SquareTrade has more bad numbers for Xbox 360
To all those who think Game Guy has gone overboard with his criticism of Xbox 360, there’s this:
The warranty provider SquareTrade reports that Microsoft’s gaming console failed on average about 23 percent of the time after just two years of use, according to research into the history of 16,000 failed systems from various manufacturers.
By comparison, Sony’s PlayStation 3 broke about 10 percent of the time and Nintendo’s Wii a measly 2.7 percent. These numbers refer to the systems that came through SquareTrade; the percentages could be higher if systems sent directly to the manufacturer are included, the warrantor said.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, a 2 percent failure rate is typical for all electronics.
So what’s Xbox’s problem? SquareTrade acknowledges the system’s complexity compared to, say, a Wii, creates more opportunity for system failure. However, the PS3 is a technically complex system with functions comparable to Xbox, and yet its failure rate is far lower.
SquareTrade also acknowledges last year’s Xbox redesign, code named Jasper, that tried to address critical issues pertaining to the “red ring of death” phenomenon symbolizing system failure, may change the results of later surveys.
Microsoft is optimistic that will be the case.
“We continuously invest resources to improve the reliability of our products, and we believe that (the “red ring of death” issue) is largely behind us,” the company said in a statement.
Does the 360 fail a lot? Sure. But as long as it has consistently better games than both the PS3 and Wii and as long as MS keeps repairing them for free, no one will care. My first 360 lasted for two years. I had a refurb in my hands in a week that runs better and quieter than my old one.
I’d like to get a PS3 Slim but I’m having trouble justifying the price tag when there are only 4 or 5 quality games I would see myself buying for it that I don’t already own on 360.
That number is still much lower than the sensational numbers from the unscientific survey referenced in an earlier post. I guess if I took a survey of 360 owners in my household I’d find a 50% failure rate - mine has been fine while my son’s had to be sent in for repair.
Another Xbox 360 bashing article from Game Guy, surprise surprise.
We all know xbox has/had a high failure rate…. that’s not news. Why don’t you post something new about xbox, like how they are getting better? http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/102/1021096p1.html It’s still a great system when it works, and isn’t this site supposed to be about games in general anyway? For the record, I’ve had two, and neither have broken. I sold my original with no HDMI port and giant power brick to a friend and it’s still chugging along for him.
Wow. Another article on here about the red rings. Awesome. Of all the game news you could report on, you continue to report on something that hasn’t really been news since 2007. We get it.
If they can get a PS2 emulator running on the PS3, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge catalog of games on the PSN. Each sale would be pure profit, so it wouldn’t make sense to limit the scope of the titles that were available. Obviously Activision, EA, and others would need to sign off on the games going up, but there is really no reason for them not to.