News

Xbox 360 failure rate only 6% higher than PS3?
Posted: 12.04.2011 19:39 by JonahFalcon Comments: 22
The Yellow Light of Death.
While investigating the report by Strategy Analytics stating that the PlayStation 3 had an active user base of 43.4 million users (out of 47.9 total PS3's sold worldwide) and the Xbox 360 has an active user base of 42.9 million users (out of 50 worldwide), Alexander Hinkley of The Examiner came across a startling revelation: the Xbox 360 only has a 6% higher failure rate than the PlayStation 3.

Hinkley wrote: Looking at these numbers then, we can deduce that 83.5% of all Xbox 360's ever sold are considered "active" (therefore 16.5% of them have been broken or otherwise gone missing). On the other hand, 89.7% of all PS3's sold are currently active (meaning 10.3% of them are broken or missing).

Wait a second. That would indicate there is only a 6.2% disparity between the total number of Xbox 360's that have failed and the total number of PlayStation 3's that have failed. This seems to go against popular belief that the Xbox 360 had monumental failure rates, regularly being reported around 33% and according to one survey as high as 54.2%. One would expect that if the failure rate were ever truly were that bad, the current active user base would be much lower than it is now.

It seems to indicate that the reputation built by the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death issues have given the impression that the high failure rate still exists; the Xbox 360 S was built specifically to kill those issues with a cooler chips, better ventilation, and such. It seems that the only issue right now for the Xbox 360 in terms of failure rate is perception.
Source: Examiner

Comments

By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 12, 2011
SirRoderick
Well obviously they fixed most of it.
Doesn't excuse the shoddy start though.
By chiefone (SI Veteran Member) on Apr 12, 2011
chiefone
They had the same soldering problems with the nVidia 6, 7 and 8 series in hp, dell and mac laptops. Mine died in 2009, then i took the motherboard out, and cooked it to resolder the GPU. It's still going strong now.
By festalx (SI Member) on Apr 13, 2011
festalx
:D
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 13, 2011
SirRoderick
>:(
By BoneArc (SI Elite) on Apr 13, 2011
BoneArc
ONLY 6 % ?!?!?!
I See so Many Red rings of Death on Youtube and not a single PS3 FAIL .... so ..... Thats confusing to me , But i do agree with Sir Roderick , They Fixed a lot of things
By VHugoSama (SI Core) on Apr 13, 2011
VHugoSama
Well the only console that had given me problems was indeed the 360 (RROD) all the others are in perfect working order, even my Dreamcast is working fine.
By Zvezdalina (SI Veteran Member) on Apr 14, 2011
Zvezdalina
I simply don't believe that it is such a small difference. You are right when you say that they solve the problems (and they ought to). But that still doesn't mean that RROD stopped happening, and a large percentage of of the consoles had that problem at first. :-)
By Knave (SI Core) on Apr 14, 2011
Knave
statistics can be misleading.

This statistic is based on the number of units sold. XBox or Playstation would not consider a 2nd unit sold if the user sent the unit in for repair. It could simply suggest microsoft has been very diligent in offering repairs to it's older (crappy) 360's.

My friend's xbox just suffered a RRoD last week.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Apr 16, 2011
FoolWolf
The RROD really had me scared in the beginning.But that wasn't the major problem - the two problems with consoles for me was that Xbox 360 sounded as much as my vacuum cleaner and the PS3 cost like a computer..
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 16, 2011
SirRoderick
I got a PS3 very early, the 60GB version with full backwards compatibility. One of the best purchases in my life.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Apr 16, 2011
FoolWolf
That was a nice looking machine SirRoderick - too bad that the HD size isn't big... But I think you manage pretty well on PS3 gaming front though...?
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 16, 2011
SirRoderick
Of course I do. I can't even imagine why anyone want such a large HD drive. You pop in a disc and you play, that's it.

I just love the fact that all those PS2 games are still entertaining me :)
By chiefone (SI Veteran Member) on Apr 17, 2011
chiefone
Lol I was wondering how Sir Roderick was 11, then realized its the default age! lol I too love my PS3. Blue-Ray player, dvd up-converting, free PSN, reliable, and a media server for my home.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 17, 2011
SirRoderick
Age 11?
I'm afraid I can't follow.
By Thibby (SI Core Veteran) on Apr 17, 2011
Thibby
The age on your profile is 11 Roderick xD
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 17, 2011
SirRoderick
ARGH!

That little problem has been rectified.
I added a welcome message while I was at it :)
By Knave (SI Core) on Apr 17, 2011
Knave
I'm also quite happy I went with a PS3 over the XBox.

The blu-ray and free psn are both great reasons to pick it up.

Though I do miss some of the xbox only games.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 17, 2011
SirRoderick
Hey, Metal Gear Solid 4 is all I needed to hear.
Most of those xbox exclusives I'm not even slightly interested in.
By festalx (SI Member) on Apr 17, 2011
festalx
:D
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 17, 2011
SirRoderick
He didn't enter the compitition recently did he?
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Apr 17, 2011
FoolWolf
He has, he will try to win hands down least keystrokes/post made! ;)

Oh and happy birthday or happy decennial? Do you say that when one age 9 years in a few strokes ;)

Only reason to want to have 200+ GB is if you rip and store media on the drive. I have a UPNP server for that instead and stream...
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Apr 18, 2011
SirRoderick
I have a PC for that.