Warranty company calculates Xbox 360 failure rate at 16%

SquareTrade, a firm that deals in warranties for electronics, analyzed the data taken from more than a thousand warranty purchases. It found that the Xbox 360 has a failure rate of about 16.4%, making it much more malfunction prone than the Playstation3 and Wii, which have a failure rate of only 3%. According to 1UP, they were far above Microsoft’s own estimates, which were, ironically, also 3%.

Sixty percent of those 360 failures were due to the system’s infamous “Red Ring of Death,” where 3 flashing LED lights go on around the power button to indicate a “general hardware failure.” Most of the RROD failures tend to occur because the system’s construction inhibits it from releasing excess heat properly. RRODs have become so common a problem that Microsoft wound up extending the length of its own 360 warranties by three years.

Upon their reporting this failure rate, 1UP advised a grain of caution about this study, stating it represents people who went out to buy third-party warranties for their systems, meaning they were likely to put more stress on their consoles than more casual players. Editor’s Note: Besides, those 1000 SquareTrade customers are certainly not a statistically representative random sample of all Xbox 360 owner. (Stay in school, kids).

However, the fact that I put just as much stress on my still-functional SNES more than drives the point home about this study.

Site [SquareTrade] Also Read [ABC News] Also Read [1UP]