[Macworld]

Post your comments for Report claims 16.4% of all Xbox 360 consoles will fail here

[trip1ex]

I think the rate is much higher than 16%.
I'm sure many folks that have SquareTrade are just sending the things back into MS for free repair (1 yr warranty/3 yrs for RRD) or even bringing them back to the store.
So I think it's quite a bit higher.

[tuncer]

I've had two 360's fail on me. Bottom line...get the extended warranty at Best Buy :)

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
I don't think it is any more.

[wardoggie]

2 failures? In how long? I could forgive one failure -- every company can make mistakes. But after the second, I wouldn't bother with the extended warranty. I'd avoid the product altogether. Halo's fun and all, but really, the unreliability would be frustrate the heck outta me. Maybe that's just me. I hate it when Call of Duty 4 multiplayer games crash due to "host ended session" and connection timeouts.

[MacTheSpoon]

360s are such crap. I had to return two before finally deciding the third was usable, after putting some tape on the loose eject button to stop it from rattling constantly (due to fan/DVD drive vibration). The first had a bad hard drive, the second had a bad DVD drive that scratched my disk. Every time I use mine, I constantly worry it will blow up, it sounds like a blender. And it constantly crashes while playing Oblivion and Mass Effect - as it does for many users. Utter crap.

[Peter Cohen]

For what it's work, my 360 has been in near constant use since we got it in June, and it's worked without a problem. No RROD, no quality issues -- although it is considerably louder than the PS3. I don't dispute that the 360 appears to have an alarmingly high failure rate, but I just want to point out that everyone's mileage may vary.

[tuncer]

Peter, don't worry, yours will fail eventually :)

I got one at launch and it failed a year later. Got another one and it lasted a year as well. Now I've got an Elite but this time got the replacement warranty from Best Buy. If it fails, BB will give me a new one.

[bigh]

it seems to me that 1000 users isn't nearly enough of a sample to arrive at a meaningful estimate, let alone one with .1% accuracy as claimed. Especially given the non-random nature of the data. As one who's had to return an early unit due to the the "Red Ring of Death," I'm willing to bet the actual rate is considerably lower than 16%. Doesn't Square Trade have a vested interest in the results? Won't they benefit from an alarmist report?
Granted, the rate is still probably unacceptably high, but I wouldn't trust the numbers given.

[Gatesbasher]

So if retailers are reporting 33% coming back to them, and Square trade is handling 16.4%, doesn't that add up to 49.4%? And that's just so far! "It is reasonable to believe these failure rates will increase over time..." Duh!

[RASTERMAN]

Buy it from costco.com or at their warehouse, then you have few worries. Been lucky here so far in the last year and a half, knock on simulated wood, but I do admit light usage for the last 6 months.
Cheers!
---RASTER

[Frost7]

My Xbox hasn't failed on me, BUT, it's a 65nm one, I've only had it for 3 months, and I do most of my gaming on my PS3 anyway. I do know people who have gone through as many as four Xboxes though, which strikes me as ridiculous. If I had gone through that many 360s already I'd just sell the damn replacement and stop using them altogether.
Shoddy engineering to that degree is unacceptable.

[xtremepado]

I bought mine at launch and it worked fine, but two months ago I got the ring of death. I sent sent it to Microsoft and they repaired it and returned it to me in less than a week. For once I am impressed by Microsoft.