Xbox Failure Rates As High As 33%!?
A very disturbing report has come in from retailers concerning the seemingly high failure rate of Microsoft's Xbox 360 to pegs it approximately 33%. This is what was written over at DailyTech:
"EB Games held conference calls for its Canadian stores informing them of the new policy changes and revealing alarming failure rates of the Xbox 360. "The real numbers were between 30 to 33 percent," said former EB Games employee Matthieu G., adding that failure rate was even greater for launch consoles. "We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival." ... The failure rate nearing a third of all Xbox 360 consoles was found at other retailers too. A Best Buy customer service department manager, who wished to remain unnamed, said that failure rates for the console were "between a quarter to a third" of all units sold."We see a ton of [Xbox 360s] come back all the time. We strongly push our customers to buy our service plans no matter what they buy, but it is especially important for them with the Xbox 360," said the manager. "It's a lucky thing for us that Microsoft extended the factory warranty to one year, because we were having a hell of a time dealing with the launch units. Now we don't have to deal with those broken [Xbox 360s] until their second year, for those who have purchased the two year plans.""
Astonishing, the thought of a failure rate that high makes me speechless. ...but we'll never truly know what that failure rate is if Microsoft keeps that data tucked away in the deep dark recesses of its secret chambers. As for the Best Buy warranty, website The Consumerist urges people "not to fall for Best Buy's service plans, but to instead make sure they take advantage of their credit card's warranty protection program." However, a warranty or service plan doesn't prevent your system from failing. That's the manufacturer's job....
Retailers Estimate Xbox 360 Failure Rate High As 33% [DailyTech]
[via The Consumerist]
Super Timsy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 3 July 2007
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: Best Buy, EB Games, Failure Rates, GameStop, Microsoft, Red Ring Of Death, Xbox 360
The more i hear about this, the more i wanna know how to prevent this!
My baby please don't die on me! I need my viva pinata dose! Daily!
I think 33% is a fairly conservative estimate. According to my experience, and friends experience, its more like 100% but we just must be cursed or something. Still, my refurb unit is still -touch wood- going strong.
It just needs to kept ticking over so that I can OD on the Darkness while my BF is away next weekend!
Wow... I feel lucky. I've had mine since launch. My brother had one crap out on him, though.
This doesn't surprise me at all; in fact, I think 33% might be a bit low. It seemed like all my online friends were having to send theirs in for repairs or replacement at some point along the line, and a week ago it finally happened to me too (no red rings, just a disc drive that refused to recognize any discs).
It is such a shame, because the 360 (along with the online service) is otherwise such a wet dream for me. But next time I go to buy a game console, I'll be looking in the non-Microsoft direction.
I don't know what to believe. The 33% number is a quote from some guy working at Gamestop so I don't give that any credit. So far I have not had any problem with my 360 but I made sure to run it horizontally with plenty of space around it. Luckily it does not get too hot and humid in my neck of the woods and I got a more recent 360.
I have one friend out of quite a few to lose his, and that was a launch one (another friend still has his launch one)so anecdotally for me it doesn't hold up. That said I'm carefult o make sure mine is airated and i wonder if climate has to do with anything if it's overheating slowly, cold England doing better than hot areas of america?
Microsoft has started damage control by extending the warranty to THREE YEARS from the date of purchase.
yeah, there are no problems with failing 360s here!! /sarcasm