Xbox 360's Death Rate is 54.2%
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
Microsoft has a fucked up console, but you know what i still love playing videogames on it, so yea...
The question about the failure rate is a little more complex with the Xbox 360 than the other two consoles.
Namely because in different regions there are different hardware parts that are to blame.
In the European region for example, a larger percentage of the failure rates are due to the DVD-Drive (which was originally Panasonic and since changed to Samsung) where-as in the North American region is was more down to cut-corners on costs of the Northbridge that while would effectively burn itself out... this was made worse by the Northbridge actually including the GPU that generated far more heat than you'd normally expect from a Chipset.
If this wasn't bad enough though, the IBM PowerPC Processor has always had an issue that would cause many consoles all over the world to simply quit working because of IBM being absolutely useless at fabricating working processors.
This issue is present even in the Wii and PS3, it is also the main cause of the PS3's failure rates. Something that is interesting to note is that the issue with the PPC being the cause is so difficult to find when trying to troubleshoot given the fact the first thing to appear to fail is optical/hard disk media. i.e. the persistant memory hardware. As data is being corrupt by the processor itself and the programs then believe it's a media error.
The GameCube showed this perfectly as a HUGE number of the consoles games would apparently become unreadable as soon as it got to hot inside. Yet checking the disc would so no damage, or even fingermarks; and seconds later the section that crashed the console would suddenly work and another section a bit further on would cause the same disc read error.
To be honest, most of the failures past the hardware (that has since been replaced in the Xbox 360, and will see another shift to pure AMD hardware within the next year) are down to environment. Yeah you can claim "well this console is poorly constructed" blah blah
But take this as a good case example:
My friend is currently on his 4th Xbox 360 in 18months, it's kept in his room. He leaves it on all the time, and is a heavy smoker plus it is quite warm in his room without anything on to begin with.
Where-as I've got 3 Xbox 360s, a 20GB Premium (think 2nd Gen), a 1st gen Arcade, and a 1st gen 60GB Premium. None of which have failed, while I smoke heavily too; cause of others in the house I smoke outside, the Xbox is turned off whenever it's not in use and the AC keeps the room it's in quite cool.
The 60gb has been known to freeze after prolonged useage (on my days off I like to have some mammoth gaming sessions) and it is the primarily used console (a good 6-10hours a day total as everyone uses it).
Still in 3 years, none have failed. In-fact the Arcade with a 20GB HDD I did have, was used for about 6months before I sent it to my brother who wanted on last year with that one also going quite strong still.
Sometimes I think it is luck of the draw, but honestly I'm certain it's more down to environment and over-useage. Well that and most people simply send their Xbox 360s back to be "reconditioned" rather than getting a new one.
Personally that's why I got (doubt I'll use it) an extended warrenty from the Game Retailer who have a no quibble replacement policy on all Console Hardware. Pay an extra £10 per year of cover, and if anything goes wrong I just take it back and they hand me a new console. As they've been offering that for almost 3 years now, frankly I doubt the Xbox 360 failure rate is anywhere near as high as Game Informer reckon it is; else they'd be loosing a shedload of money.
Namely because in different regions there are different hardware parts that are to blame.
In the European region for example, a larger percentage of the failure rates are due to the DVD-Drive (which was originally Panasonic and since changed to Samsung) where-as in the North American region is was more down to cut-corners on costs of the Northbridge that while would effectively burn itself out... this was made worse by the Northbridge actually including the GPU that generated far more heat than you'd normally expect from a Chipset.
If this wasn't bad enough though, the IBM PowerPC Processor has always had an issue that would cause many consoles all over the world to simply quit working because of IBM being absolutely useless at fabricating working processors.
This issue is present even in the Wii and PS3, it is also the main cause of the PS3's failure rates. Something that is interesting to note is that the issue with the PPC being the cause is so difficult to find when trying to troubleshoot given the fact the first thing to appear to fail is optical/hard disk media. i.e. the persistant memory hardware. As data is being corrupt by the processor itself and the programs then believe it's a media error.
The GameCube showed this perfectly as a HUGE number of the consoles games would apparently become unreadable as soon as it got to hot inside. Yet checking the disc would so no damage, or even fingermarks; and seconds later the section that crashed the console would suddenly work and another section a bit further on would cause the same disc read error.
To be honest, most of the failures past the hardware (that has since been replaced in the Xbox 360, and will see another shift to pure AMD hardware within the next year) are down to environment. Yeah you can claim "well this console is poorly constructed" blah blah
But take this as a good case example:
My friend is currently on his 4th Xbox 360 in 18months, it's kept in his room. He leaves it on all the time, and is a heavy smoker plus it is quite warm in his room without anything on to begin with.
Where-as I've got 3 Xbox 360s, a 20GB Premium (think 2nd Gen), a 1st gen Arcade, and a 1st gen 60GB Premium. None of which have failed, while I smoke heavily too; cause of others in the house I smoke outside, the Xbox is turned off whenever it's not in use and the AC keeps the room it's in quite cool.
The 60gb has been known to freeze after prolonged useage (on my days off I like to have some mammoth gaming sessions) and it is the primarily used console (a good 6-10hours a day total as everyone uses it).
Still in 3 years, none have failed. In-fact the Arcade with a 20GB HDD I did have, was used for about 6months before I sent it to my brother who wanted on last year with that one also going quite strong still.
Sometimes I think it is luck of the draw, but honestly I'm certain it's more down to environment and over-useage. Well that and most people simply send their Xbox 360s back to be "reconditioned" rather than getting a new one.
Personally that's why I got (doubt I'll use it) an extended warrenty from the Game Retailer who have a no quibble replacement policy on all Console Hardware. Pay an extra £10 per year of cover, and if anything goes wrong I just take it back and they hand me a new console. As they've been offering that for almost 3 years now, frankly I doubt the Xbox 360 failure rate is anywhere near as high as Game Informer reckon it is; else they'd be loosing a shedload of money.
That number sounds low to me. I've had a Pro fail with E74, another Pro fail with the RRoD, another Pro fail by completely freezing up (no error codes), and an Elite fail with E74, in that order. I had hoped the 2008-model Elite would've been late enough in the console life cycle to be a "corrected design", but my hopes were dashed with that last failure...
I'm so happy. My work is more than halfway done. If I keep it up, in a year Xbox will be history.
Yeah I'd say that's too small of a survey, but whatever. I understand there's a hardware problem, but think about it. Of course you're going to hear about all the 360s that break because most of the people it happens to will post somewhere about it.
How many threads do you see that say MY 360 DOES NOT HAVE THE RROD?
Those threads usually get people to come in and share their RROD experience. So, even though the failure rate is definitely above where it should be, and even though it seems like all there are is horror stories -- you're never going to get a real clear percentage unless microsoft releases it themselves (and doesn't lie).
That being said, I posted about my 360 being rrod free after two years, and it died a week later. So be careful.
No problems since then (February), though.
How many threads do you see that say MY 360 DOES NOT HAVE THE RROD?
Those threads usually get people to come in and share their RROD experience. So, even though the failure rate is definitely above where it should be, and even though it seems like all there are is horror stories -- you're never going to get a real clear percentage unless microsoft releases it themselves (and doesn't lie).
That being said, I posted about my 360 being rrod free after two years, and it died a week later. So be careful.
No problems since then (February), though. 
My sister bought an Elite, and it's never gotten the RROD. It has, however, gotten some weird error concerning the AV cables. So she sent it in.
One week after she got it back, it broke down with Error 74. Sent it back in; got a different xbox.
It's going pretty strong so far. The only problem I've seen was Oblivion freezing just once.
One week after she got it back, it broke down with Error 74. Sent it back in; got a different xbox.
It's going pretty strong so far. The only problem I've seen was Oblivion freezing just once.
I think it's mainly down to user fault and environment. When I got my first 360, since I didn't have a DVD player, I used to use it to watch DVDs. Sometimes watching them late at night, I would fall asleep without turning it off. That's at least 6 hours of constantly being on. And this happened maybe twice a week. Also, I was keeping it on my carpet. So after 6 months it bricked and the retailer replaced it.
Now I have my second 360. I keep it and the power supply elevated on a wooden table, keep my room well ventilated and don't use it to watch DVDs at all now. It's been over a year and I haven't had a single problem with it. It doesn't even make that much noise.
So here are my two pence. Treat the hardware decently and its less likely to brick on you. Statistics don't mean jack to the individual.
Now I have my second 360. I keep it and the power supply elevated on a wooden table, keep my room well ventilated and don't use it to watch DVDs at all now. It's been over a year and I haven't had a single problem with it. It doesn't even make that much noise.
So here are my two pence. Treat the hardware decently and its less likely to brick on you. Statistics don't mean jack to the individual.
I sometimes wonder about mine after the OS starts slowing down and glitching. A 54% failure rate is terrible. It's a wonder why anyone would risk modding it, but then methinks Microsoft designed it to fail so modders would be S.O.L. and have to buy the system again instead of getting it fixed for free.
I don't care about other people's xbox 360....I have a first shipment 360 and it works great and has never broken