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…