SlashGear Japan
Whether or not you’ve had an Xbox 360 or not, doesn’t really matter when it comes to hearing about the dreaded Red Ring of Death (RRoD) situation, and for many people, it looks like it may be the bane of their life. At least when it comes to gaming. Game Informer’s printed magazine came out with a new report, after surveying 5,000 people, that shows a staggering 54.2% failure rate. We have the rest of their findings, which show some more of the grisly details.
What we’re looking at, as we said, is a poll of 5,000 individuals, all asked about their experiences with broken consoles. There are a few more details that we will cover later, but first, we’ll get to the bulk of it. The Xbox 360 is seeing a 54.2% failure rate; the PlayStation 3 is seeing a 10.6% failure rate; and the Nintendo Wii has a 6.8% rate. Further, the poll also gathered information from people who have had additional problems, after purchasing a second console: Xbox 360: 41.2%; PlayStation 3: 14.7%; and the Wii: 11%. Based on these results, they took a customer satisfaction pole, and rated the experiences as “very helpful”, to find out who had the best: Nintendo: 56.1%; Sony: 51.1%; and Microsoft: 37.7%. And, if that’s not bad enough, they asked how many of their friends had had console failures: Xbox 360: 69.9%; PlayStation 3: 12.4%; and Wii: 6%
The magazine also made some notes, saying that one reason the Nintendo Wii could be so low in numbers, is because of 41% of people asked, the Wii was only used for one hour a day. While the majority of other players on the Xbox 360 (40.3%) and PlayStation 3 (37%) said that they play their consoles for an average of three to five hours a day. On a better note, only 3.8% of those surveyed said they would not ever buy another Xbox 360 again, based on their past experiences with the console. So, what do you think? Would these numbers make you stray from making a purchase? Did you already have enough problems with any one of the consoles to prevent you from making the same mistake?
4 Responses to “Microsoft Xbox 360 Sees Some Staggering Failure Rates”
izzledizzle August 17, 2009
geez… thats pretty bad. I even own a 360 and admit that sucks. The company that supplies the motherboard was to blame for most of the first generation problems, they started shipping the new motherboards last summer or so i think which have a better track record. I haven’t had any problems with my elite (knock on wood x 100000000), but 2 of my friends that got the RRoD both got them fixed in no time for free (MS at least fixes them for free now). Both friends also play their 360’s probably 3-6 hours a day, so i can see why it would get worn out eventually. I admittedly keep mine on all day long, but most of my games are installed on the HDD so the disc is never spinning or its just sitting at the home screen and i haven’t had a problem yet (again, knock on wood x100000.)
When i worked for UPS during my winter breaks around christmas i would always deliver at least 1 xbox being returned from being fixed every few days which was kind of funny, well and sad at the same time haha…
Neutralizzledizzle August 17, 2009
i’d also still rather deal with it possibly failin and be able to play games like forza, halo, and COD with my friends from home while i’m away at school then get a ps3, but to each his own i guess.
-2Evan Selleck August 17, 2009
You bring up some good points. The Xbox LIVE ecosystem seems to be the reason why a lot of gamers would prefer the Xbox 360 over the other two consoles. And, perhaps that’s why Microsoft acted relatively slowly to fix the situation. I’ve never had a problem with my console either, so I cannot say for certain if there are certain parameters to getting the console to fail (RRoD), or if it’s something that will happen no matter what.
When I’ve spoken with a few people at a UPS store, I found out that some stores actually have routines to follow when an Xbox 360 comes in. That’s pretty funny, but also sad, as you said.
Neutraldenisbergeron August 18, 2009
Have to send a Xbox recently. I get it to the UPS store in a white box. When the clerk get it he said “Oh another Xbox” and show my 20 others box some in the original xbox. The clerk said that was everyday like that. I live in a citie of ± 3 million, but the UPS store are in a industriel part of the citie and the citie have more than 6 UPS store of deposit place. For me that a real big faillure rate.
Neutral