Raise Your Hand if You Don't Have a Faulty XBox

Our sister publication Electronics Weekly has written about the Xbox 360 before - see Xbox 360 Recall: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish and Xbox Faults Cost Microsoft. Now they’re commenting on a new report that has looked further into the failure rates of Microsoft’s gaming console.

A rather astonishing 23.7% have problems within the first two years…The study by SquareTrade covered 16,000 consoles and found the Xbox eight times more likely to hit problems than the Nintendo Wii, and twice the Sony PS3, reports Information Week.

The biggest reported failure for the Xbox 360? The notorious “red ring of death” - subject of a special warranty - that is associated with flashing red lights on the device and the display of an “E74″ error message.

According to the report:
Looking at the first 2 years of use, we found that Wii consoles had a reported failure rate of 2.7%, significantly lower than both the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. When including the infamous “Red Ring of Death” (RROD) problem that has plagued Xbox 360 systems, the Xbox 360 had a reported failure rate of 23.7%, nearly 9 times that of the Wii. PS3 consoles ranked in the middle of our study, with a reported failure rate of 10.0% over the course of 2 years.

The Wii emerged as the reliability champion, exhibiting only a 2.7% failure rate over the course of the first 2 years of ownership. The PS3 had a 10% reported failure rate, nearly 4 times the Wii’s, and the Xbox 360 saw a 23.7% failure rate, nearly 9 times the Wii’s. At 2.7%, the Wii’s failure rate is better than most consumer electronics products, not just game consoles.

“If the RROD issue were resolved, we would anticipate future Xbox 360’s to be only slightly less reliable than the PS3,” the report also said.

You can download the report here (PDF).

Note this post originally appeared on Made by Monkey’s British cousin (twice removed) Electronics Weekly.