Xbox 360 Fanboy

... lol, so he deletes my comment too rather than reply to it. Weak Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski ... just weak.

The Xbox 360 does NOT have a 30% failure rate. The reason the number 30% came into play was because of one particular store manager in Australia...who wished to remain anonymous.

If a person now buys an Xbox 360, their chance of receiving a defective one is actually less than one percent.

Standard defect rates are between 3-5%.

The reason why the defect rate appears to be 30% in certain parts of the country is because of the models produced in 2005, where the defect rate was particularly high, because one of the three factories producing Xbox 360 did so with many errors. But Microsoft recently completely solved that problem by CLOSING that factory.

There has never been a better time to buy an Xbox 360 game system than now. The new Extended Warranty Insurance Policy that everyone is talking about really is awesome! It is BY FAR the BEST warranty insurancy policy available for any game system or electronic device available.

About 4.5 years ago, I bought a Sony Grand Wega XBR TV set, and I bought the 4 year insurance policy on it. Well, just a few months after that $400 insurance policy expired, my TV broke! I was LEFT-HANGING, just like that one guy wrote about, and I had to pay for all of the Sony TV set insurance costs, even though I had bought a $400 insurance plan! Insurance plans like that are a rip off that cost a LOT of money at the beginning, and run out after only several years of time.

The new Extended Warranty insurance plan on the Xbox 360 will NEVER expire! As long as you are willing to pay only $24.95 each year, you can keep the thing covered by an extended warranty!

And it really is super cool the way you don't have to pay anything at all when you buy your Xbox 360. You really can spend you money where you want to most--GAMES! You have one-year to decide if you want to get the $24.95 extended warranty. That means all you need to do is save $2 worth of pop cans every month, and you can afford this awesome new Extended Warranty from Microsoft!

Wow, it really is amazing how some people seem so insistent on there not being a major problem with the design of the 360. I make my living as a system engineer\analyst and I build PCs for fun and profit. Trouble-shooting electronic equipment of all kinds is my forte and I am very good at it. The only thing that stopped me from opening up my non-working (no video output) 360 is the fact that I cannot order replacement components such as the GPU or CPUs should those be faulty. While I tend to agree with the theory that many of the failures are related to poorly designed and applied clamps, heatsinks and thermal paste, I have not personally verified this because Microsoft will refuse to repair any 360 that has been opened outside of an official repair center. My 360 has stood on it's own stand since launch, it has plenty of ventilation and it is plugged directly into an outlet.
I have three different video cables and I reset my display settings to default numerous times and tested my 360 on 3 different TVs and two PC monitors. I am extremely careful with all electronic equipment and I have dust covers that I modified to fit over both the console and the power supply when not in use. I work 8-14 hours a day and while I love games and playing on Xbox live, I have probably used my launch console less than most owners due to lack of time. As I trouble-shoot computers, network systems and other electronic computing devices for a living, I am 100% positive that nothing I have done to and with my 360 contributed to its failure.
Despite this, I love what Microsoft has done with the 360 in regards to its software and its live service. I can only hope that Microsoft engineers will be taking a serious look at the system design to insure that future releases of the system are more durable than the previous ones. I did not purchase an extended warranty because I did not think that I would experience any hardware failure. I do not own a single electronic device that has broken down unless it was defective at the time of purchase and I caught it then. I have operated the system within the manufacturers specifications at all times and I am both surprised and displeased at the hardware failure. I make my living through Microsoft products and I have no desire to discredit them in any way.

Turian_Tim,

Now you obviously work for MicroSoft. Nobody gets that excited about having to pay for a product they bought to keep working like it should, especially to the people who sold you the faulty product. Get a Best Buy plan. It last two years, so it costs less, and you can swap it out immediately in the store for a brand new one, not a refurb.

So how is that with a 1% failure rate that you claim, I am on my third, two of my friends are on their second, and this guy is on his 12th?

By the way, you make it obvious when you copy and paste the same comment into very 360 failure rate thread.

11? oh wow

no thats user error.....

are we all going to sit here and bicker back and forth whether a console has issues or not? you can buy a PC or a damn care and hav a LOT of issues, or not, the problem with the 360's not being produced correctly, is strictly because microsoft simply doesn't see it as a widespread problem, most customers that have these issues are still loyal customers, enjoy their consoles, and will continue to support microsoft, as will those without issues.

just because you feel as though your "launch console" is perfectly fine, and has had NO issues, doesn't mean that everyone else is a bogus lier and works and/or is payed by Sony. it just means they've had issues.

Yes, 11 consoles is a DRASTIC number, but even if you consider those issues "hiccups" it doesn't change the undeniable fact that that console WAS/IS defective, you don't go buy a car, and say "well it starts every now and then, and other times the alarm just goes off then dies, oh well" you turn around, go use your warranty and get your damn car fixed because it's money you put into it. you can be pleased with a console that doesn't give you what you paid for. or you can be like many other people that HAVE had issues and want a console thats not going to break down on you when you're in the middle of Halo3 or whatever your poison is, and be stuckwithout it thinking "OMG WHAT HAPPENS I WANT TO PLAY" and have to wait a month to get it returned.

Stop thinking that every complaint EVER written is by Sony Fanboy's. i personally don't like Sony, i'm a Microsoft Fanboy, and i always will be.

Don't get me wrong Mr. Lowe, but 11 Xboxes?! Either you are very unlucky or there is something in the enviroment in which the console resides that is causing it to fail.

This scares me, I just sent my 360 in yesterday for the first time. It's a launch console and lasted me from Nov '05 to June '07

Listen up, cats and kittens: There is a problem with the 360. Probably not as much as Sony fanboys would have you believe, but probably more than Ms is willing to admit. Part of the issue, I think, stems from Microsoft's repair and replacement policies. It seems to me that anybody with a 360 that's never been sent in for repair is golden. Once you send it in, though, that's when the trouble starts- very few people I know have gotten their replacement console back and been fine with it. My boyfriend? Launch day console, not a single problem since November 2005. My roommate? Second console's having some overheating issues, though she hadn't gotten the Ring on that one yet. And that's with an Intercooler installed because her first console RROD'd and that's what the customer service guy suggested for prevention. Me? I've already gone through two, my third should be coming shortly. My first RROD'd after nine months, and my second had a disc drive problem- it kind of eats discs, making a horrible KRRRRGT noise and leaving huge circular gouges occasionally during normal operation (i.e. while loading a GHII song). Also, the drive usually doesn't open unless I tap the silver part after hitting the eject button.

I think the failure rate for NEW consoles might actually be 3-5%; the problem is, MS must keep returned consoles in a back room labeled "refurbs". They send those refurbished consoles back out to people as replacements for their failed consoles. Those replacements break, probably because they weren't repaired or were given a quick fix instead of a real solution, and the customer has to do the Coffin Dance all over again.

If somebody did a comparison on failure rates for store-bought consoles vs. MS claim replacements, I'm sure you'd see a staggering difference.

alliekins,

I'm on number three and my previous two were brand new. Both had the RROD. I use a product replacement plan, so I swap them out for brand new ones at the store. The second only lasted four months, so I don't think it's strictly a problem with refurbs.

It comes to head every day on the xbox.com forums. M$ just chooses to ignore it. The DRM issue also comes to a head every day because of all the refurbs that are being sent as replacements. It a shame really, because the great games are the only thing keeping people loyal. I don't know how long that will last though.