Survey says: Xbox 360 failure rate is 42%

Its not surprising at all.
Ive had to send my Pro unit in for repairs twice. So then the third time it RROD’d i just sold it for $150 and went and got an elite unit. The elite has been doing well for about a year now.

I have had to send my PS3 in for repairs once and it was the bluray problem going around but that was 2yrs ago and it hasnt failed since.

I havent had a problem with my wii at all.

I own 2 360′s, a PS3 and a Wii, none of them have had any issues.

I can think of seven of my friends that own an Xbox 360 and have had them for several years, and none of them have had any problems with them.

People never lie on surveys, fact.

Oh wait…

I’m also curious as to whether the people asked have had to have their repaired recently? Are the focus group consisting of people who have submitted their responses before regarding this? The poll should have asked if your system based on the new manufacturing has failed. It might be higher, it might be lower. I don’t think that this poll would accurately show if hardware failure has been reduced, increased, or stayed the same since launch.

I will truly salute the individual who bought a launch date 360 that has managed to survive the pitfalls of MS’s cheap hardware fabrication techniques imposed throughout this generation of consoles and has not had send it back for repair it at least once.

Hopefully the situation will get better with the introduction of the slim unit though if their track record is anything to go by I am not placing any bets on its being any more reliable than the current models; RROD2 here we come…

“I will truly salute the individual who bought a launch date 360 that has managed to survive the pitfalls of MS’s cheap hardware fabrication techniques imposed throughout this generation of consoles and has not had send it back for repair it at least once.”

I appreciate it.

*dutifully salutes with both hands*

Man of his word.

Well I’m on my 3rd 360 (2 rrod’s and a disk read failure), my brother on his second and my flat-mate his 3rd. For those who say they’ve never had any issues, just feel lucky! Its not some kind of anti-360 conspiracy

On my second one; mind you the first lasted nearly 3 years.
Disc error and then RROD.
Got the second one for 70 Euro with my old one as a trade in so happy days really.

Shit happens and most of today’s electronics seem to last a lot less.
My daughter is on her second I pod and that’s broken now.

I’ll take that salute.

Although, me and my bro both own 360′s, and his did take a dive, so in my personal experience that percentage is still fairly accurate.

It is worth mentioning that Microsoft paid for the repairs, including express shipping via UPS, in spite of our national postal service being much cheaper. Doesn’t make up for bad hardware, but that’s still a far better service than any retailer I know.

I wouldn’t want to trade based on that. It’s still easier to fix a broken console than it is to fix clueless corporate management.

On my 2nd personally but my brother is on his 4th.

It’s happened to me once, but I can’t fault the repairs service. It was whisked away the day after I called it in (which was a sunday, no less), and back under my telly doing it’s thing four days later, which I was quite impressed with, given that it had to travel over to mainland Europe, get fixed, and then travel back to Blighty. All at no expense to myself.

Obviously, it sucks when things break, and Microsoft’s beast does certainly have a sketchy track record. But they know that, and in my personal experience, they support customers who have to deal with it incredibly well. I might be marginally more confident that my Sony obelisk is supposedly less likely to die, but if the fatty PS3 did suddenly keel over dead one day, I’d be quite surprised if I received the same level of support.

If the survey lies or not. we all know that Xbox 360 fail rate is pretty damn high.

Same here on service the first time around.
Second time was a disaster though.
I actually ended up giving it in to a private repair centre in Dublin it was that much hassle.

I wont blame MS directly but the guys on the help line.
I ended up telling them I wouldn’t trust them to get me a pint of milk let alone get my console safely to mainland Europe.

” but if the fatty PS3 did suddenly keel over dead one day, I’d be quite surprised if I received the same level of support.”

Mine did die, phoned Sony on the Wednesday and it was replaced on the Friday. Though Maintenance Direct did have it for 4 weeks before that and still managed to still send it back to me broken, that’s GameCare for ya.

that means that u have to be pretty dumb to get a 360, or pretty loaded.

@3 the irony of statements like that is EVERY single person I know with an Xbox 360 had it fail and 6 of those 9 went and bought a PS3.

Now all we need are pie charts to make this official

People often forget that Microsoft’s extended warranty only came about after around two years of solid denial that there was even a problem. Not that I’m going to hold it against them, just bear it in mind when comparing their service to that of other companies.

Anyway, I’m on my seventh 360. My current one has been fine — albeit noisy — since late 2008, though, so I don’t think hardware failure is too much of a concern for anyone buying a new machine today. That said a redesign with lessons learned would be a boon to public perception; even if surveys such as this are ‘tainted’ by old hardware, it’s still going to put off new buyers doing research.

Out of all my friends with 360s (which is 15 or so) I can recall at least 10 breaking at some point, with mine and a few others breaking more than once. There’s only one person whose I can say hasn’t ever broken (and he doesn’t play as much as most of the rest), and the others I’m not sure about.

It clearly has problems but I actually thing MS have handled it all resonantly well with the extended warranty and the speed at which they get repaired, all at a loss to them.

@21 There’s no doubt that they caved to the pressure, but I think that if it was going to make people flee, it would already be happening. People are still buying a lot of 360′s, even after Sony have gotten their heads in the game, launched the Slim(mer) and lowered the price.

As long as the consumer knows that he’s protected today, I don’t think it’s all that offputting. I think things like exclusives, and possibly the coming motion technology will continue to speak a lot louder. And I’m kinda thinking Microsoft are going to be keeping their eyes on durability for a long time to come.

@21

You’re on your seventh 360? Jesus, any sane person wouldn’t have bought the console again after the second.

If it restores your faith in my sanity, I only paid for one and a half of them.

I swapped the first 5 with the retailer, as per my statutory rights, but ended up trading the 6th in when it started looking wobbly. I bought my 7th, and current, machine about 6 months later.

The Xbox 360 sitting in my living room now is number 5.

1- Original stopped reading discs.
2- Replacement had a defective tray and also stopped reading discs.
3- Replacement RROD on me Valentines Day 2009.
4 – Replacement overheated for no reason we could figure out. Had been turned on maybe three times in one month.
5- Said !@#$% it, bought an Arcade version, slapped the HDD on it.

September 2009 – bought a Fat PS3 160G when the price dropped. Been begging for one since launch, but the BF said they were too expensive. I FINALLY got my gorgeous, plump, PS3.

Last week, Sony sent a cardboard casket for it, as it stopped reading discs, would no longer connect to PSN, and failed to recognize our user accounts. I blame the latest firmware update, but there ya go.

My PC? Motherboard went dead last fall, and I had it built in 2006 for $863.00. New parts put in last week for $930.00- make ANYTHING I slap in it scream. Totally worth it.

Moral of the story? Shit breaks, but Xbox 360s seem to break more often, IMO.

All my 6-7 colleagues who had 360 in late 2007-early 2008 had their consoles break down at least once over a 6-month period, save for one guy for hardly used his. From this experience I’ll make sure I stand clear from any hardware designed by Microsoft. They can patch dodgy software, it’s trickier for dodgy hardware.

“You’re on your seventh 360? Jesus, any sane person wouldn’t have bought the console again after the second.” any sane person wouldn’t have bought the console again after the first failure. in more than 12 years since I have been using PCs I haven’t lost 1 component due to hardware failure. this is seriously stupid. and I guess now we can talk about costs. whoever was saying that consoles r cheaper than PCs is a big douchebag because not only that they’r not but u also can’t play shooters on them, or RTSes or do so many things that u can do on PCs. which leads to the conclusion, again, through studies this time that: owning a console = lame!

Priceless = The look on the face of a fanboy who calls RROD failures a conspiracy …. then encounter those flashing red lights on his XBOX 360.