Game Informer Searches For Failure, Finds It In Consoles
With so many moving parts and what once was cutting edge technology crammed into one tiny space, is it any wonder that we're seeing a higher than normal rate of console failure across the board? Anecdotally speaking, just about all of my friends with 360's have had to send their in for repair at least once, with more extreme cases requiring repeated fixes (one friend of mine is on his NINTH box). The folks over at Game Informer noticed this trend and surveyed their readers to get some numbers behind it to see the extent of the damage. While the nearly 5000 readers that were surveyed only represent a fraction of a percentage of people playing games with current generation hardware and the amount may or may not be enough to get a super-accurate view of the situation, the results still give us some numbers that the big three are unlikely to release anytime soon.
Console failure rateXbox 360 - 54.2%
Playstation 3 - 10.6%
Wii - 6.8%Percentage of console owners who suffered a second hardware failure after the original repair.
Xbox 360 - 41.2%
Playstation 3 - 14.7%
Wii - 11%Percentage of people who rate their customer service experience "very helpful"
Nintendo - 56.1%
Sony - 51.1%
Microsoft - 37.7%Percentage of respondents whose friends have had console hardware failures.
Xbox 360 - 69.9%
Playstation 3 - 12.4%
Wii - 6%
Even if people run into some repeat issues with their consoles it's good to see that Nintendo and Sony are doing a great job at providing some "very helpful" assistance to their customers. And Microsoft's 37.7% isn't a number to sneeze at considering that most people aren't exactly in a pleasurable mood when they have to call up customer service. I'm just happy that I haven't needed to use these services too much. You'll excuse me while I go find some wood to knock on immediately.
[Report: Xbox 360 Failure Rate Reaches 54%] IGN
Game-Boy
Posted to Video Games on 18 August 2009
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: customer service, failure, game informer, ign, microsoft, nintendo, ps3, red ring of death, sony, wii, xbox 360
Meh, only ever had one RRoD on my 360 and it was handled easily a,d quickly.
Besides, it happened while trying out the demo for that Penny Arcade game, which I figure is karma's way of telling me to stick with my initial intention of not supporting those feckless guys by buying their game.
Wondering what would happen if a Japanese company release a console with such a high failure rate.