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Xbox 360 FAIL

Posted in Blog, hardware, Microsoft on August 21, 2009 at 8:05 pm

I thought I had experienced more than my fair share of Xbox 360 problems (see here and here for details and then add to that a failed DVD drive on a new machine for good measure) but a new survey would seem to suggest my life with the Xbox has been pretty much par for the course.

According to the Game Informer magazine survey of close to 5000 readers, the Nintendo Wii has a failure rate of just 6.8 percent, and the Sony PlayStation 3 a tad more on 10.6 percent. But the Microsoft Xbox 360 is likely to break five times as often as the PS3 on a stunningly poor failure rate of 54.2 percent.

According to the survey, the Xbox 360 was also the most used of the three consoles with it being used between 3 to 5 hours every day by 40 percent of users, while 37 percent of PS3 owners said the same. Most Wii players, 41 percent, played for less than 1 hour per day meanwhile.

So, given my own poor experience with the Xbox 360 have I stopped playing? No. Have I vowed never to buy another Xbox? No. In fact, despite all the problems with the hardware it has one thing going for it that is like a drug to games players: games. Yep, the games just keep me coming back for more. In fact, my Sony PS3 sees more use as the family Blu-ray player than it does for actual game-play it has to be said. My view seems to tally with the Game Informer survey as only 3.8 percent of Xbox 360 owners said that enough was enough and hardware failures meant they were giving up on the console.

Does that give Microsoft a pass? Not on your nelly. Come on Microsoft, play the game and get your hardware act together. I honestly cannot imagine any other manufacturer of any other hardware in any other genre surviving this kind of failure rate.

Rated: 67.69% (13 votes)

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Comments

Comment by John - August 21, 2009 on 9:19 pm

If there are no consumer repurcussions and everyone takes the attitude you do… why should Microsoft Change?

Comment by Knarf Black - August 21, 2009 on 9:40 pm

Because they lost a billion dollars last time and got a big steaming pile of bad press. Fixing the problems next time will only cement their growing market share. They could be #1 next console generation assuming they don’t royally screw something else up.

Comment by MUZI - August 21, 2009 on 9:45 pm

I stoppd when mine failed…..i mean you expect microsoft to upgrade they system and make it better but you keep on buying it? i thnk you need to get yo brain checkd by PS3

Comment by MidNight - August 21, 2009 on 10:27 pm

I’m going to have to agree with John and MUZI on this one. I’ve always been a multi console owner but the failure of the 360 has put a screeching halt to that this time around. I refuse to give my hard earned money to one of the richest company on this planet, who remains satisfy with the shabby hardware they sell to customers. By supporting them you’re only telling them you’re willing to look past the failure rates and it’s ok for them to put a defective product on the market.

Comment by DADDY - August 21, 2009 on 10:31 pm

Are you kidding me? Games? What games are you referring too? It must be Shadow Complex because before that there wasn’t much to talk about on the 360. Microsoft is lucky there’s fools out there willing to give them a pass while they continue to cheat consumers out of the ability to make common sense buying decisions.

Comment by Lexx - August 21, 2009 on 10:36 pm

Davey, it’s people like you and me who ensure M$ gets away with it! I went through 3 xbox 360’s, when it came back from the repair shop the fourth time I took it to my game store and traded it and all my games in for a PS3. Best move I ever made. I will never ever buy a microsoft console again.

Comment by simon lomax - August 21, 2009 on 10:38 pm

tonight (21/08/09)my original xbox360 has just failed (3redlights) for the 3rd time. Getting abit annoyed with this crap.

Comment by ITMan - August 21, 2009 on 11:11 pm

After playing the RROD game, mine eventually failed for good. I went PS3 and never looked back. Honestly the 360’s the worst consumer electronics disaster EVER. And you wonder why they’ve sold XX million consoles (half of them broke and were replaced). Anyone thinking of buying one should budget for at least two, because that’s what it’s going to cost when the first one fails.

Comment by DaveBG - August 22, 2009 on 2:12 am

What a load.
It was a self-selecting survey with no way of anyone telling if the responses were true or not - or even if those claiming to have had trouble even had the console they said they did.
It’s about as useless a guage of anything as is possible.
I also suspect the stink of PS3 fanboys all over this one (and surprise surprise just in timne to coincide with the slim news).

Comment by Richdad - August 22, 2009 on 2:16 am

Yes MS should do something about this failures. This is really bad of my Xbox broke earlier although with help of 3RROD fix, I made it again by help of some techniques available on net.

I have a new Xbox and dont know when it could give me trouble and it will really be nightmare for me, I have spent one month of earnings on it and its a huge amount of money in my country. Anyways this one has warranty but still it I done have enough free time even to follow up for dispatch of it coffin and return.

Also MS should be beware if their console fails people will also just pirate it more and more a lot of people in forums I read are pirating only due to this reason they say its fair enough for MS.

Comment by Xendrid - August 22, 2009 on 2:42 am

I’ve been through several 360s. So far I haven’t had to spend a dime to have them repaired. I can deal with not having a 360 for a week and a half out of every eight months or so.

I play my PS3 about three hours a month. I play the 360 several days a week. It is true that the PS3 seems like everything but a gaming console and the 360 is the real gaming platform. Unfortunately it has some real problems.

Hardcore gamers need 360s. People who can settle for less for a big price can keep the PS3.

Comment by PSN:gamesnskate - August 22, 2009 on 3:48 am

When I saw the Headline for this article I almost freaked out and thought it was a fanboy hate article ( we already have WAY TOO MANY of those ) but you made two great points: First off, the 360’s hardware does in fact SUCK! Secondly, the 360 still has a butt-load of AWESOME software to keep the real gamers coming back it regardless of its falts. - That’s what I got from the article which I find to be very true so thank you GREAT READ!

Comment by stvw74 - August 22, 2009 on 5:37 am

Xendrid wouldn’t know what a core gamer is .. “I’ve been through several 360s” ur an idiot for supporting a failed PC and that money machine M$oft .. I hammered my PS3 for 5-6hours everyday for 20 months and yes it failed but I’m sorry u can’t say that the failure rate of the Xbox is in any way attractive to the consumer .. This is in no way a fanboy comment but PS3 price drop anyone?

Comment by ChrisW - August 22, 2009 on 7:35 am

The Xbox360 has a failure rate? And what the hell is this RROD? I don’t understand what you guys are talking about!

Comment by Art - August 22, 2009 on 7:58 am

Dude, your a fool. I have had both consoles since launch and yes my xbox has failed (twice). Has this affected my love for the xbox, YES. In the begining the xbox had better games and it got more use. But in the last year and a half (since my second failure) I came to realise that my PS3 has just as many good games, never fails, is much quieter and has far more original content. Now I pretty much only use my 360 for multiplayer titles and exclusives(COD, Gears, Halo, etc) and even that is starting to become less and less. MS need to bring out more original exclusive IP’s and fix there damned machines. Even now my 3rd, repeat 3rd, 360 has a disc read error almost every time I put a disc in and I hardly ever use it anymore. And this has had an effect on me as i will be waiting a long time after release of their next console before I purchase it, if at all, to see if they have fixed this gens issues. But if there are those like you out there that will NEVER HAPPEN!

Comment by Pete - August 22, 2009 on 10:18 am

So when did a magazine poll become scientific fact?

Considering you’re average PS3 fanboy always claims to be on their sixth Xbox, i’d say the odds of an accurate reader poll are zero.

I personally know 11 people with 360s, of that 11 only 1 got RROD, mine started struggling to read a few games after 3 years of solid action as a games machine and DVD player but all i had to do was adjust the laser.

Percentage failed - less than 10%.
Cost to user - £0

My situation might not be typical but to believe the results of a reader poll is just plain stupid given that fanboys have a habbit of lying and talking crap about the competition.

It’s like doing a poll on readers penis size and expecting the results to be honest!

Comment by name - August 22, 2009 on 11:20 am

3 years in and still have my original 360.
i think its got to do with how you look after the system.
i vachume it every day, make sure it does not get to hot, never dropped it, never moved it while its on, never turned off the system while in a game.
that stuff helps.
but as one of the other guys said, they break people buy new ones, there peripherals are WAY! overpriced but people still buy them so why would M$ change?
if M$ stop being the money grubbing &^%$^&*^% they are and start treating us like customers, instead of a bank they could easily win this gen.
for next gen they need to make a quality system with high tech so its not out dated 5 years after release like the 360 is.
and keep the prices for the accessories low, they have the content and the games.
the only thing holding them back is the quality of there system, the reliability of there system and there attitude.
all of M$ CEOs are arrogant basterds,they seem like the typical rich American bissness man.
the sony CEOs on the other hand seem really cool ordinary guys, i like jack trentton, and kaz isent to bad.
sony on the other hand next gen need to give what they promise NOW! not in 2 years time NOW!
and they need to learn how to treat their customers the same no matter where they live.
same goes for M$
why games get released 4 weeks sometimes more here after the US is beyond me.
it takes 4 weeks to ship several thousand copies from the US to australia does it?
my father works for a very large chemical pumps plant and there shippind hundreds of thousands of pumps to jappan and the rest of the world im a matter of weeks, not months.
so whats stopping M$ and sony?

Comment by DaveBG - August 22, 2009 on 11:54 am

Microsoft has dealt with this.
The Xbox has been changed and is now as reliable as anything out there (accepting nobody is able to make a perfect product 100% of the time).
To cover all eventualities they also introduced a 3yr warranty (and I know of people getting their Xbox fixed for free outside the usual guarantee even when the problem wasn’t RRoD or E74).
This sitaution now sees the idiots fanboys whining about a 3yr guarantee as if it was a bad thing!
Talk about being so blind and dumb as to act against your own interests to ’support’ a faceless CE corp.
They should all offer at least a 3yr guarantee.

Comment by Mickael - August 22, 2009 on 11:58 am

I have to ask you what are all these games that you’re playing on the 360? Because in the past year, I can’t think of a single exclusive game that was worth playing on the 360. And I can think of 3 right off the bat for PS3. Infamous, Killzone2, and in one month, the most likely game of the year, Uncharted 2: Among Theives. And WHY WOULD YOU PLAY MULTIPLAYER ON XBOX?? FOR 50+ BUCKS EVERY YEAR?!??! PSN IS FREEEEEEE!

Comment by kan - August 22, 2009 on 1:05 pm

All you have to do is install your games onto your harddrive, its not hard. Installed games = no disc spin = no heating up = no rrod.

Jeez, even if you dont and it does break, UPS pick it up for you and you get a new one in a week.

Comment by Will - August 22, 2009 on 4:32 pm

vaccuuming the 360 everyday must be hell. lool. I vaccuum my ps3 like every 3 months. You can go on youtube and see all these great tricks people found out to try keep the 360 from overheating.

Comment by Mounce - August 22, 2009 on 5:28 pm

I find it very pathetic how lenient Americans are to an American-founded companies. Patriotism makes people ignorant and blind, if PS3 was of that failure rate, Sony would be MURDERED…..Microsoft? for some reason they can get away with it clean, like a Get out of jail free card.

Fuck this backwoods’ retard of a thing we call society, and it’s populace, retarded group of idiotic consumers.

People don’t invest their money, thinking of Long-term planning in any fashion, they enjoy bending over and taking it up the ass by Microsofts’ Money-condom’d dick.

Sickening, how the world turns, in America mostly…

Comment by quy - August 22, 2009 on 6:52 pm

michael there are lots and lots of xbox exclusives: halo 3, gears 1 and 2, pgr4, fable 2, dead or alive 4, ninja blade
and loads more

xbox 360 has more exclusives than ps3

Comment by Singapore School - August 23, 2009 on 8:58 am

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Comment by AAQIB - August 26, 2009 on 11:35 pm

Whats the point naming ‘exclusives’, when taiking about the 360’s hardware failures its library of overgrown miniature game cant make up for it reliability problems

The problem is that Microsoft doesnt care about the problems faced by it’s xbox 360 customers because surveys and research conducted shows that owners dont mind and arent put off. I personally think its a disgrace.

“Come on Microsoft, play the game and get your hardware act together”. Whats the point encourgaing them when they already proved they selfish and deny the problems as long as people keep loyal

Comment by quy - September 1, 2009 on 4:21 pm

although its in a hardware failure colomn

im naming exclusives just to prove my point that 360 has more exclusives, apart from the rrod or disc drive problems, you got to admit the 360 has the best games library of this generation

Comment by uggs - September 21, 2009 on 1:39 am

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Comment by uggs - September 21, 2009 on 1:44 am

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Comment by ed hardy shoes - October 9, 2009 on 7:59 am

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Comment by Computer Accessories - October 13, 2009 on 5:06 am

Actually i know for a fact Best Buy won’t sell a referb. They send it back to MS and get credit for the return at the end of each month. IF it is in the 1 year manufactures warranty. If it is past that then the store takes the hit which they are budgeted for.

Comment by manette xbox 360 - October 13, 2009 on 12:38 pm

My 360 has failed twice now too. Once when GTA4 came out, i gott he E74 error, at the time they hadnt extended the warrenty for it yet so i had to pay to get it fixed which sucked. Now, last thursday it failed AGAIN i got the RROD, just after i bought two new games to play on it. Thankfully that was covered under the extended warrenty and according to the site it has already been repaired or replaced and is on its way back to me less than a week later. Thats great customer service, but the fact remains it shouldnt frickin happen in the first place! Why cant MS make a product that lasts? Im not defecting to the PS3 though as i still love the 360 and think its a better console, but i do hope to get a PS3 for xmas so i have a backup to play when my 360 inevitably dies again and goes off for repair. Oh i also had a friend whose 360 suffered a malfunction as well.

Comment by tiffanys - October 16, 2009 on 7:30 am

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Comment by prom dresses shop - November 4, 2009 on 10:20 am

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Comment by Alex Chejlyk - January 16, 2010 on 5:53 pm

I believe the 50% failure rate on the XBox 360. My eldest son has experienced the rrod, my youngest son has also experienced the rrod, his two best friends have had the same experience. They still love their XBox’s. I think they are nuts, reminds me of the Coleco Adam Computer and its 50% failure rate. Come to think of it, I loved that thing.

We recently purchased a PS3, so now our household has a Wii, XBox 360 and a PS3. Time will tell which system is the most reliable and which is the most loved.

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