The failure rate may be low but the multiple failure rate seems to be high, as if units aren't being repaired correctly (if at all) or there are serious design flaws.

Either way, the frustration factor is higher than it should be but then, the company is known for frustrating products.

Turns out the higher figure is true.

SquareTrade only handle a proportion of warranties, yet the percentage number was calculated from ENTIRE Xbox sales.

See what they did there?

If SquareTrade handle 50% of Xbox warranties, then it doubles the number they quote.

Sounds like someone has been caught manipulating figures.

I am a technology buff and I am so happy that I can support my habits. My Xbox 360 get the bulk of my play time, because of the achievements, Live and it has games that I wanted to play at the time. I hate the Wii and wish my son didn't like it so much, but I am looking forward to beating his butt in SSBB next month. My PS3 is dusty, beacuse I use to get HD DVDs from Netflix and one and two Blu movies when it's something I couldn't get on HD DVD. (Btw: FF4: Rise of the Silver Surfer would not play on my PS3 twice). I am curious to see how Sony does this year, because Metal Gear Solid looked and felt great with the Rumble at CES this year. Ok, I rambled...all I am saying is enjoy what you can afford and quit fighting some much.

I was in a store this past weekend that had a 360 display unit - the only problem is that it had the red ring of death. Not too good an advertisement...

this problem would have never happened if Microsoft would have just went with socketed GPUs and CPUs. GBA packages are NOT good for chips that are known to give off alot of heat. Over time the excessive heat weakens the solder balls and also causes the motherboard to flex, causing the GBA package to ever so slightly to lose connectivity. Until M$ comes out with a 45nm motherboard and both the GPU and CPU are 45nm, this failure rate will continue to happen.

Even though the machine to do it costs allot of money, they can be refloated with a hot air gun and plenty of flux. Unless the chip is screwed, in which case it can be replaced in the same manner.

So are you suggesting that its ok for a manufacturer to design hardware that might fail, and then expect the average consumer to just whip out a hot air gun and fix their broken console?

"So are you suggesting that its ok for a manufacturer to design hardware that might fail"

Nope

"expect the average consumer to just whip out a hot air gun and fix their broken console?"

Nope

I was making comment on the confirmation of the problems contained in the thread. I then left it to the user to use this information as they see fit. Obviously some trolls can use this information to gain points in the obvious debate as to which console is better.

That's BGA, as in Ball Grid Array.

BGA's are fine for solutions that get hot. What is NOT fine, is when you use a lead-free process, inadequete heatsinks, and no airflow in the case.

thats all i wanted to know....fair enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2udm8qSnhLs

TROLLING still I see.

I remeber when Steve Austin told us this;

"An interesting titbit. I had a very interesting conversion with a collegue who did some work at Celestica Prague, where they do Xbox360 repairs. Apparently, the DOA rate of 360, from China production is still around 40% of all consoles. Their repair workload is 50/50 spit between field failures, and QA failures during manufacturing. Volume wise, they are reworking over 220,000 Xbox 360's a week. And it's 90% rework on the GPU BGA."

A very interesting "conversion" indeed. I will have to "remeber" that. So one Sony fanboy is quoting a story another Sony fanboy told him. Well that certainly proves it. Sorry but any posts from Benjamin Linus, Metainfant, Steve Austin or DaveBG have to be taken with a huge grain of salt if not completely ignored. Show me some nonbiased factual sources and not just some crap some other Sony shill said and maybe you'll have something worth reading.

Nah you're nuts...a story passed down 8 levels of Sony fanboism must certainly be true...especially if it's something negative towards a competing product. I mean, that's just common sense.

You're right. It's just that their arguments are so flawlessly illogical it's sometimes hard to accept how right they must be. It might be that they never back up their claims with actual facts, or that they always find fault with the competitor's product no matter what while always holding theirs up on a pristine pedestal. I can find both good points and bad points with any product. I guess we shouldn't question them though. I wouldn't want them to lose their jobs at Sony. :D

yes! you named me!....get out of here...

first of all I'm not a Sony fanboy....I own a PS3 and a 360...I will own a Wii the day i see one just sitting on shelves in a store....I own a PS2 and an xbox, an SNES, a Sega Genesis, a Saturn...

I don't give a rat's @$$ about Sony as a company...i just happened to buy a PS3...and i feel its the best console...because the PS3 has a built in BD player it was my entrance into the HD Media market...therefore i supported Blu ray from the get go....but at the same time i was totally prepared to support HD-DVD had it won out in the end...

call me a fan boy all you want...but you're dead wrong...

Oh yeah, maybe you're the Blu-Ray fanboy. I can't keep all you crazy guys straight anymore, why even try. :P

did you miss my part about blu-ray? lol...yea i support it, and yea i always have...but i have always been more than prepared to support HD-DVD if it were to win....hell up until recently i was ready to drop the money on a good HD-DVD player because im tired of waiting on Universal and Paramount to abandon the sinking ship...not to mention the upper tier Toshiba players are GREAT DVD upscalers...

Did you just say the PS3 is the best console to play HD? Not for playing game??

It doesn't matter to me, live and let live. I just couldn't help but notice you were bashing the 360 and praising the PS3 like there was no tomorrow in an earlier thread, and your claim that the PS3 outsold the 360 in 2007 still gives me a chuckle. In January of this year yes, but 2007 no.

To be honest I'm sort of tired of the whole thing though, I wish they'd all die so these threads would die with them. Who cares which console is selling more? None of them are going anywhere. I don't really want a PS3 or 360 anyway. I have a Dreamcast; as long as I can play all my NES, SNES, Atari and Genesis games on it I'm happy.:)

the PS3 outsold the 360 WORLDWIDE in 2007...in North America the PS3 was outsold handily...but there are more countries in the world other than the United States (as much as us Americans would like to believe otherwise) and everywhere else the PS3 is easily out selling the 360....

remember...in lifetime sales the 360 has a roughly 7 million console lead...the PS3 has sold more than 10 million consoles to date...if the 360 outsold the PS3 this year that would mean the 360 sold LESS than 7 million consoles in its first year...and you KNOW that is not true...

not unless you failed 3rd grade English and have no comprehension skills...

Like he stated above only fanboys care about that. If you have it use it and be happy. But I guess that is not in your nature. You must spread your vial opinions all over this site.

Looks like irony is totally lost on you...

Was there supposed to be something ironic in your post? Maybe I really don't see it, or maybe you just don't know what that word means.

Ben Linus...Lost. Pun intended?

No, surely it isn't... but I made that distinction long ago.

Oh, the bitter irony. Very fitting. :)

The useless troll is spewing more garbage. Just ignore him and hope he goes away. I doubt anyone here still takes this guy seriously in any capacity.

"first of all I'm not a Sony fanboy..."

Right. You just troll every single BD/Sony/PS3/Microsoft/Xbox360/Wii thread and never post anything positive except about BD, Sony and the PS3. No fanboy pattern there or anything. I counted TWELVE (12) replies from you in this thread alone.

Hey Benny/Joey/Wanker/Goose, whatever your guise this week.
My practice wicket decided in her wisdom(?) to purchase a Sony-Ericsson W910i for massacre day.
Bless her soul 'though it is black, which is fine, matches the texture of my heart.
Now my question to you fool, is should I now move over to the dark side. And, laud all all things Sony?
Alas, no chance this thing comes with a gig microcard, who knows what little devils reside on this, and there is no way I'm ever gonna recharge it, cannot take the chance the battery may decide to suffer spontaneous combustion.
Sadly much to her chagrin, it's gonna gather dust.

Priceless!!!

Watch for those dreaded Sony rootkits.

"i remeber when i told myself this:"

fixed that for ya :)

"I own a PS3 and a 360...I will own a Wii the day i see one just sitting on shelves in a store....I own a PS2 and an xbox, an SNES, a Sega Genesis, a Saturn..."

Kid - you've got issues...

Most stuff here with a grain of salt, but I do.

Right. I just use a PC anyway cause it can do a bunch of other stuff too.

This somewhat contradicts the dolts who claim ridiculous 40% failure rates.

I think it vindicates it.

We all know what you think.

how exactly?

If anything it shows that numbers are being thrown around with no weight other than words.

sad really....super powerful console that is an absolute MESS from the hardware design perspective....go figure the two companies with a real history in hardware manufacturing (Sony and Nintendo) can create a solid console...

Oh no they must be wrong since you have been proclaiming for months the failure was so much higher. Time will tell about Sony their last two consoles had more than their fair share of issues that you will still deny.

Shows what you know or think you know, not much.

I don't mean to jump on you here, but personally I have had no problems with my PS2. I had an original one for 5/6 years with no problems at all, but I eventually wore it out with pretty much continual use. Both controllers survived until about 3 months ago when one finally died.
And I've had no problem with the slimline model PS2 thus far.

I had no problems with my xbox 360 since day one...so does that mean this entire article is wrong??

I've owned 4 PS2, two covered by warranty, one died out of warranty, and 1 i still have. Does this mean they are at like 50% failure? No, just your personal luck. My 4th one i have had for 3 years.

Look on the web the problems are well documented. The PS2 had tons of issues with read errors and the PS1 had to placed on the lid for it to read disks. Not everyone had the problem since that would indicate a 100% failure rate. If you read what I posted there is no mention of 100%, maybe you missed that. My PS1 worked fine while the PS2 was replaced twice. That is repurchased since the price for Sony to fix and ship was more than a new one would cost. But that is a whole different topic.

My 360 did die but in all honesty MS had a new one in my hands in three days so I didn't care. Sony did nothing to help out.

You mean finally create a solid console, as far as Sony is concerned. Yeah, they've had their history all right...

PS2 and PS1 are both reliable The fact they sold in HUGE numbers means some morons can't understand that even a million faulty consoles is a very small failure rate.

the problem with the PS2 was the DVD laser...it was pretty cheap...and after a time it would seem to literally wear out and you would get the disc read error issue...there are quite a few PS2's with problems out there....

the main difference between the PS2 problems and the 360 problems, are that the PS2 problems were mainly years after purchase...the 360 problems started weeks and months into the console's life...

"Quite a few" / 120,000,000 * 100 = ????

the difference is simple...the PS2 problems tend to come from extended use over years of time....

the 360 on the other hand...not so much...

and i owned 1 PS2 that worked from launch and still does....

im not ignorant though...do i believe the failure rate is 0%??....of course not...

Who cares a problem is a problem plain and simple. You can spin it how ever you want but the fact remains that it was and still is a problem with the PS2.

That is crap and you know it. I see you said the "PS2 problems". Write this down everyone metfanant has stated that the read problems were just that a problem.

That is questionable about the first part of your second statement.

Yeah I dumped mine outside my house when the laser died. It was gone within an hour.

i agree....but there is a difference between a console that works for 3 years and then has parts the wear out...and a console that literally cooks itself within weeks...or a console where you need to be careful how the power cord sits so that it doesn't get too hot!...

obviously disc read errors are a problem...but what you fail to realize is the difference between the PS2 problems, and the 360 problems...

the PS2's were problems of eventual breakdown over long periods of time...like i said...i had a launch console that still works...it does take quite a long time to load games...it doesnt play all of my really old "blue back" games...and as a DVD player its fairly useless....but look how old it is!...I've been lucky with my 360 because i realized the risks in owning one...and i keep it as far from the wall or any other source of heat as i can...but the 360's problems were immediate, and are inherent in the design of the console...

Again a problem is a problem is a problem. I would rather the problem happen right away and get it fixed for free then have it happen after the warranty is up and have to buy a new one. MS did what no other company did and fix the problem for free. Sony had to have a class action suit against them with the read errors and to this date the problem remains.

And the power cord line is crap.

See post above.

No it's either:

1/ About to fail
2/ you are lying.

MS only took the hit to avoid a class action lawsuit...they didn't do it to help the consumer...

let me get this straight...you would rather keep having to fix a shoddy piece of hardware than have a console that might work for 5 years and then show wear and tear and quit working....there is a reason the PS2 STILL sells the way it does....if the problem was as wide spread as you would like everyone to believe do you not think that people would stop buying them??...hmm...

excuse me? the power cord line is crap?...go ahead and stuff the power cord to your 360 behind a desk like you could the power cord to any other piece of electronics (the PS3 for example) and see what happens...your console will FREEZE!...MS put the damn power supply on the cord and the thing is like a little space heater...go ahead...enclose it in something and see what happens....

*Pffft* Nutter.

I hope that was at least tinged with sarcasm.

Nah, nah. Don't get me wrong. I believe there have been various problems with the PS2. I personally haven't seen any, with controllers or PS2s (either original first-day-of-launch purchased or slimline ones).

"Time will tell" is what you said, but that's not really important as far as I can see.

If a PS2/3 dies 3/4 years into its use what's the biggy? You got those years out of it. That's why they only give you a 1 year warranty (though in the states you may only get 90 days because you get screwed by that).

Think of your laptops, I'm sure you've had one that's failed in the first 3/4 years of use, if not more. Of course they wear out over time. It's the timespan of a 360 being just about at the end of warranty then dying in (apparently) 16% of cases that's the issue here. It should at least last to the end of the warranty in 95% of the cases otherwise you've ****ed up pretty badly.

I'm more than happy to agree that PS2s probably aren't as hardy as they could be, but I dispute your argument that "Time will tell". That's all.

Did you ever think that many of the PS2 sales are because of the "cheap laser" as you call it? Most likely tens of millions are replacements because of the cheap laser. Didn't Sony have a class action lawsuit against them for that very reason? Hum, in fact did they not loss also? I thought so. As far as the 360 one break down and all is good. I really liked the console that might work for five years part. As far as the PS2 goes most likely it won't.

Hum 16.4% is far from all so it may never. You really are grasping at straws there.

yet you seem to be the only one pissed off about it....think about this for a second or two....

if so many are "replacements" as you say....don't you think after a couple break downs people would stop buying them?....i know if i had a console continually break i wouldn't buy it over and over again...

because Sony made a console (PS2) that in MOST cases lasted years without problems...before failing...at that point it truly is out of their hands...

the 360 failures were literally being reported right out of the box at launch...its SO poorly designed that the power supply is OUTSIDE of the console, on the freakin cord and it STILL gets to hot....be careful and remember to put your power brick in the freezer from now on SGD and you won't melt your console again...

look i get your point about the PS2 issues being a major problem....but first of all do we have any sort of actual failure rate numbers on the PS2? because i've never seen any...or are you just going on rabid "fanboy" rumors from the internet?...and secondly...come on, it can't be that hard to see the difference between the PS2's problems and the 360's...

mine has been fine as well...as has one of my good friend's....but i have a couple friends that have not had such good luck....one is on his 2nd 360...and another is on his FOURTH! yikes...

I have a 360 from one of the very first production runs (courtesy of Mountain Dew). I got it 2 days prior to the official US release, and I play the crap out of it. I have never had any problems with it. The problem units came from the two factories that went online after the official US release date. The first design is part to blame, but I really think that the quality standards of the two later production facilities that began to produce the 360 are more to blame. As a side note, I had to send my Wii in twice, once for random pixelization and the second time for freezing within the first 5 minutes of being powered on, but good ol' Ninny was on it and got me fixed up quickly. Their customer service rocks!

As nobody has replied, Obviously maths is not your strong point. Let me help.

2 Million faulty PS2 units, is a mere 1.6% failre rate.

Not if they had tons of games. Am I or was I pissed not even close. I can expect nothing less from Sony.

forget to change users again?

"Obviously maths is not your strong point. Let me help.

2 Million faulty PS2 units, is a mere 1.6% failre rate."

Oh jeez... that is indeed priceless. By the way, obviously grammar and spelling isn't yours. Aside from over-inflating statistics, what exactly is your strong point?

You're now resorting to unknowingly insulting yourself?

Did you forget to log out of that account before replying to "that other guy who is not you"?

Hilarious, this proves that he's using multiple user names. What a dimwit.

I think you all got the wrong end of the stick. I was commenting on the lack of replies, and providing numbers.

I think you are all trying to hard to see me as someone else...

Powerful? If you want powerful, just take a look at the PS3's Cell CPU.

So what's wrong with it? OK I rounded down from 1.666666666666666666 to 1.6