Take your guess on Xbox's failure rate
Written on September 8, 2009 by Matt
SquareTrade: Because you love arbitrary data
The gang over at The Tech Herald have posted up the results of a hardware survey taken by warranty group SquareTrade, which apparently indicates that almost a quarter of all 360 consoles will be effected by the red ring of death.
Tell the truth, I’m getting a little bored of reading about something that all 360 owners acknowledge, yet no company can seem to pin a definite number to. This survey contradicts a recent reader survey taken by Game Informer which reported the failure rate at a whopping 50%, and also manages to contradict an earlier survey taken by SquareTrade themselves which seemed to say that only 12% of consoles would RRoD in the first two years of their life.
I mean seriously, if everyone could just quit throwing around arbitrary data, that’d be great. The RRoD is a huge problem, and the 360 has dubious hardware and cooling, everyone knows this. But a reader survey means diddly (especially if a bunch of PlayStation fanboys decided to bump up numbers), and a third party warranty group’s figures have around about the same significance considering all RRoD consoles are covered by an extended Microsoft warranty.
Until someone leaks us some hard figures from Microsoft’s repair centers, I’ve kind of had it with looking over pointless reports which everyone knows the results of.
If you’re not however, by all means, check out the article (and the report itself!).
