360 Failure rate at 54.2%

[Ackmed]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/101/1014486p1.html

August 17, 2009 - If your Xbox 360 hasn't broken down yet or suffered from the dreaded red ring of death, then consider yourself pretty lucky.

A new survey published in Game Informer's print edition indicates the Xbox 360 failure rate has climbed to a shocking 54.2%. The magazine surveyed nearly 5000 readers, asking them about their experience dealing with broken consoles.

Here are their findings:

Console failure rate

Xbox 360 ? 54.2%
Playstation 3 ? 10.6%
Wii ? 6.8%

Percentage of console owners who suffered a second hardware failure after the original repair.

Xbox 360 ? 41.2%
Playstation 3 ? 14.7%
Wii ? 11%

Percentage of people who rate their customer service experience "very helpful"

Nintendo ? 56.1%
Sony ? 51.1%
Microsoft ? 37.7%

Percentage of respondents whose friends have had console hardware failures.

Xbox 360 ? 69.9%
Playstation 3 ? 12.4%
Wii ? 6%


The magazine also makes a few notes about their results:

The reason the Wii has the lowest hardware failure rate could be because console is played the least of the three. 41.4% of Wii owners surveyed said they play the console less than one hour a day, meanwhile the majority of Xbox 360 (40.3%) and Playstation 3 (37%) owners say they play their console on an average of three to five hours day.

Also, only 3.8% of respondents said they'd never buy another Xbox system because of the failure rates.

Id have to agree with the bolded. It sells the best.. but is played the least. At least in my household.

 

[mugs]

The 54.2% doesn't surprise me too much, and that's kind of sad. We hear so many stories about people having multiple systems die. I've owned 4 Xbox 360s, and 2 have died... so that's 50% for me.

I'm kind of surprised that the PS3 and Wii's failure rates are so high though - I'd think they'd be much lower. How many people here have complained about their PS3s dying? One or two? Certainly not 10%. That raises questions about the accuracy of this data. Possible problems with the data:
1. Game Informer readers are not a representative sample of gamers
2. Survey respondents chose whether or not they wanted to participate; people who had failed consoles might be more likely to participate.
3. Fanboys would lie about having failures on consoles they don't own, because they're fanboys. These are the people who rate games poorly for systems they don't own on sites that have user ratings.

This number, though just as suspect as the rest, is pretty telling:

Also, only 3.8% of respondents said they'd never buy another Xbox system because of the failure rates.

I don't think 54.2% is accurate. I think it's probably lower than that. Same with the PS3 and Wii's failure rates. And the 360's failure rate has supposedly improved with each iteration of the hardware, so talking about failure rates without considering hardware revisions is pretty pointless.

All we can take away from this is that the Xbox 360 has in the past had an abnormally high but unknown failure rate, and it may or may not have an abnormally high and still unknown failure rate now. Which is what we've always known.

 

[Stuxnet]

Not at all surprised. I've had four 360's; two have died. All were treated with kid gloves.

 

[Pheran]

This survey is also lacking the most useful piece of Xbox information - which revision failed. I would assume the bulk of the failures are from the original revisions.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

The people I know who have had at least one Xbox 360 die: me, 4 cousins, 2 uncles, my wife's best friend's kid in Wisconsin, my dentist, my next door neighbor, the guy 3 houses down on the other side of my neighbor that my neighbor mentioned had to send back his 360 too, 7 guys on IRC that I can think of off the top of my head, the guy that delivers paper to our office, the UPS guy that delivered the replacement 360 from Microsoft a year ago ("Dead 360 huh?"), the girl who rang up my stuff at Target a few nights ago, and the dude who works at the Atlanta Bread Company up the street from my office.

The people I know who have never had a 360 die: 1 dude on IRC with a launch 360 that he swears he's never had an issue with.

 

[ShawnD1]

Console failure rate

Xbox 360 ? 54.2%
Playstation 3 ? 10.6%
Wii ? 6.8%

Something fishy is going on here. One of the guys in my class is on his sixth xbox (83% fail rate), one of my friends is on his fourth or fifth (80% fail rate), one of my friends had 1 xbox fail and he immediately sold the replacement they sent him (100% fail rate since the one he used failed), mine failed and I'm using the towel trick to keep it alive (100% fail rate), another friend is doing the same as me (100% fail rate).

The only thing I can think of that would cause a 54% fail stat would be if they just asked "have you had an xbox failure" and not ask how many. For example, if your first 8 xboxes break and you're using your 9th xbox, the rate is 89% at that point in time (you have 9 total, 8 of them broke so far, fail rate is 8/9). Ideally, that should count as 8 hardware failures. If the survey just asks "have you had a hardware failure" and you say a simple yes without giving an explanation, that might only count as 1 failure. In this kind of hypothetical situation, hard core gamers who play their Xbox a lot and destroy a lot of Xboxes would be under-represented and casual gamers who rarely play the system would be over-represented.

The PS3 stat seems weird as well. I don't think I've even heard of a PS3 failing. I know there's that yellow light error indicating a hardware failure, but I've never actually seen anyone on any forum or in real life say they have this problem.

 

[TecHNooB]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Console failure rate

Xbox 360 ? 54.2%
Playstation 3 ? 10.6%
Wii ? 6.8%

Something fishy is going on here. One of the guys in my class is on his sixth xbox (83% fail rate), one of my friends is on his fourth or fifth (80% fail rate), one of my friends had 1 xbox fail and he immediately sold the replacement they sent him (100% fail rate since the one he used failed), mine failed and I'm using the towel trick to keep it alive (100% fail rate), another friend is doing the same as me (100% fail rate).

The only thing I can think of that would cause a 54% fail stat would be if they just asked "have you had an xbox failure" and not ask how many. For example, if your first 8 xboxes break and you're using your 9th xbox, the rate is 89% at that point in time (you have 9 total, 8 of them broke so far, fail rate is 8/9). Ideally, that should count as 8 hardware failures. If the survey just asks "have you had a hardware failure" and you say a simple yes without giving an explanation, that might only count as 1 failure. In this kind of hypothetical situation, hard core gamers who play their Xbox a lot and destroy a lot of Xboxes would be under-represented and casual gamers who rarely play the system would be over-represented.

The PS3 stat seems weird as well. I don't think I've even heard of a PS3 failing. I know there's that yellow light error indicating a hardware failure, but I've never actually seen anyone on any forum or in real life say they have this problem.

My PS3 froze during an update. It is now a giant paperweight.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
My PS3 froze during an update. It is now a giant paperweight.

There was a thread about this on Sony's forums awhile back, Sony has been pretty good about repairing PS3s that crapped out due to a firmware update, even outside of the warranty period. Have you called the see what they'll do for you.

 

[yowolabi]

I had a launch 360. My third xbox just died with the 3 rings during a firmware update. I just replaced he fan on it two months ago since one of the two fans stopped spinning.

Instead of paying 100 and waiting two months for them to send another refurb 360 that's going to die, I bought a Jasper 360 arcade for 199. It's got a full warranty, onboard ram, is much quieter, and gives me a extra controller which I needed. And it probably wont die from overheating. I'll try to fix the other 360 myself eventually.

I considered getting a PS3, but I still have all of my games and accessories for the 360 and still prefer it as a game system to the PS3. I would have loved a blu-ray player in my living room, but the PS3 plus all the accessories and games would have been so much more expensive. I'll wait till standalone players are 99 and then get one.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: Pheran
This survey is also lacking the most useful piece of Xbox information - which revision failed. I would assume the bulk of the failures are from the original revisions.

Exactly, tell us something we don't already know :roll:.

 

[adairusmc]

My launch 360 is still going strong, but I did have a 60gb PS3 that just died when I inserted a Netflix disc once.

Since it was out of warranty, I ended up just prying it apart with a leatherman to get my disc out and buying a 160gb replacement.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
My PS3 froze during an update. It is now a giant paperweight.

That sucks. I'm surprised the PS3 doesn't have some kind of reset button or switch. I've had both my graphing calculator and my ipod brick during an update but both were fixed by doing some stuff to reset the bios. Whenever I screw up an overclock and the computer is totally useless, the bad settings can be undone by pulling the motherboard battery.

 

[ChaoZ]

It's crazy to read how many times some people have replaced their 360. I would jump ship after 2 failures; at most 3.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: mugs

I don't think 54.2% is accurate. I think it's probably lower than that. Same with the PS3 and Wii's failure rates. And the 360's failure rate has supposedly improved with each iteration of the hardware, so talking about failure rates without considering hardware revisions is pretty pointless.

Agreed, the highest claim I've seen for Falcon failures is 10%, from that anonymous QA tester last year. Then Jasper cut the power draw and heat from the GPU way down so it ought to be even more reliable.

Anyone buying a 360 now should expect it to be about as reliable as the other two.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: mugs
I've owned 4 Xbox 360s, and 2 have died... so that's 50% for me.

When you say "owned" does that count refurbs/repairs? Ex. I've purchased 2, however I've had 4 failures, however that's across 5 total xboxes. I could say a 200% failure rate, but I could also call that 80%.

 

[I4AT]

My sister had a launch 360 that lasted until about 2 weeks before its warranty was up. I used to read about all the people having RROD issues and always considered her lucky that hers seemed to be fine, but then again we seldomly played it, a lot less than the average user I'm sure. Went to load up Tales of Vesperia the day I bought it and shakaa, RROD. Thank god it happened just before the warranty was up, although based on other people's experiences I think it's guaranteed to go dead again very soon. Just a matter of time.

 

[hans030390]

I think the 360 failure rate is higher than that. At least 90% of the people I know (if not all) have had at least one 360 die on them. I read similar reports online, even here.

 

[TecHNooB]

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
My PS3 froze during an update. It is now a giant paperweight.

There was a thread about this on Sony's forums awhile back, Sony has been pretty good about repairing PS3s that crapped out due to a firmware update, even outside of the warranty period. Have you called the see what they'll do for you.

good idea, i will call them up this week

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Pheran
This survey is also lacking the most useful piece of Xbox information - which revision failed. I would assume the bulk of the failures are from the original revisions.

Yep but still sad that Microsoft allowed this to happen. We shouldn't even be needed to discuss this.

 

[jhu]

I have a Falcon revision. How worried should I be?

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
It's crazy to read how many times some people have replaced their 360. I would jump ship after 2 failures; at most 3.

These are Americans we're talking about...

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
It's crazy to read how many times some people have replaced their 360. I would jump ship after 2 failures; at most 3.

These are Americans we're talking about...

It's really not THAT big of a deal if all the replacements are free you know....

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: mugs
That raises questions about the accuracy of this data. Possible problems with the data:
1. Game Informer readers are not a representative sample of gamers

I'd like to add subsection 'a' to this:

1a. People who go to the extent to read gaming magazines and participate in said magazine's online polls are probably more likely to spend more time playing games... thus putting more stress on their consoles. When the major problems are directly related to over-heating, this could skew a poll.

 

[Injury]

Also, I'm part of the crowd that has had a Wii failure. 2mos after the manufacture date.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Zephyr model Pro with HDMI, bought when they hit the market (September 2007). Not a problem, and the system sees heavy play/NetFlix on a daily basis.