates have a 360 and only one of them has had one fail...

[cloporte]

Those 2000 or so who complained make up about 0.03% of all 360's sold. But then you have no idea how many of those 360's sold are replacement units....

dude

i know about 10 guys (included myself) who bought first gen Xbox 360

and guess what it's 100 % failure rate all of those guys had to return their

dead 360 to M$ , the last guy who had still his working 360 last was last week

then it died !

2nd thing my friend is owner of a video games store and he had about 50% failure rate for the 1st gen system .

Why would he be lying about it ?

[stop_loading]

Why would he be lying about it ?

fanboys lie all the time

plus it's possible for people to link to other people's gamercard, then make up story for the rest

[cloporte]

fanboys lie all the time

plus it's possible for people to link to other people's gamercard, then make up story for the rest


sure fanboys ...

then you can think the opposite

fanboys want to make you believe there is no failure rate .

what about that footage on bbc tv about it ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56-gQq62Hyc

they are also sony fanboys ?

come on dude wake up , this TROD existed , and a lot , maybe less now ...

[stop_loading]

sure fanboys ...

then you can think the opposite

fanboys want to make you believe there is no failure rate .

what about that footage on bbc tv about it ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56-gQq62Hyc

they are also sony fanboys ?

come on dude wake up , this TROD existed , and a lot , maybe less now ...

i'm not denying that TROD exist

i'm telling that the problem isn't as bad as the story makes you to believe, and people DO make up stories, i'm saying it won't exceed 10% failure rate

[kcvfr400]

I think this survey not going to be enough people to give a true figure of failure rates and think the failure rate is probably alot lower, but still not acceptable. But to those who say 10% failure is acceptable, they are mad, because that is not an acceptable rate for anything electrical failing and to accept that is to let the company screw you anytime they likeon any product.

[Taft]

Iam happy that I dont have any problem with my 360.
And I have been having it since launch.

[Xenogears V]

Microsfot builds 360 defective, so after having hacked the firmware, I cannot be brought assistance to the center, so one and forced to buy a new of it and so the number of console sold increases. Good trick Microsoft!.:p :D :D :D :D .

[Dark_Vendetta]

Well if everything above is true I'll should be happy cuz my 360 never showed me the 3 lights and I'm not banned (using a hacked firmware). I love this console

[alkalinetrio]

i'm not denying that TROD exist

i'm telling that the problem isn't as bad as the story makes you to believe, and people DO make up stories, i'm saying it won't exceed 10% failure rate

I'm going to laugh when your 360 dies. and trust me IT WILL DIE.

The failure rate 10 percent you are joking. I am surprised the survery is as low as 61perecent. My experiences and 10 plus people i know all with multiple failures this is a problem. If you really are that lucky to have a 360 and it just so happens to still be alive, don't be so naive as to say there is no problem!

[lee6370]

dude

i know about 10 guys (included myself) who bought first gen Xbox 360

and guess what it's 100 % failure rate all of those guys had to return their

dead 360 to M$ , the last guy who had still his working 360 last was last week

then it died !

2nd thing my friend is owner of a video games store and he had about 50% failure rate for the 1st gen system .

Why would he be lying about it ?

I'm sure that 1st Gen 360's has a higher failure rate then they do now, but you need to be careful with your percentages.

If your 10 mates all returned their consoles then they have had between them 20 consoles, and 10 have been returned that’s a failure rate of 50%.

On the other hand it looks like they now have 2nd gen 360 and the failure rate on your sample is 0%.

Either way you can twist the figures to suit your argument, MS has a 3rd party company produce its consoles and you can bet anything you want that the 3rd party company would have bourne the brunt of the cost of any failures, so it would have been in its interest to get it sorted ASAP.

I'll give you an example my company sub-contract the manufacture of certain components, build into the cost is a certain percentage for failure rate, any thing over and above that percentage is paid for by the sub-contractor and given the very tight margins they work to, they ensure that the failure rate is kept to a minimum.

In fact I’d go as far as to say that if a manufacturer was producing a failure rate above 10% it would go out of business very quickly.

[PSPWAD]

I'm going to laugh when your 360 dies. and trust me IT WILL DIE.
With their policy where I don't have to pay to return it to get it replaced, and the fact my box is covered under full warranty until Dec 2009, I wouldn't care, I have my Wii to play while I wait. I know you weren't talking to me, but this is bullshit, there is no way that we can tell WHAT the rate is, and idiots on the internet want to go "OMG THEY ALL T3H BR0X!"...just STFU about it, if you just wanna talk hate, don't BUY a 360. If you buy one, just get the warranty. There are WORSE products out there (ones that work but don't function like advertised :p!)

[Sinar]

Due to watchdog getting involved uk units are repaired unless there is a rare event the unit cannot be fixed on which its replaced. Included in all boxes is an extended service invoice £50-60 for 2 extra years.
This is either microsoft confidence over their failure rate or are they hiding something?

Taken from the microsoft leaflet Act now to protect your investment in the amazing xbox 360.

5: A replacement model, in the rare event your xbox 360 can't be fixed.
If all else fails and our service experts actually conclude your xbox 360 console or controller is beyond repair. we'll comfort you with a replacement, including the latest features. So your service contract can pay for itself several times over with this benefit alone. :p

[Hades]

Well I know perhaps 20 people most of which have a first edition of the 360 (including myself) and the failure rate is 0%.... Yes thats a zero....

In fact I'm kinda hoping one of them does start doing the ROD so that I can get my electrician friend to try and resolder the points no those 4 chips.

[stop_loading]

I'm going to laugh when your 360 dies. and trust me IT WILL DIE.


I don't have one

the 10% is just a wild guess, if it has failure rate over 10% then it's utterly ridiculous and they should calling the console back

in fact I dont have any significant experience over x360, so i'm not aware of the problems, and i'm actually surprised hearing the horror stories over the official x360 forum

[KainXS]

i only had one die on me but don't really care

[So-Unreal]

in the usa is it true that After they repair your system you can buy a 1 year warranty for $24.99?

And also the Failure Rate is vary high and I dont care what they say. I think thats why that one company stopped making them.

[stop_loading]

I personally think this is funny :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLOPW1Qe1HU

and note i dont have any of next gen console

[PSPWAD]

I personally think this is funny :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLOPW1Qe1HU

and note i dont have any of next gen console
Heh, funny fanboy video, lol!

[Hmerly]

As someone who had his 360 give the 3 rings of death, I have to say the failure rate is unacceptable. However, that poll is a stupid and pointless thing to do as any idiot who knows statistics can tell you that you cannot make a poll for the specific purpose of finding a percentage for something (in this case 360 failure rates) by asking people to come and cast their votes. To truly test the failure rate of the 360 you would have to take a random sampling of a population (those that have 360s) and then extrapolate a more scientific rate of failure that way, rather than doing a poll that of course gets most of its votes from people who has had a failed system.

[stop_loading]

Heh, funny fanboy video, lol!

now i know why people buy the gameless ps3 :D

[Chossy]

this is old news i posted about this a month ago.
what with all the bannings and this ms can go screw themselves.
so far between me and my friends we are at 90% failure rate with only 1 out of 10 ( i just got my 3rd but its unopened waiting for ixtreme thx carphone warehouse needed a new phone anyway).

[New Age GCS]

Take it from someone that owns a repair shop. I get a least one call a day sometimes more from people with failed xbox360's. Its sad we can not offer to fix a defective product. We have to offer a 90 day warrenty with any repair and with the 360 that is impossible. This is the worse game console prouduced to date. (My Opinion) The second worse is the PSP with failed UMD Drives LCD's and power switches the only difference between the 2 is that the PSP can be repaired and I can give a 90 day warrenty. Mind you the a defective 360 can be repaired but you cannot expect the repair to last for a long time.

[weetz]

Out of the people in my class at college 2 out of 6 have had the 3 Red lights of death. One person i know who has mental problems i think keeps asking me if i think his 360 is gonna break because it makes an "electric noise"...strange i know.

[PSPWAD]

now i know why people buy the gameless ps3 :D
Your comment doesn't even make any sense...

[stop_loading]

Your comment doesn't even make any sense...

how so

people got sick of their 3rd-4th x360 so that they get a ps3 instead, even though ps3 is severely lacking games at the moment

[Xenontc]

The only people who actually submit these surveys, are the people who are pissed. Satisfied customers don't feel the need to express there satisfaction because the product is fine and working the way they want it to. As far as the 4-5%, I feel that is a little low, but 67% is just retarded. The number should be more around 10-15%.

[stop_loading]

The only people who actually submit these surveys, are the people who are pissed. Satisfied customers don't feel the need to express there satisfaction because the product is fine and working the way they want it to. As far as the 4-5%, I feel that is a little low, but 67% is just retarded. The number should be more around 10-15%.

over 10% is ridiculous

microsoft should be already in trouble for over 5% defect rate, 10% is pushing it, over 10%? the product shouldnt even be released with over 10% failure rate

if you read over the official xbox forum, it's not uncommon people having their 3rd x360, or in extreme cases, 5th or 6th x360; the thing is, microsot send a refurbished x360 that'll break in a month instead of a new one

combine that with crappy customer service and you'll get some pissed customers

[msanchez]

Well I won't get into %'s because there's no way for me to give a number without feeling I'm talking sh*t, but the failure rate is TOO high. There's way too many stories of people going through 4+ 360s. And those that are saying that they have 20 friends that still have their original 360 I have this to say to you:
I know at least 26 people with ps2 and not "1" has broken, yes you read right, not 1 I still have my original fat ps2 that doesn't even have infrared port built in, so I can't use the remote since I can't find the one that brought the drivers. Same for most of the people I know. Now those that mean that I can say that the ps2 don't suffer from disc read errors and such? If your 360 hasn't broken be thankful, or be like my friend that doesn't use it for fear of it breaking on him :) idiot I know.

[PSPWAD]

how so

people got sick of their 3rd-4th x360 so that they get a ps3 instead, even though ps3 is severely lacking games at the moment
That isn't why people are buying PS3s. The people buying PS3s are the ones buying it because it either has a game they want or they are Sony fans. Everyone "pissed off at Microsoft" may buy one, but they are waiting for one of three things, price drop, games to exist for it, or BOTH.