Sure, it's not exactly news to hear that the Xbox 360 is the most unreliable console of the big three, but just how unreliable is it? Now there's a point of contention. The good news for Microsoft, of sorts, is that a new study from SquareTrade found that
just 23.7% of Xbox 360 consoles failed within the first two years of ownership, which is actually a fair bit better than some of the previous numbers that
topped 50%. The study also found that 10% of PlayStation 3 users reported a system failure, compared to a mere 2.7% of Wii owners. The Wii actually fared the worst when it came to power and remote control issues, however, while the most common problems with the Xbox 360 and PS3 were disc read errors and output issues. For its part, while Microsoft hasn't responded to this particular study, it has
previously pointed to its "best warranty in the industry" to reassure its users and, of course, to its more recently-produced consoles, which are less likely to buckle under the pressure of a marathon
Call of Duty session.
[Via
InformationWeek]
posted September 4th 2009 2:43PM
My 40GB PS3 still works.
** clicks low rank on self **
My PS3 80GB No-BC works too.
So what if your PS3 still works? that's normal, in the other hard an old Xbox360 that still works is a miracle.
Some still got them working but they are in the minority, remember those are the old xbox360 i heard newer ones have much lower failure rate.
I'm not gonna argue with the studies but what i will say is that Xbox 360 owners, Call of Duty and Halo players in particular, likely put in 100x the time into their games than Wii owners.
Wii's collect dust in the homes of most people I know. When asked if they play it often they usually smirk.
Use my PS3 everyday for 2 years, never had to buy a single hard drive, recharge kit, Wi-Fi card, pay to play games online, had problems streaming movies, or anything. It just works. And now its only $299... Thanks Sony.
my 1st generation 2006 model lasted over 2 years of HEAVY abuse in a room that got well over 100 degrees during the san fernando valley summers. i must say it surprised me that it lasted that long, naturally i got a new one for free and havent had any problems.
MS may have the best warranty in the business, and by far they do. but that still wouldn't comfort me enough to pick one up as my primary console. To me it'd be like buying a lemon, but being assure that you're gonna have a comprehensive warranty for X amount of years. Sounds great, but the morning that you're headed out on a date, then find that you car wont start after you see a movie...well, that'd be a bit of a buzz kill.
its really not that bad. the week in which your xbox is shipping to microsoft and back, you discover life all over again, you fall in love, you smile, you breathe, and just when you think life is perfect, your xbox comes back :)
and btw, i havent bought any replacement accessories for my xbox, had prefect streaming made even more amazing thanks to my zune software stream to xbox alongside every other media server alongside my media center right out of the box within 20 minutes of whenever i chose to set up (or reformat) my computer, and my online just works too. just because you need to pay for something doesnt mean that it doesnt work, in that way, your whole ps3 hasnt been just working, since you payed for it.
Major issue: The 50% counts more than 2 years. You don't stop owning your 360 at 2 years
@phinnvr6
I too own a ps3 and it has never broken and rocks.
But the words you chose above sound so PR.
@Max PL
I play my Wii more than my Xbox and I had to send my Xbox in already. Everybody I know has sent theirs in at least once. I love to play my xbox but this is Bull.
23% means they still count the ones on the shelves LoL
I call bullshit on this study. Who the heck is SquareTrade and how can we know that they are reliable? how about some background info on this engadget? Your article could have just been the title with the amount of research you conducted..
When Microsoft does not dispute the 55% figure brought out last month (or so) i do not believe this and even if it was why is '2 years' the standard? this is stupid. if i were to pay AU$500 for a console i sure as hell would want it to last like a SNES(?)/PS1/PS2
This Edgadget is classic fail. They conviently skip over the bit in the SquareTrade article that points out that almost all RROD cases are dealt with directly and bypass SquareTrade, so their 23% is massively under what the true value is..
In their own words:
"Second, Microsoft’s policy may result in an underreporting of failures by Xbox 360 owners to SquareTrade, relative to the other two consoles. Because the RROD problem is so widely known to be covered by Microsoft’s warranty, we believe that more customers bypass SquareTrade and reported failures directly to the Microsoft. In a survey of SquareTrade customers with Xbox 360s conducted by email, SquareTrade found that over half of our customers who experienced a RROD error reported their problem directly to Microsoft without contacting SquareTrade."
SO THE BIG QUESTION, ARE ENGADGET CLUELESS IDIOTS, OR CHERRY PICKING THE PARTS THEY WANT TO KEEP IN MICROSOFTS GOOD BOOKS?
I'm one of those in the minority, MaxPL.
I have a 360 manufactured in August 2006 and bought in July 2007, been using it quite often for the past two years + a month, and it's still going fine. Barely any problems besides an occasional scratched disc.
I play with my PS3 pretty much everyday, if my 360 was still working it would be every other day. But as for my Wii, HA, have not touch that thing since New Years. I'm gonna sell my Wii to get a 360 Elite so it matches my PS3. Just waiting for the price to come down.
This is nothing new. Although I was sure it would be higher than 25%. I've gone through four Premium Xbox 360's as well as two "unRRoDable" Elites. I had a warranty on them, so it wasn't a loss.
Sounds like allot of annoying down time!
On another note, does MS warranty scratch discs titles as well?
Wasn't sure...
I think the whole RRoD has to be poor ventilation for the console, as most xbox360 owners dwell in their parents basements without any fresh air.
Maybe they're comparing Gala apples to Braeburn apples here. In this study, the 23.7% number applies to the "first two years of ownership". But the report of the 50%+ figure does not seem to reference a time period. It could be that some fail during the third, fourth, or later years. If so, both numbers could be correct.
I'm sure glad Microsoft doesn't make Condoms.
iFargle - your experience is a loss to Microsoft. Seriously, the continued failure rate must be knocking a huge hole in Xbox division profits. What could have been a cash cow based on popularity of the product has turned into a continual QC embarrassment. It's great that owners can replace failed machines, but this is not a business model! The consoles lose money even when they have zero failures, 25% replacement rates on top of that is just nuts. It's a good job Microsoft leaves making PCs to Dell, HP, etc.
Disc warranties depend on the publisher and not really Microsoft (unless, obviously, the game is published by MS), but usually they involve sending your scratched up disc back with a variable fee (if MS is the publisher it's $20, and I think at least one other publisher also charges $20) that makes it not worth it for old games but worth it if you kill your brand new $60 game (likely to happen if you have one of the oldest 360's that eat discs).
I dont believe 23.7% for a second. Every person I know with a 360 has had theirs fail. It seems almost guaranteed that all early 360's will fail within the warranty period.
when i read about people going through like 3, 4, ...7 xboxes i have to wonder ... what the HELL are you doing to it? i mean mine did fail, but honestly there has to be something else going on if you go through that many.
Just get a PS3!
Elite's, up until now, were far from unRRODable. they were exactly the same internally as the Pros. the Arcades got the new Jasper revision later last year, but the Pro never had it, and the Elites didn't get it until the price drop.
I think this is very unacceptable. Even though most people get another xbox360 free from Microsoft, there is no excuse to have to wait for another console to get back to your place. Microsoft has had years to fix their hardware issues.
@LGH Condoms are in use for hours, days at most, minutes for you, but still, you see my point.
Well they built the RROD into it, so they obviously knew it would happen. Maybe MS has a bigger plan...
I think you're right, RROD is part of the Getting Social strategy with XBOX 360, Zune & WinMo 6.5. I hear they are building this feature into all of them... slick...
RRoD™ is not a flaw,
...it's a feature.
ok?
Sweet I love companies with master plans. YOU may not respect devious debahavor. But I find greed itself evil and much of the population EVIL by default...SO it does not matter to me when people get screwed over? If you are already breaking 7 deadly sins you are already damned!
Good job damned ones! You have only yourself to blame.
I think their plan is to make UPS rich.
Of course wii systems break the least, nobody actually uses them.
It's no double MS botched the first couple years worth of 360's, but i'd like to see some of the statistics on the newer models.
Ironically enough, one of the common points of failure on the Wii only happens when you don't play it. On early models of Wii (don't know if they've fixed it or not), if you left them on standby with WiiConnect24 turned on, the unit would generate heat but not cool itself. If left alone for an extended period of time (like the half year between Zelda: TP and any other worthwhile games) it would fry the graphics chip. I had that happen to my first Wii; now I run with WiiConnect24 turned off. And I still hardly ever turn the machine on.
that Wii Connect 24 overheating thing is a common problem once you install a modchip, but you already have voided your warranty by adding stuff inside, that's why all hackers know they gotta turn off the Wii Connect 24 thing and works only when you turn it on so it's not on standby all the time.
The amount of play the average console gets should have nothing to do with it's failure rate. The XBOX 360 RRoD is pretty much a first. I've never heard of PS2s, Gamecubes, Xboxes, Dreamcasts, PS1s, N64s etc failing horribly at such a high rate. It's not an issue of power either. High end work stations generate consume tons of power and generate many times more heat than any game console and they certainly don't fail at that high of a rate. No one would buy them if they did and no one but a giant like Microsoft could afford to set aside $1 Billion to replace up to 50% of its products. It's simply a case of poor engineering and all the silly fanboyish reasons why the other consoles don't fail nearly as much are just that: silly.
@ Omar
PS2 had a very high failure rate with disc read errors because of the lens. There were many shops that sold replacement lenses because of it.
@oghowie: perhaps my friends were fortunate then. It's still pales in comparison to RRoD though. If the lens on a drive is known to be bad, a company can just change suppliers. The 360 just couldn't be fixed until Microsoft redesigned the guts.
Well I just had two 360's that were manufactured in 4th quarter 2007 die on me in the last month, so I can say that the Falcon chipset certainly didn't solve their problems.
@Ridgecity:
It happened to me without any modchip, and I got mine replaced under warranty.
Boring! Go find some other news engadget.
Then go read another site, your boring the rest of us
I've had mine 2 years now, still going strong (as peanut butter falls on xbox and is attacked by pack of dogs)
P.S. - Only people who enjoy "blowing hard" play tuba...
Well, that must be nice. The rest of us can't afford canine-saliva cooling.
showoff
I got my first RRoD after 2 years. I've had 2 more since... I finally decided to stop sending it in for repairs.
MY XBOX 360 which I got a launch still works never had the RROD.
76.3%
"MY XBOX 360 which I got a launch still works never had the RROD."
and in 3... 2... 1...
"a mere 2.7% of Wii owners" — what's the percentage if you ignore Wii owners who don't play it any more?