Survey finds Xbox 360 is played five times as often as Wii, five times more likely to fail than PS3
By Tim Stevens 
posted August 18th 2009 7:42AM
posted August 18th 2009 7:42AM
Ready for some numbers this morning? Some scary, scary numbers for Xbox 360 gamers? Game Informer, current king of the smoldering ruins of the print gaming magazine empire, polled about 5,000 of its readers to get a feel for their gaming experiences, including just how many of them had unlocked the fabled "Red Ring of Death" achievement. We'd heard estimates ranging from 16 to 30 percent, but even the most pessimistic guesses don't line up with the survey's findings of a staggeringly high 54.2 percent failure rate. That's five times higher than the PS3's 10.6 percent, with the Wii coming in at 6.8 percent. Mind you, the Xbox 360 was the most played console, with over 40 percent of Xbox gamers button mashing for three to five hours a day, compared to 37 percent of PS3 gamers, and less than an hour's worth of gaming per day for 41.4 percent of Wii owners. However, game consoles should be designed to shrug off marathon sessions and just keep on spewing polygons, something that the first revisions of Microsoft's baby obviously couldn't manage.That said, there are some problems with this survey; as far as we can tell there was no verification made that respondents actually own the consoles that they indicated they did, and we all know how people like having fun at Microsoft's expense. Also, the survey was naturally only of readers of the magazine itself, who don't necessarily line up with the gaming world at large. But, it's impossible to deny there's truth in these numbers. Indeed, it's hard not to think they're too low, as you'll be hard-pressed to find an original Xbox 360 that hasn't thrown up the three-light salute. Even so, there's nothing to be proud of in Sony's 10.6 percent failure rate, or even Nintendo's 6.8, particularly given that system's relative lack of attention. All are much higher than the three percent most consumer electronics companies strive for -- and that Microsoft initially (incorrectly) claimed its console was managing.
[Via TG Daily, The Consumerist]
yea but this is coming from Game Informer where their customer base is pretty much any 5+ year old that has bought a used game, got suckered into get the sub and probably have minimal tech skills. This also coming from people that don't know how to plug a figgin cable in properly thus also causing the good o'l RRoD (beacuse a poorly connected HDMI cable or power cable will do that too). Personally anything coming for GI is not crediable at all espeically because companies pay them to give "good" reviews. Pfft!
9 red rings- my 10th xbox is still going strong!
This survey seems a little suspect to me, I could easily see the PS3 fanboys hopping on to skew the results to their favor like what happens on so many other game forums and surveys (and to be fair the 360 crowd isn't with out its own).
I own all 3 systems and the only one that hasn't failed is the Wii. (Admittedly I haven't turned it on in 6 months, so it could be broken for all I know)
Anyhow, I have owned 2 360's (a launch Pro and an Elite I bought when the Pro RROD'd), the Pro has been sent in twice for RROD and the elite has yet to have any problems.
On the PS3 front, I have also sent the console in twice, both times for the Blu-ray laser failing and not reading Blu-ray movies anymore (it would still read games, figure that one out).
Cost? The PS3 cost me $150 the first time, and was free the 2nd time after I bitched for 20 mins.
The 360? Free both times.
Either way, these new consoles are not built like the old ones, hell I just found my old Atari 2600 and old ass TV in storage and plugged both in and both worked flawlessly. My original Nintendo? Still works, although I do have to stuff a magazine in to it before it reads the cartridge, all that after blowing endlessly inside the cartridge of course. SNES? Still works. N64? Still works.
My point? These new consoles reliability sucks no matter which one you buy.
This shouldn't be a discussion point. Each console should be able to report the number of hours in use before failure and send that info back to the manufacturer. Or even the clock Cycles or %CPU hours. How about correlating/regressing that with temperatures and other factors, and using the knowledge to warn individual users if they could be on the road to failure or that they're running outside reliable operating limits.
These companies are meant to be among the most advanced in the world. Its about time they used all these connected devices to provide some real engineering style information.
"We'd heard estimates ranging from 16 to 30 percent, but even the most pessimisitic guesses don't line up with the survey's findings of a staggeringly high 54.2 percent failure rate."
LOL.... I was being generous with the 16% industry failing failure rate. The XBox is truly one remarkable piece of junk that exist solely on the funding provided by Microsoft, the biggest "me too" company on the planet, funding.
You're such a tool, Jubei.
55% Xbox 360 failure?
That would mean more than 1 in 2 xbox's fail.
Well, i bought my xbox 360 a couple of months after launch, its used alot... never had a problem.
my friend bought his xbox 360 3 days after i bought mine.... hes never had a problem.
another friend of mine bought his xbox 360 about a month after me he never had a problem...
the above also bought the xbox elite just over a year ago, no problems.
and finally, my girlfriend bought the xbox elite about a year ago, no problems although she doesnt use it much.
Those are r/l people.
And another person i know online bought an xbox around the same time as me and hes had no problems.
I know more online but i dont talk regularly with them so i wouldnt know if there console exploded or not, i do know 1 person on my msn list did have RRoD though, but i do have 160 ppl on msn.
so id say 55% is pretty false in my experience.
Even the most pessimistic guesses don't reach 54%?
This whole thing is written to act like the 360 repair rate is a lie.
Well, I'm going to say otherwise, my experience is the failure rate is higher than 54%. I think the fact that some people just junk theirs and get an Arcade to replace it actually makes the figures come out low.
When MS announced the warranty program, they wrote down $1B for the costs. There were 10M 360s in existence at the time. Now, you take a guess at the cost of a repair. If it's $200 (unlikely since you can get an Arcade complete with a controller for that), then MS expected there to by 5M 360s die ($200 * 5M = $1B). I think the repair is closer to $100, since MS gets to reuse some parts (optical drives). That would mean MS expected about 10M, or ALL of the 360s to die within the warranty period.
I can't see why people want to apologize for the failure rate of the 360. It is what it is, and it's enormous. I personally believe it's north of 50%. I had 3 go on me. I only know one person who has had his for a significant period who hasn't had his break, and he doesn't play it at all.
I may have a PS3 and love it, but I'm sick of 360 guys piling on PS3 guys and vice versa. For the record in my 3 years owning a PS3 I've had one YLOD (out of warranty 2+yrs old) and one disc feeding problem (under warranty). I love my two PS3s, but enough of the console hate.
Yea well, when you try to modify and steal games that's what happens, you get a broken console.
While that may not be a true statement neither are these fraking numbers. It's like the same research companies that research cell phones and such? Seriously?? I mean where are these studies from?! Engadget is gonna look like Fox news if they keep spitting out crap...It makes them look like they favor certain brands and sway consumers.
If the failure rate was 30% .... anywhere near... The company would do a mass recall.
Fairly common procedure...and you sure as hell know that Microsoft has the money to do it.
What? You think they can't fix their problem and afford to replace all those consoles?? The company that got sued millions of dollars a day and just sat there like nothing was going on... Yea...
My friends, family, etc. between all of us own all three consoles. I love and play them all.
I personally have an Xbox 360. You can't beat it's online community, crying about $60/yr is useless. It's worth the small charge for what you get. PS3's online is free cuz you don't get anything with it.
I'm not a hater, I just love Xbox and totally hate it when reports come out that shine my very good, long deliberated, decisions in a bad light. Especially when the claims are so ridiculous that there'd be no way I wouldn't have a broken device. Know which devices of mine did break? That POS Sony Vaio (from 6 years ago). I still buy Sony stuff (just with caution).
Engadget writers try their darndest to appease MS fanboys to no avail. Take this article for example, it goes pretty easy on MS, starts off stating the positive, minimizes the negative by *almost* comparing the failure rate as if it was on par with PS3, and questions the validity of this survey. Yet MS defense force is once again complaining, as they always do in all MS related topics, ENGADGET IS BIASED OMG AND HATES MS!!!!
"Yet MS defense force is once again complaining, as they always do in all MS related topics, ENGADGET IS BIASED OMG AND HATES MS!!!!"
I didn't see that happening here. I see people discussing the poll and their experiences, but not a bunch of people screaming about Joystiq being so biased...except your comment that they are biased for MS. Weird how that worked out eh?
Not so much in this post but in general that's how it's been lately here at Engadget. I usually just stay away from comments section now days, especially when it comes to posts related to MS, Apple, and Sony.
Unfortunately these numbers aren't meaningful without reporting a confidence % or margin of error!
43.46% of statistics are made up on the spot.
That said, I've owned two Xbox 360's over the past four (almost) years. The first one was sent in for a malfunctioning DVD drive, which they promptly replaced with a working unit. I had no problems with customer service (though I attribute that to my patience).
I game a lot. I watch DVDs. I browse through XBL. On top of that, I never turn my console off--the only time they've ever been turned off is during a power outage. They're always online. I've never RROD'd or had a failure since my first one, and that took about two years before it happened.
"Only hardcore gamers (or enthusiasts) make up most of Game Informer's subscriber base. The poll is statistically insignificant, especially the data about the Wii, since the largest part of Wii owners are either kids or light gamers, who don't care enough to sign up for a gaming magazine."
Wait, what? What kind of hardcore gamer subscribes to a paper magazine, let alone one as bad as Game Informer? And of those, who would waste their time to respond to a survey? I'd suspect kids are exactly their clientele. Do PC enthusiasts read PC World? Hell no.
I had a 360 pro RROD in June 07. I sent it back when I got the disc read errors but for the life of me cannot remember when that was (sometime in early 08... april?). I bought an arcade when the price dropped to $200 because I wanted HDMI and the memory card, and eventually scored a 120gb hard drive for $120 a few weeks later. I've had no problems with the arcade unit, and the old pro doesn't get enough usage to worry about.
A survey by Game Informer by 5000 people is far from a smoking gun of accuracy... there are some things you have to remember about the company's survey.
1) The company is owned by GameStop
2) The consumer base is most likely GameStop Edge members
3) Edge members get a 10%-20% discount on merchandise, at times even getting subsidized used and refurbished 360s and PS3s
This could lead to a heavily skewed proportion of bad consuls because GameStop sells extended warranties which will replace a RRoD 360 with another one, and that one gets sent back and refurbished by Microsoft and then returned to GameStop for reselling and redistribution, for systems that don't qualify for Microsoft treatment GameStop will refurb them in house and then sell them as such, leading to questionable quality concerns. It is also GameStop's fault that Microsoft might not have completely accurate information on dead systems because they do sell used and refurbished systems that don't qualify for the 3 year failure warranty.
A true survey would have started calling a consumer base and asking the question until they came up with a certain number of individuals who had the system from new for a minimum period of time and getting possitive and negitive answers for the occurance of the RRoD. I would go by Microsoft's low number, even though the higher is probably more accurate, before Game Informer's "survey" numbers.
And I have the right to speak about this, because I've had my 360 for just over a year and have had it RRoD once, and I can tell you from this experience some people over react to the RRoD because mine was a surge failure which was correct by unplugging the system and then letting the battery pack discharge and then it worked fine, there are 4 things which can cause failure points on the RRoD and sometimes its just an error in the system that just needs time to reset, but people go out and jump the gun and take their systems back to gamestop the minute it happens because they don't know any better, then goes and does their thing to it without having it fully tested.
Have I ever stated... I HATE BLOGSMITH'S POSTING SYSTEM...
Step 1: Sell your older 360 (minus hard drive) for $150 on Craigslist.
Step 2: Buy a new "Jasper" Arcade model for $199 from a retailer.
Step 3: Pop your old hard drive on the new 360.
Step 4: Enjoy the cool, quiet, better-running Xbox 360 with storage built-in, and realize that the $50 upgrade was worth it for the thing not to sound like a jet taking off anymore.
...and begin the XBLA and DLC transfer for offline play.
I'm a little worried about that but will have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
All XBL and DLC is stored in your profile which is part of the 360 hard drive, the 360 contains no onboard storage.
Haha 40% play for 3-5 hours a day.. cmon now. Maybe of the zombies who get the magazine, but not everyone. No wonder it was so high. Still though, my brand new (bought 2008) xbox has already RROD'd and I dont play it more than once or twice a week.
Dude, that sounds like an exaggeration but I wouldn't be surprised.
I know some dudes. The ones that live and breath Halo 3 and the like.
Sad, jobless living at home with their parents. Leeches basically but yeah, there are a lot of them. Sign on to any 3D shooter and chances are the guys who kill you are one of those 40%.
I have had a 360 since, oh, maybe 6 months after launch. My first one (from Fred Meyers) came with a faulty IR sensor. Fred Meyers gave me a 360 in return. Not one single problem, and out of all my friends I have seen one RRoD (it was at a lan party, of course.) We all stared at that little ring for maybe ten minutes, just thinking...wow, finally a RRoD in our presence. That would put MY personal RRoD failure rate to somewhere sub 10 percent.
Cheers.
I'm curious, what is the weather like where you live?
I'm in Southern California and I wonder if the heat and humidity play a part. Perhaps rough transportation? Are you close to a manufacturer?
I tend to believe those numbers AND believe they could be even higher.
Personally I know about 35 - 400 XBox 360 owners and every single one of them has red ringed. Some multiple times even after repairs/replacement.
EVERY SINGLE ONE.
My console, purchased on day one, was replaced the first time. Then it red-ringed and they repaired it. Now I get the E74 error but it is out of warranty so I'm SOL.
I don't even play it that much so it isn't about play time or heat. I have central air that I can't live without and I have tile floor, no carpet with an open entertainment center.
I'm just waiting for the Natal package to replace the hardware.
35-40... sorry. Obviously not 400 XD
i have an original xbox 360 that just last night gave me the 3 red lights after freezing midgame. after turning it on and off a couple times with the red ring showing up, it turned back on and worked for about 2 hours before freezing again.
I don't think it's fair to say how much more often the 360 is played than the Wii. Especially from Game Informer. They seem to say everything is Halo or not Halo. I will let you guess which they like more.
Funny that this article should come out as my PS3 YLODs just before it's 2nd birthday.
I can give you some real stats, my father in law is a technician who works for an insurance company which guarantees/repairs/ gives brand new electronic items to its customers when unfixable... His main job is to assess items brought in by customers who claim that they have been broken. Last time I visited him, he had 3 xbox360's that he was fixing in his home office. Prior to that, he gave me 2 xbox's that were written off by the company and that he repaired but had not use for. in the past 2 years since he started fixing xboxes, in addition to other stuff he fixes, I have seen about 7 or 8 360's, 4 PS3's and he mentioned that he will be bringing in a wii for the first time ever just 2 weeks ago. All in all I've seen twice as much xbox's than PS3's and I have yet to see a wii... My friends are coming to me asking me to purchase repaired xboxes in exchange for their broken ones... THAT'S HOW BAD IT IS!
okay, who agrees that these fanboys are fighting pointless battles?
PS3 and XBOX 360 are equally great machines for their own reasons.
they both beat wii in graphics and hardcore gaming, but the wii holds its own when you have friends and family over at your place, and its a good laugh.
the only numbers i give the faintest $h1t about are the prices, so i'd know how much i'd need.
I have a PS3, brothers and some of my mates have WIIs and another few mates have 360s. so i have at least occasional access to all machines, and i like them all. they all have their pros and cons.
i don't like the fact you have to pay for online with a 360, that the graphics suck on a wii, and that my PS3 crashes when a couple explosions go off at once while I'm online in a couple of games.
but i don't whine about it at every chance i get!
so to the fanboys stretching their fingers ready to type furiously in protest to what's been said of a certain machine, just think. and then shut the hell up.
I would say the real figure is actually higher than 54%, I don't know someone with an Xbox360 who hasn't had 3 red lights. I myself have 3 of them and every one has failed. Microsoft if probably happy that the figure being published is so much lower than the real figure. It's still a great console though and I wouldn't be without it. I have a PS3 and a Wii too and though they have never gone wrong, I almost never use them.
This is why we spent a little extra and bought a PS3.
Hmmm, my 360 failure rate has been 100%. Launch 360, died in 8 months, sent for repair, died in 13 months, got a replacement as a gift, 4 months, no red rings but a permanent black screen, officially dead.
I've had my PS3 for a bit over a year and have used it more than any of my 360s, mainly due to movies and Folding@Home, until the launch of Infamous (and when I originally got MGS4). Also Prototype rocks on it as well.
And to the fanboys stating that 360 versions of games that are released cross-platform look better, check again. I notice no differences in resolutions, unless you count the games that are natively 1080p on the PS3.
I guess you could label me a Sony fanboy, fuck yeah!
And how much do you want to bet that the 360 sales numbers are inflated due to people just going out and buying a new system when theirs dies. Those aren't new customers, just the same saps who dont know quality.