Xbox 360's Death Rate is 54.2%

[HyenaThePirate]

Does anyone else find it suspiciously convenient that this 'story' and poll break RIGHT as Sony announces a dramatic price drop of the PS3 to $299 and the PS3 Slim?

What wonderfully amazingly convenient timing.
Almost... too convenient...

 

[Wargamer]

On the "Brand Loyalty" front, I'm guessing it's just a case of "I don't want to have to make new friends."

My friend Rob was finally convinced to join the 7th Generation. There was only going to be one console; the PS3. Part of that was because the people he was likely to game online with both had PS3s already.

However, I am far less forgiving than the people surveyed - the Xbox (the ORIGINAL Xbox) lost me as a customer the moment its astounding death-rate became known. I was already doubtful of Microsoft's addition, and that killed the entire brand for me.

 

[Tich]

One thing I have to dissagree with is that the their support is bad. in fact I called them, told them what the problem was, they responded very quickly. UPS came the very next day to get my bricked XBox. and seven days later they show up again with my box completely fixed. If I compared it to the horrible support for my laptop, which has been in the repair centre for more then 1/4th of it's entire two year life cycle. Mostly because of delays at their center and their extremely faulty hardware.

In the end, I'm still glad I got an Xbox. Even if it was the same price as the PS3 (because I got Elite) Because I won't talk about stories I heard for PS2's failures.

 

[Daedalus1942]

The Red Ring of Death is the only thing keeping me from getting a 360. These nubers scare me about what might happen if I get one.

Ditto.
If it wasn't for the Rrod, i'd buy one just for Splinter Cell conviction and Alan wake.

 

[Rachmaninov]

The Red Ring of Death is the only thing keeping me from getting a 360. These nubers scare me about what might happen if I get one.

You know it has a 3 year warranty right? And, of course just my opinion, the best games library. There are a few PS3 games I wish I could get such as Uncharted and inFamous, but overall I think I made the right console choice. Better online play too.

And that three year warranty only covers two of the major issues. If you're out of your one year full warranty, and get any error bar an RRoD/E74, then you're paying for it.

A '3 year warranty' sounds all well and good until you look at what the warranty actually protects you against. You only have one year of "general factory defect" cover and two further years of "specific factory defect". I know this because, my Elite died one week after the end of my one year warranty (suspicious, since this also happened to my best mate just weeks later, when his elite was just out of it's warranty too) with an E74, which wasn't covered by the extended warranty at that time, so they told me I'd have to pay.

 

[PhiMed]

I bought one of the elites almost as soon as they came out, and it failed within a month. I didn't even play it very much at the time. Microsoft replaced it, but they've had to replace it two more times since. So if they truly were built sturdier than the original iteration, then that's absolutely pathetic.

That being said, I still play it more than my ps3 and wii combined.

 

[Britisheagle]

Finally happened to me after a good 3 years 1 month, R.I.P ypu badly made console.
I would like to make a point though that I went back out the following day and bought a new console for £111. So although they may break more, they don't cost much to replace. Not saying this makes it ok, or better than a PS3 but I think it's good that they have kept their prices much lower than their competitors.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't understand why alot of people are defending it with claims that the issues are caused by people who mistreat it. What about those millions of people who treat their PS3 or Wii equally bad or worse, and have them continue to function, while their 360 bricks?

Because the study doesn't make a specific claim to exclude those people. Out of a small sample size (>.005% of console owners), you can derive absolutely nothing about the average user's habits. How many do you think read the manual, including the "Proper Care Instructions?" It's as much a smoking gun as a faulty heatsink / fan - in fact, it's the hand holding the smoking gun in a lot of cases.

 

[thedo12]

I had one problem where it stopped reading disc's, (every single game I owned) I decided since I was going to send it to get it repaired anyways that I should try hitting it on the top lightly.


it worked perfectly after that.

 

[wooty]

Ive had 2 360's die on me, first one was a red ring, the second one, the thing that grips the disk in the drive completely failed mid-game and sent my copy of mass effect hurtling through my machine like a fucking shuirken throwing star, as you can guess, both game and disk were unsalvagable.
Lessons were learnt that day...

 

[Carnagath]

Would I get violently beaten if I told that this is why I prefer the PC?

After having just replaced my 3rd PSU for the year on my PC at least I'd beat you violently

 

[cleverlymadeup]

I don't understand why alot of people are defending it with claims that the issues are caused by people who mistreat it. What about those millions of people who treat their PS3 or Wii equally bad or worse, and have them continue to function, while their 360 bricks?

Because the study doesn't make a specific claim to exclude those people. Out of a small sample size (>.005% of console owners), you can derive absolutely nothing about the average user's habits. How many do you think read the manual, including the "Proper Care Instructions?" It's as much a smoking gun as a faulty heatsink / fan - in fact, it's the hand holding the smoking gun in a lot of cases.

as i've said before, there is the chance that a couple percent of failures are actually due to bad treatment. the amount of failures that are claimed and reported however cannot be chalked up to just "people mistreating it"

i know that's the kool-aid that m$ has been telling everyone that it's "mistreatment" but frankly the high rate of failure can't be a result of that. in fact i know for a fact that's not true as with several of my friends who did have the RROD treated their 360s rather well and yet it still had a RROD

 

[jthm]

I'm on my 4th 360, 2nd Wii (admittedly, that one was my fault), and 1st PS3. I will say microsoft has much better customer service than Sony though as I've gone through 3 ps2s and it was an ordeal getting each one fixed.

STATS on systems owned:
NES: 1st system still chugging.
Gameboy: 1st one still running fine.
GameGear: 1st one still running fine.
SNES: Still runs, and I still play it as much as my modern systems.
N64: Still runs.
PS1: 3rd one due to system failures. Haven't hooked it up in years, but I assume it still works.
PS2: 3rd one works good, though I modded it. 1st 2 bigger models died due to dust.
Xbox: 1st one still works fine.
GameCube: Despite being dropped from 5 feet onto a concrete floor, 1st one still runs fine.
GBA: 1st one runs fine.
GBA SP: 2nd one runs fine, first had it's shoulder buttons die.
DS: 1st one had it's touch screen die. 2nd worked upon trade in.
DS lite: Works, but touch screen not as responsive as it used to be.
Xbox 360: On my 4th system. First 2 RrOD, 3rd just bricked with no rings.
Wii: fell 3 inches onto it's side, CD tray dislodged.
PS3: Workin' fine.

 

[squirrelman42]

I've had it for over a year and got the extended protection from Best Buy, but I haven't had a single problem. My Wii is fine too, and that gets kicked on accident at least weekly

 

[Sanaj]

Good thing I already got RROD, that means I'm safe! Right? RIght?!

That's like after flipping a coin and getting heads, then saying that you're going to get tails next....

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear...

I am being a jerk and for that I am sorry.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't understand why alot of people are defending it with claims that the issues are caused by people who mistreat it. What about those millions of people who treat their PS3 or Wii equally bad or worse, and have them continue to function, while their 360 bricks?

Because the study doesn't make a specific claim to exclude those people. Out of a small sample size (>.005% of console owners), you can derive absolutely nothing about the average user's habits. How many do you think read the manual, including the "Proper Care Instructions?" It's as much a smoking gun as a faulty heatsink / fan - in fact, it's the hand holding the smoking gun in a lot of cases.

as i've said before, there is the chance that a couple percent of failures are actually due to bad treatment. the amount of failures that are claimed and reported however cannot be chalked up to just "people mistreating it"

i know that's the kool-aid that m$ has been telling everyone that it's "mistreatment" but frankly the high rate of failure can't be a result of that. in fact i know for a fact that's not true as with several of my friends who did have the RROD treated their 360s rather well and yet it still had a RROD

Please, enlighten us. What is the percentage of failures due to bad treatment? Until you can quote a figure from a significant population, we who "drink the kool-aid of proper statistical analysis" are still free to spout our insanities. "Several of your friends" + 5000 surveyed is still statistically a speck on a grain of dust, and not nearly worth the near-rabid attention it gets.

What you (and many others) cite as analytical data is equivalent to "I know a guy who could jump 10 feet" for a physicist. Ten feet high, or long? Is that a measure of the point his feet left the ground, or how far he could reach with his hands extended? It's a claim that can't be denied, and upon testing can find a less than sensational conclusion.

Sensational claims require sensational proof, and the fact that there is no known figure for how often a 360 fails due user care issues is no surprise. If your console fails, are you going to admit that you didn't dust very often, and often had the ventilation blocked (especially when the warranty is iffy about that specific circumstance)? I'd probably blame Micro$oft too. I might even get on the phone and have some choice words about how pissed I was that it died while I was in the middle of a murder spree in some FPS.

Is their product less hearty than it's competitors? Absolutely. Is the failure due to user care? Nobody really knows yet.

 

[Danny Ocean]

He-he. My 3 year old xbox is still running strong.

Got mine the Christmas of the year they came out. It was the ONLY one left in town. Still going strong and as loud as ever. I'm considering using it as my lucky charm, you think I'd need some kind of industrial chain to hang it around my neck?

In fact, the only damage it's caused is scratching my Halo 3 and CoD4 disks before I knew what a laser burn was.

 

[wewontdie11]

54% that's fucking ridiculous. So there's basically a 50/50 shot at your 360 dying on you. Great. Is it that much to ask for a console that will work? I had a SNES, PS1, PS2 and normal Xbox and not one of them broke once. And I played the PS2 and Xbox near constantly some days.

 

[vultureX21]

I'm just going to toss an idea out there, a far-fetched one and I say that as a disclaimer, but what if the reports on 360 bricking are inflated by false reporting? In this case we are looking at a GI survey, how do they know for a fact the subject actually owns any of the consoles they report on and what is their chosen sample group?

What I am asking is, what about the possibility that the failure rate is being blown out of proportion by false reports and intentionally so? I have seven friends and myself who all own 360s and out of that group in five years only one has bricked. If the 54.2% rate was accurate then one would expect at least 2-3 would have bricked. Of course, my sample size is inherently small and prone to inaccuracy itself.

But there are a few things that stick out here. 54.2% is simply an unbelievable failure rate number, no product failing at that rate should be surviving in any economy, so I don't buy that. Is it possible? Certainly, but incredibly unlikely. The 360 game selection is not so much better than other systems as to warrant that much loyalty in the face of failure, though maybe the price difference is a bigger incentive to take the risk over the PS3 (assuming you don't want Wii style motion control and family oriented gaming).

So what if this is a horribly inaccurate report by some poorly conceived survey where opponents of the 360 are delivering false failure numbers? We know fanboys of all types out there, the RRoD is the primary knock on the 360, how difficult would it have been to falsify a bricking on a 360 you supposedly owned? We don't have any information on the parameters or verification process of the survey.

Now, do I think PS3 owners or Wii fans are actively skewing the numbers to mess with Microsoft? No, it seems too conspiracy-like to actually believe. But people do hate Microsoft and the fanboyism around this console generation has been particularly rabid, so I just figured I would toss out the concept and see what people thought.

EDIT - Once again, this is a theory I don't believe, but the more I thought about it the more interesting I thought it would be if it was true. After all, the way politics get manipulated these days, especially in the US with the health care misinformation being spread all over from all sides whose to say it wouldn't leak into our own personal mentality?