With nearly half of all XBoxes made requiring repair or replacement, Microsoft's game platform is a costly one for Redmond.
Microsoft has some serious explaining to do if the results of a recent survey can be believed. According to nofussnews.com, nearly 42 percent of a half million 360 owners have experienced a hardware failure with their XBox 360s. In addition, of that number, over half have had to have their #60 repaired more than once or replaced althogether, and more than once. And sixty percent of all failures have been due to the dreaded “red ring of death.” Man, good thing I bought a PS3.
These shocking results point to some serious quality control issues or the fact that the gaming console simply runs too hot and has inadequate ventilation. By comparison, only 8 percent of Playstation 3 owners have experienced similar problems and owners of the Wii hardly register at all (at 1%).
And Microsoft seems to believe the numbers as they have commissioned chipset maker Falcon to completely redesign a new generation of chips for future XBox models. But unfortunately, that didn’t help either and Redmond has completely replaced chip manufacturers which they claim has lowered the incident of chip failures (although the data from the survey cannot confirm this).
To date, Microsoft has spent $1 billion annually on the RRoD issues but claim that with their new Jasper chipset, the worst of behind them. The rule of thumb is though, the older your XBox 360 is, the more likely it is to fail.
Too much Halo and Call of Duty, I guess.
Hat Tip – Digital Trends