Sign on Options
Theme:
To Dark

Xbox 360 failure rate = 54.2%?

Game Informer's survey of 5,000 console owners finds over half Microsoft's machines fail once, 41.2% fail twice; 10.6% of PS3s, 6.8% of Wiis also reported defective.

When it extended the Xbox 360's warranty to three years, Microsoft admitted the Xbox 360's failure rate was unacceptable. However, despite covering both the "Red Ring of Death" and E74 errors, the company has never admitted exactly how often its console suffers from technical problems or manufacturing defects.

The Red Ring of Death is apparently an all-too familiar sight...

The Red Ring of Death is apparently an all-too familiar sight...

Now, Game Informer magazine has conducted a survey of 5,000 subscribers to find out how often consoles conk out. The September issue of the Minnesota-based, GameStop-owned magazine features the results of the survey, which found that a whopping 54.2 percent of Xbox 360 owners surveyed reported having the console fail on them once. Were that figure applied to the platform's 30 million-unit installed base, the result would be 15.72 million failed consoles.

Perhaps more damning, 41.2 percent of 360 owners had a second hardware malfunction--meaning that potentially 12.36 million people have had their consoles fail again. Some 36.4 percent of 360 owners reported having to buy a second console, versus 13.4 percent of PlayStation 3 owners and 8.4 percent of Wii owners. Also, Game Informer found that 69.9 percent of respondents said they had at least one friend who had an Xbox 360 cease working. Nonetheless, only 3.8 percent of respondents said that the 360's hardware failures convinced them to not buy a replacement console from Microsoft.

By comparison, 10.6 percent of PlayStation 3 owners reported a failure, with 14.7 percent reporting a second hardware problem. The Wii was the most reliable, with a 6.8 percent failure rate and an 11 percent secondary failure rate. However, the Wii's low numbers may also be due to the fact it's the least played of the three consoles. Some 41.4 percent of Wii owners said they played it for less than an hour per day on average. By contrast, 40.3 percent of Xbox 360 owners played for three to five hours per day, and 37.3 percent of PS3 owners played three to five hours per day.

Game Informer also asked respondents about their experiences with the three platform-holders' customer service departments. Again, Nintendo came out on top, with 56.1 percent of respondents saying they were "very satisfied" with their experiences. Sony was close behind with a 51.1 percent satisfaction rate, followed by Microsoft with a 37.7 percent satisfaction rate.

CONSOLE FAILURE RATE
PlayStation 3 - 10.6 percent
Wii - 6.8 percent
Xbox 360 - 54.2 percent

SECOND CONSOLE FAILURE RATE
PlayStation 3 - 14.7 percent
Wii - 11 percent
Xbox 360 - 41.2 percent

GAMERS WITH FRIENDS WHO HAVE HAD A CONSOLE FAILURE
PlayStation 3 - 12.4 percent
Wii - 6 percent
Xbox 360 - 69.9 percent

"VERY HELPUL" CUSTOMER SUPPORT RATING
Sony - 51.1 percent
Nintendo - 56.1 percent
Microsoft - 37.7 percent

1329 Comments

  • Vendetta162

    Posted Jul 27, 2011 6:01 am GMT

    I say us Xbox 360 users deserve the opportunity to send in our consoles, working or not, and get the new slim models to serve as compensation for them shipping out defective pieces of sh*t

  • FantasticoM

    Posted Jul 13, 2011 2:09 am GMT

    i have enjoy both consoles very much (ps3 & 360) but my 360 get RROD twice, i use to play a lot of forza 3, with my wirelles racing wheel for the xbox 360, now my wheel is gone becaouse it also burned, with smoke and flames and sh*t. i enjoyed forza even with its really crapy physic simulation engine, (gravity doesent work, unreallistic oversteer, car handling is worst than on need for speed). now i play GT5 on my PS3 with my logitech G25 racing wheel, and i love it.
    i dont now someone that has experieced ps3 failure, and everyone i know that owns a 360 has suffer the RROD at least once. Microsoft has loose the console wars becouse of this, and i am glad, they have to pay for cheating on consummers as they always do. The PS3 has a biggest installed base than the 360 (arround 41 million vs 45 million worldwide), that plus all the money MS has lost becaouse they have replaced at least half of all their harware sales, shall teach MS a leasson:
    Cheating on consummers (gammers) is a bad thing, and you will pay!!!, muahahaha

  • Mysticalnubcake

    Posted May 7, 2011 9:44 am GMT

    I'm on my 6th xbox now..... at least they were all repaired for free.

    First red ringed, 2nd red ringed, 3rd was not working out of the box, and had to wait for a 4th one, thankfully not the standard 2-3 week waiting, and 5th one got the E74 error, and it was sent to Frankfurt Germany, and took ages :/

    I'm so worried my new xbox is going to completely kak out on me.

  • sudantha8527

    Posted Feb 22, 2011 8:51 am GMT

    my xbox 360 the white one failed on me... the three rings of death... One of my friends a engineer brought the coolent which goes on top of the chip and fixed it.. it worked for maybe 4 hours and is broken again. We really miss playing games on it. Microsoft really sucks when it comes to customer support and making the customer #1.

  • phoenix7187

    Posted Oct 4, 2010 10:05 am GMT

    as for the newer 360's not dying, this is fales. 150 watt jasper chip 360's still fail. botton line it runs too hot and requires a complete remake to fix.

  • sulaymanqazi

    Posted Sep 21, 2010 4:00 pm GMT

    360 sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • ChromeBallz

    Posted Aug 23, 2010 1:08 pm GMT

    @ash2197

    Meh, indeed. PS has GT, Xbox has Forza. To each his own

  • ash2197

    Posted Aug 12, 2010 5:56 pm GMT

    @ChromeBallz I concede the point that GT did help encourage the creation of Forza.

    I dont have anything else to argue about so lets call it quits.

  • ChromeBallz

    Posted Aug 9, 2010 11:00 am GMT

    @ash2197
    Funny how Forza can't get realistic driving physics down ;p

    I admit that the lack of damage has been a problem though. GT5 is coming on november 2nd by the way, and i don't think Forza 4 will top it, whenever that comes.

    Also - Without GT there would have been no Forza, It's the GT for the Xbox ;p

  • ash2197

    Posted Aug 8, 2010 11:06 am GMT

    @ChromeBallz Funny how gt 1,2,3, or 4 cant even get the realistic damage into play... ALL forza games have THAT. And while gt5 may blow forza 3 out of the water, chances are it'll be take so long to come out, it will compete against forza 4.

  • ChromeBallz

    Posted Aug 6, 2010 1:25 pm GMT

    @Ash2197 Gran Turismo > Forza Motorsport.

    If you want to know why, try driving on the Nurburgring (the long version, not the F1 one) in both games. Even though GT4 is on the PS2, the previous console generation, it blows Forza's rendition completely out of the water, both in driving and visuals Forza may be "HD", but the ring looks nothing like the real thing. Turn 10 has probably never seen the real ring. Also, the track in Forza is completely flat, but it's ridiculously uneven and bumpy as you drive along, making it very hard to keep your car under control.

    If even a PS2 game can get that right, there's no excuse for Forza being so lazy there (though it does the same thing for numerous real world tracks). GT5 will blow it out of the water completely.

  • ash2197

    Posted Aug 4, 2010 3:30 pm GMT

    @ChromeBallz Forza Motersport. Ps3 can't compete.

  • ChromeBallz

    Posted Jul 20, 2010 4:44 pm GMT

    @ash2197

    Gran Turismo. No Xbox for me.

  • CHARLES84

    Posted Apr 27, 2010 7:23 pm GMT

    I'm pretty sure this is an old issue, the problem is with the old Xboxs; the're being repaired or refurbished and circulated. The new models don't have the problem. Its the old models that are still around, that being said this problem should never had happened to begin with...

  • Trogeton

    Posted Apr 24, 2010 10:27 am GMT

    whats messed up is if you do the research.. the 360 failure rate is just going up.. thank God both times mine broke I got it fixed for free.. but I don't like knowing my console could just break again at any time

  • kingnazer

    Posted Apr 19, 2010 12:44 pm GMT

    its funny how 360 fanboys defending console that have the most highest failure rate in history

  • user_93475765

    Posted Mar 16, 2010 4:50 pm GMT

    I played the crap out of my 360 for nearly two years, sometimes accidentally leaving it running for days at a time. Didn't RRoD until two months ago, and they had it replaced free-of-charge in a little over a week. These statistics reek of BS.

  • redskinStu

    Posted Mar 16, 2010 2:41 pm GMT

    This isn't a big surprise. In afct, the only surprise is how low the number is. I figured it to be around 65 to 70 per cent.
    Every single person I know who owned a 360 had to replace it at least once, if not twice or three times.
    The failure rate tells the tale: it's a piece of junk.

  • Gooshnads

    Posted Mar 15, 2010 12:06 am GMT

    @pavilion_010

    it's funny you mention that because pavilion... dell... dell pavilion notebooks?
    yeah
    my friends [notice the plural? =P] got those laptops and BAM 6 of them... all failed at around the same two weeks...
    it's like they have something built in them to make them detonate after a certain time of being activated...

    on the other hand
    i've had my first yellow light when i finished my first playthrough of demon's souls... i went apesh*t

  • PaVILiOn_010

    Posted Mar 1, 2010 1:49 pm GMT

    While i will admit that microsoft is probably the worst company in technology right now in terms of dependable, quality products, my 360 has worked fine for the most part. I've had my system for almost 4 years now, and i've had 1 red ring. However, my disc reader acts funny and sometimes will not read games. I'll have to clear my hard drive cache and reboot, and it's an annoying hassle i never had to face with my PS2, which i have now had for 9 years. I also own a PS3, and while it's a great console, i find the online community shallow and the interface a tad confusing to navigate, along with (to me) the inexcusable issue of not streaming music from my PC and playing a game at the same time. I also never use my PS3, but that could be because i've had it for a year now and only have 4 games. I find that while the 360 has the most technical faults, i also have the most fun playing it out of any of the three consoles. A rich (sometimes extremely annoying) online community, music streaming, and more fun games account for my frustrations.

  • killzonexbox

    Posted Mar 1, 2010 1:39 pm GMT

    54% Failure damn........

  • Barighm

    Posted Feb 27, 2010 10:27 pm GMT

    This is old news that was actually dealt with awhile ago. The 360 fails so much because MS decided to get cheap with a number of internal components that couldn't handle the heat generated by the machine. They released newer 360's that are actually much more reliable; however, the older 360's are probably what is dying right now, and everyone who gets theirs repaired or replaced with a refurbished model still won't benefit from the newer 360's. As a result, 360's are still dying. It's just the original launch ones that are being finished off.
    Not that I'm defending MS or anything. I was blinded by my love of Halo and Fable and Kotor and completely forgot how evil and greedy they are. I knew they would find a way to screw up eventually, but I ignored the history. The degrading quality of the Halo and Fable franchise and Bioware's port of titles to PS3 has allowed me to wake-up. I plan to return to Playstation next gen.
    Although to be fair, $700 was a bit much. Watch the PS4 end up like the 360. Somehow I always end up owning the console that looks bad.

  • JukedSolid

    Posted Feb 27, 2010 4:05 pm GMT

    haha! shotty piece of hardware made by a software company. xbox 360 is kind of a physical example of the word "dichotomy"

    plus have you seen the FFXIII screenshots from xbox in comparison to the PS3 ones? way worse than expected @_@

  • Jackmac36

    Posted Feb 27, 2010 12:38 pm GMT

    @powerfulone1987 People play their wiis a ton. I know people who have parties where they have SSBB battles starting mid day and going long into the night. I don't think it that wiis dont get played enough, but rather that the 360/ps3 are just tanks in terms of graphical systems, while the wii chose not to focus on the newest systems, but rather innovative gameplay. This choice means that while the wii doesn't get the HDMI looking games, they get a solid, dependable engine, instead of an engine that is so powerful that it can basically kill itself.

  • MegamanZX2255

    Posted Feb 27, 2010 10:24 am GMT

    japan they the wii* as their

  • MegamanZX2255

    Posted Feb 27, 2010 10:22 am GMT

    Are you stupid in japan play there as their hardcore console and plenty of people do to in NA so stop saying bs

  • powerfulone1987

    Posted Feb 21, 2010 11:02 pm GMT

    Good gawd googily moogily.

    XBOX has some problems. I'm on my 2nd. Warranty is over and I'm scared to death it's going to abandon me again. Although they returned to me a completely different XBOX360 and not the one I sent in b/c they said it couldn't be fixed so hopefully this one has no chance of dying. Maybe even the warrant starts all over from the beginning for the different console. Hope so.

    And of course the Nintendo Wii has such low numbers. NOBODY PLAYS IT ENOUGH FOR IT TO POOP OUT.

    There's no such thing as an OVER HEATED Nintendo Wii. No one keeps them on long enough.

  • sholley16

    Posted Feb 16, 2010 3:09 pm GMT

    This argument that Xbox has better games then the PS3 just doesn't hold any water (at least for the last two years). The most popular games from 2008-present are on multi - platforms and according to Metacritic PS3 exclusives are rated much higher. I have an xbox and I have a PS3, I love Forza, Gears, Halo games, Mass Effect 1&2, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, Uncharted series, MGS4, and can't wait for GoW3, and the simple fact that I use my PS3 to play Bluray, and because it is always out and ready to that it's usually the reason why when I go to the store and get a multiplatformer I get a PS3 branded game. (Not to mention that if I had kept up my xbox live sub for 4 or 5 years, I would have paid $250.00 which is a lot more than my PS3, even before the price cut). On a second note: I have no idea why people insist that one company is going to fail vs the other, its counter productive, because lets face it, if MS, or Sony dropped the entertainment division, do you really think they would shell out billions of dollars to develop the next big hit and make advancements and what not? It's good for the consumer to have two companies with similar experience and success go at it. It does nothing at all but waste time for the users (fanboys) to go at it.

  • DaWid96

    Posted Feb 13, 2010 12:58 pm GMT

    Xbox 360 is made for failure.5 years since launch day and they still didnt fix it.

  • VidYoGame

    Posted Feb 11, 2010 5:38 pm GMT

    54.2%? wow really? i highly doubt that infact ive had my xbox console since launch and ive never had RRoD. I have had disk tray problems but thats only because i had a lil cuz smash it against the machine. Hmmm lets see what else? uhhhh well yeah 54.2% is fake and gay and it's probably untrue, if the xbox console had a failure rate that high then seriously would it even be selling at all?

  • albatrossdrums

    Posted Jan 23, 2010 2:23 pm GMT

    Well I have one of each, both 360 and PS3, that failed. The important difference though is my PS3 failed because of something I did, namely shutting the power off in the middle of The Saboteur because a cheap death pissed me off. The blu ray stopped working, and it's my fault because I already knew you weren't supposed to power down when a game is active without quitting first etc. My 360 failed because it's a cheaply built machine. The flimsy loading tray became more and more of a problem, til if finally would not close and insert games properly, I had two instances where inserted games resulted in a horrible sound and my then discovering the discs had been scratched inside the machine to the point that they were ruined. And I finally got the RROD. These are all clear manufacturing problems and had nothing to do with me. I kept the hard drive, bought a new arcade and after about 2 years of not playing 360 games I finally have a working console again. But just seeing the "plastic" construction of the thing, and that damn loading tray again, it irks me still. I'm treating it like it's made of glass. MS is lucky I couldn't pass up ME2. : )

  • Divina_Commedia

    Posted Jan 18, 2010 12:40 pm GMT

    @ Darth_Slayer

    23.7% sounds like wishful thinking considering I have replaced my 360 4 times now. I bought one of the newer models that supposedly doesn't get the dreaded RROD but lo and behold 2 months later I get it. And everyone with friends on XBL it seems knows at least 5 people who've had hardware failures. Hell, right now I have 6 people who have something along the lines of "RROD!!!" as their mottos.

  • Darth_Slayer

    Posted Jan 9, 2010 7:19 pm GMT

    The GI survey fails because it does not specify a) what time the 360 was purchased and b) what model it is that failed. So it makes no attempts to distinguish a 360 purchased in 2005 to one purchased in 2009, when a more reliable chipset is introduced. I'm sure that if they're to conduct such a dishonest survery towards the PS2, the DRE figures would skyrocket despite the fact that later models eliminated the problem

    And here's a survey by a console repairer of 16,000 consoles that showed the average 360 failure rate is 23.7%, less than half of what the GI poll claimed.

    http://www.gamespot.com/news/6216691.html

    Fortunately, SquareTrade found that Xbox 360 quality has improved dramatically since the third quarter of 2008, shortly before the 65nm CPU/GPU "Jasper" model was introduced. Since then, first-year failure rates have plummeted to below the 4 percent the company projected. Looking at 500 units purchased in 2009, SquareTrade found that less than 1 percent had suffered the Red Ring of Death. .

  • NyGin07

    Posted Jan 9, 2010 12:13 pm GMT

    "Sony PS3 Failure Rate = 100%

    At having good games."

    uncharted 2? metal gear 4? rachet and clank? killzone 2? littlebigplanet? jesus man get your facts straight, 360 and ps3 have good games, ps3s was awful, but now their getting their line up straight.

    damn you metacritic for linking me here

  • redskinStu

    Posted Jan 2, 2010 2:32 pm GMT

    It's gotta be higher than 50 per cent, gotta be.

    Every fool I know who bought that lemon has had to replace it at least once, usually twice. Some I know are on #3, and you know it's true.

  • ash2197

    Posted Jan 2, 2010 10:14 am GMT

    Snipes_2 said "I have a 360 that got the Red Ring. It was replaced in 2 Weeks. The only reason I'd get a Ps3 is because of all the exclusives. God Of War 3, Little Big Planet, Heavy Rain, MAG, etc."

    Dude haven't you heard of halo, crackdown, splinter cell conviction, trials HD, Shadow Complex? You say ps3 has great exclusives but do they have a series of 4 games(fifth on the way) that all got a 9 or higher? seriously step back and look and be satisfied with what you have.

  • deathx160

    Posted Jan 1, 2010 7:44 pm GMT

    Xbox 360 failure rate are just way too high for me, ps3 for life! sony for life! reliable consoles and excellent systems for life! guess that excludes xbox, but thats my opinion

  • mechicken57

    Posted Jan 1, 2010 2:14 pm GMT

    Sony PS3 Failure Rate = 100%

    At having good games.

  • XanderMercury

    Posted Jan 1, 2010 8:06 am GMT

    This is purely just another way to fan the flames of war between the consoles. The survey only used 5,000 people (all subscribers to Game Informer, mind you), but we are talking about a business in which over 100 million people all over the world purchase and play these systems. It seems that Game Informer picked 5,000 of those with either the worst experience with the 360, or the most hate for the 360. Either way, it seems biased, to say the least. I understand the importance of "Customer Support Ratings" and such, but I'm not impressed with hearing about the friends of those surveyed. It's easy to bs about yourself, but it is easier to bs about other people. I'm not worried about these statistics. I own a 360, I am happy with my 360, and I will be happy with it until the day the motherboard melts.

  • d100la

    Posted Dec 27, 2009 6:36 pm GMT

    Stats can be made to fit a consensus. There are a lot of fallacies involved in statistics, and having a 5000 person survey out of the installed base of 30,000,000 plus all the other consoles just does not cut it for me. All i see is a negative correlation of 360 failure vs. subscribers of game informer

  • Wyleia

    Posted Dec 19, 2009 3:11 am GMT

    Oh yeah,and my wii 8 months and know problem,but truth be told I hardly ever use it.

  • Wyleia

    Posted Dec 19, 2009 3:07 am GMT

    PS3 FOREVER and when the games like GOW 3 start comming out,there'll be know looking back,Let face it the 360 came out to face trying to beat out the PS3 well they did that,but at the cost of the comsumer.

  • Wyleia

    Posted Dec 19, 2009 3:03 am GMT

    Look I know how you 360 owners are about your console,but lets face it,the369 sucks abd big time,how to be honest,always had a ps from day one never had a problem with it,got the ps2 and ps3 from day one ,KNOW problem X-box two months later,360 two weeks later ,not only the ring of death, it could'nt even play a dvd without freezing, 360 arcade the same,but I got it back two wks ago and seems to be playing alright now.

  • lukav

    Posted Dec 18, 2009 7:55 pm GMT

    54% Failure FTW!

  • sebetai

    Posted Dec 17, 2009 9:39 pm GMT

    i was thinking of either getting a ps3 or 360 and now i'm completely convinced to get a ps3. i already have the wii and it still works. i also have a ps2 slim that still works so i can just switch consosles when i want to play ps2 games. does ps3 play dvd's?

  • Vyse-the-Legend

    Posted Dec 17, 2009 9:11 am GMT

    Good Lord what is up with M$. I bought a 360 Arcade in Feb and it has yet to fail. Oh wait, I've only played 5 games with any type of seriousness, and have probably not put 20+ hours on any of those games (except sonic genesis collection). Both of my friends had their xbox's FAIL. Luckily, I don't have XBLive and I don't download anything so my 256MB harddrive is still 75 percent empty, which means I have gotten my moneys worth with buying an Arcade rather than anything else. On a seperate note, I bought an N64 in 2000 and recieved a gamecube in 2002 and neither have failed and I have put 1000+ hours on both. I've had my Wii since 2007, but I have not played it much, it also hasn't failed. I don't own a sony system. This is really depressing news because whoever said Microsoft has better games is absolutely correct. I believe that the 360 has more good games than the Wii and PS3 combined, but this is complete BS if the fail rate is really that high.

  • dark_surge

    Posted Dec 17, 2009 9:11 am GMT

    Mine red ringed on me for the second time just two days ago and I treat that thing like a baby . I haven't had my PS3 or Wii die on me, yet, but my first gen PS2 finally started getting disk read errors about a year and a half ago.

    Ah the good ol' days of the NES. You could throw it down a flight of stairs and it still worked. Of course we have too many moving parts now but who knows, maybe in the future time will repeat itself.

  • lr1101

    Posted Dec 10, 2009 6:00 pm GMT

    DON'T BUY AN XBOX. the only good thing is that the online game play is better than ps3. My xbox got the open tray error the day after i bought mw2. i called microsoft and my warrenty was three weeks up so i had to pay $100 to get it fixed.

  • jeffv541 posted Nov 27, 2009 7:20 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    jeffv541

    Posted Nov 27, 2009 7:20 pm GMT (hide)

    @DeathByRhapsody

    Inferior hardware, the games are what counts. I would rather have a crappy system with great games then a well built system with cheap ports and gimmicky exclusives.

Subscribe to GameSpot's YouTube Channel

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!