CAG Community Xbox 360 Failure Survey Results

[quote name='Vinny']This threads on the front page of Digg right now.[/quote][quote name='digg post']Sorry, but I have to question the scientific merits of an anonymous internet poll considering the fact that you don't even have to have a 360 to vote. I'm not so sure every Sony/Nintendo fan was able to resist the urge to vote multiple broken 360s just for the hell of it.[/QUOTE]lol yeah I don't see any point in anonymous posters on cag lying in this survey this just for the sake of it.
 
The way the pie chart says failure, it makes it sound like I've chosen the wrong option. I got a single RROD by a fluke, in which I turned it off and then back on and I've never seen it again.
 
My 360 died after about 6 or 7 months. Now another 6 or so months I'm afraid I might have to send it back soon. The disk drive tray will sometimes refuse to open in the vertical position. I went ahead and sat it horizontally in hopes to prevent any other problems that might continue.
 
Mine doesn't open vertically, nor has it ever have. Mine also goes slow on some parts (viewing Marketplace, COD4 opening load screens), but whatever.
 
[quote name='spiderdog']Why not do a Poll for PS3 and Wii?
I would like the comparison.[/QUOTE]

Indeed, I would like to see the numbers. Hopefully The Consumerist or other such site will pick up this post.
 
A random sample might have helped, but only if the people who got a private message or email didn't know what the poll question would be until they followed the link to the poll. If the message referenced the poll question then you'd still be subject to sample bias.

Anyway, it would be great if six months from now there was a similar poll.

We need to get this on the front page of digg :)
 
[quote name='k9homan']Great Job Cheapy for uncovering the truth.[/quote]

Oh just wait til some anonymous 360 engineer leaks the design flaws and internal memos stating the problems and that the 360 was NOT ready for it's 2005 launch date and the recommendations that they should spend at least 1 more year to iron out the design problems.

Now that will be the news of the year.

Cheapy got the snowball rolling...now lets see how big this sucker can get :applause:
 
If you assume 2 failures for each multiple, and remove anyone who hasn't had their system at least 6 monts, that puts the rate at about 74%. From what I've witnissed with my friends, that still a little low... I'm guessing those other 26% are just a matter of time.
 
I don't think a self-selective poll really shows the problem. If this was done randomly with 360 users, the % would probably be a lot lower. I'm not arguing in favor of MS, just saying that you need to be critical while looking at this poll.

Since no one knows if everyone who took a poll owns a 360 or not, or even lied to spite MS, this poll is flawed in a sense. Also, as it was pointed out before, the only people who visit CAG are fairly serious gamers for the most part, they probably will be more likely to report a flaw on a gaming forum than an average consumer.
 
I had a 360 for 2 weeks and loved it. Then i got the RROD and returned it to Costco where i got it. I then got a PS3 for $350 and couldn't be happier.

Morale of this story......... there isn't one.
 
Im working on my fourth 360 now. my first broke, i'm on my second, it red ringed. I got it back a month later and now all i get is unplayable discs on everything.

3 failures in two years and 8 weeks lost to repairs.
 
I didn't participate in the survey, but add mine to the list of broken once.

I had my x360 since Jan. 2006 (so a little over 2 years with a manufacturing date of 12/05) and last week it inexplicably failed on me. It's had plenty of ventilation, normal or less than normal usage. I turned it on to play RockBand and about 15 minutes later it froze. I turned it off and then turned it back on and it gave me the RRoD. Received its coffin today. am hoping to get it back soon.
 
Hmmm....

After my launch one died, (apporox 18 months) I knew the replacement one sent by MS was going to fail it always acted wierd and made strange noises. Sure enough, it failed 8 months later.

BTW my new replacement system says it was made 01/04/08 and it doesnt have HMDI, anyone else get a replacement system like this one?
 
Ive had my 360 for 2 years with no problems, but I also keep it vertical with the fan on every time I play so that might help. IMO though the 360 has been much more durable than the original xbox, which I went through 4 of.
 
My question is - why isn't Sony all over MSoft on this.

This is a huge opportunity to take knocks at a shoddy hardware product, and IMO Sony is missing the boat.
 
i can say i was tempted to skew the results because i've seen 2 of four shared xb360's on base fail at our internet cafe-type place, i didn't want to vote because one, i don't yet own an xbox, and two i don't know if they've actually failed more times and i didn't notice. i know they always kept an extra in the office however.


what i REALLY want to know is how often the elites fail

and i'm sure this has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but maybe a requirement of a valid xbox live account would help the poll. and then to further examine the accuracy, make a subset of people with gold accounts.

and yes, i know i'm completely wasting my gold account, thank you very much...
 
[quote name='camoor']My question is - why isn't Sony all over MSoft on this.

This is a huge opportunity to take knocks at a shoddy hardware product, and IMO Sony is missing the boat.[/quote]

Because SONY knows the 360 is prone to hardware failures. They don't want to come out and diss MS saying "U XBOX iz a pez a shet"...then have problems of their own when the PS3 starts breaking down with similar hardware failures. They are already late in the game developing their own online network to compete with LIVE and unless they can come up with some hot titles this year, they are going to be in deep shit money wise because no one wants to buy a system with very exclusive games.

Sony has some of the worse technical support out their ... your PS3 too dusty and won't work anymore? Well that's your fault and you have to pony up the cash for them to air can clean it. MS knows if they sit back and count their money and don't give a shit, they can be hit with some major lawsuits over faulty products.
 
I am waiting for the box to send off my second 360. I have not suffered RROD, but my issue has been "This disk is unplayable........." I use my 360 as a DVD player also and watch a lot of movies and play a lot of games. I guess I could just buy an HD-DVD player to watch movies on, no one else is going to buy them.
 
No RROD here, but there have been other problems, and if you can believe it I'm not a power user on this thing (I have other systems and my PC too). First the games started freezing up, then came artifacts (rainbow colors, mostly red, all over my screen), games were randomly failing to be read between stages, saves were disappearing, and now the tray has been malfunctioning. I'm not just cheap, I'm actually really poor and the system was a gift, and now Microsoft has asked for $100 to repair it. I see story after story cropping up about how there have been lowered standards for hardware quality, abundant failure rates, and poor customer service. I've tried everything they've said I should try, and now they want money to fix these problems, problems I figure may be likely to reoccur even after repairs (considering how well these things have been working in the first place).

I don't want to just abandon the thing, I like most of the games I have and cannot afford a $500 PS3 (which doesn't have the games I want to play, Metal Gear 4 notwithstanding).
 
so i posted about a week ago that i sent in my elite that got the RRoD to circuit city's replacement program (which is full of CRAP as it is a one-time use kinda thing).

but anyway, CC was quick in sending me a giftcard, got it today in the mail. it was for the original purchase price + tax. figured i'd never use up 120 GB on the elite's hard drive so i opted for the PRO. and no crappy CC replacement program.

i asked the girl behind the register how long they've had it. she gave me attitude and said two or three weeks. whatever. paid w/ my giftcard, opted out of the replacement program, went home.

finally got a chance to hook it up 15 min ago and here's a pic

dammit!! sorry for the crappy pic, don't have my camera on me so i used my phone. but that's 2 RRoD's for me now. i'm going to pray to God/Allah/Jeebus that i don't get another RRoD system tomorrow. this really sucks.
 
I've owned almost every major console since Atari, 2600 I only skipped Game Cube, Neo Geo, and don't have a PS3 yet.

So for those counting that's Atari 2600, NES, Sega Master System, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Jaguar, Saturn, PSX, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PS2, XBox, Wii, XBox 360.

The only console I have ever had die on me was a PS2.

Of course the 360 problem is horrible, but come on Sony is notoriously bad with launch hardware failing. I think that has been lost with Microsoft's blunder.
 
Not many people mention the Hard Drive failures as well. How many of you had your hard drive DIE and the RROD right after that?

Having a bad area of the hard drive is also bad. One day my 360 said that it couldn't read the halo 3 disc, then it just locked every time you try to load a map. Swapped 360's and learned it was the hard drive, not the disc drive that had gone bad.

I wish their was a section for people who hard modded their 360 with a better cooling system and see if their 360's died on them shortly after.
 
I guess I missed the poll but if I was able to put it in. I have owned one for a year and a half and had one sent in. This one has done pretty good besides sounding like a wind tunnel test when the dvd drive spins up.

Mine didn't actually red ring but I could tell the video chip was over heating due to minor graphic problems and had it swapped out.
 
It doesn't matter if usage affects the life of the console, because as far as you're concerned, these are the numbers you are going to get yourself.

IE: Imagine on a forum for people who take baths with their 360. If 100% fail for Bath-360 owners, do you care if it works without a bath? No. So as long as you are a gamer, these numbers apply DIRECTLY to you. Even more than an average including people who touch it once a month.
 
All CheapyD did with this poll is show why he has no concept of the scientific method or objective ways to observe and arrive at legitimate results. If you really think your information is not disputable, you're delusional.
 
the only reason people are talking about this is because the xbox 360 costs a lot of money..

I didnt flinch when my ps2 died, i went to the store and got a brand new one ( I had mine for about 1 year )

360 failures are commonplace, yes, but they do get replaced for free ... this poll aside, the only people whe talk about the red rings are fans of the "other" system, or a guy that is currently wainting for his "360 coffin / refurbished 360"

had mine for a year, I play a heck of a lot with it and use it as my main dvd player... no hiccups yet ,, (knock on wood)

hey every body, this christmas my SONY DVD player actually broke,, I didnt even know that could happen to a dvd player ... back in the day I spent 220$ on a machine that can only play dvd movies and regular music CDs... not that is an investment that looks silly in 2008 ....
 
[quote name='Barnolde']Most unreliable system ever, which is why I refuse to get another one, despite how tempting Alan Wake is.[/QUOTE]

I already know the big 'twist' in Alan Wake:
it's never coming out.

Microsoft's going to be in a very interesting place come the launch of their next console, as if it drops in Autumn of '10, it'll be right during the peak of the PS3's life cycle, and titles that really make use of its advanced tech will probably be very far and few between for a good while. (Who's going to pour all that money into developing for a system that will probably be alone in its generation for at least a couple years?) That tech will also have to be significantly superior to what people will be seeing on Sony's system, which will probably have one SKU at the $199.99 pricepoint by that time. Even if it is, any knowledgeable gamer would have to be fairly reluctant to want to get anytime close to its launch, except for the purpose of reselling to the parents of overprivileged children for profit. That will at least be consistent from generation to generation.
 
Of all the systems Ive ever owned. The only ones to break were my PS2 and my 360.

The most reliable systems seem to be nintendo ones.
My GBA even survived being dropped in water by my sister.
While playing RE4, my friend got scared and yanked the controller, pulling the Gamecube off the table (4 ft at least).

Both of these still work fine today.
 
[quote name='Blinkman987']All CheapyD did with this poll is show why he has no concept of the scientific method or objective ways to observe and arrive at legitimate results. If you really think your information is not disputable, you're delusional.[/QUOTE]

Not to feed the trolls, but let's face it, surveys are not bulletproof, scientific, peer-reviewed results cross-tested against a control group in laboratory conditions. But then again, why should they be? A great book you should read is "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff (first published in 1953). It shows you the inherent biases in surveys and so forth... and quite frankly will make you call into question 90% of gathered data. If it doesn't _you're_ delusional.

But, since you decided to participate, let's just put the facts out there:

1. Failure rate of the 360 is high. Very high. So high that MS took a huge warranty hit (a billion? I forget the specifics) to avoid a recall. It is impossible to tell the actual failure rate, because Microsoft will not publish the information. And in spite of your love of the scientific method, we're not going to ever find out the actual data, because it's probably worse than even we could imagine.

2. The failure rate is systemic. No console is safe from it 100%. The 3 Red Rings points to a specific, documented, and confirmed failure. The GPU's inadequate cooling is the culprit. (The Falcon chipset only shrinks the CPU, not the GPU, IIRC.) Does that mean every failure here is a RRoD? No. But it does mean that of the failures, the incidental ones are going to be dwarfed by this particular failure.

3. Not everyone's 360 fails. For whatever reason, the failure rate is not 100% simply because usage habits vary widely from person to person. Storage, location, game types, pets, humidity, sunspots, and Morlocks all contribute to the inaccuracy of "system X will fail at time Y because of Z, A, and B." Those pronouncements are impossible, because no two 360's will be used in the same manner in the same conditions. Just like when Ford recalled the cruise control mechanism in most of their trucks and cars, not every Ford caught on fire... but a significant number did enough to point to a failure in a particular part that required, due to safety concerns for all Ford owners, replacement.

4. It doesn't mean we all hate the 360. It means we're realistic about its quality. I am not going to set my elite in my driveway and set it alight in protest of that rat bastard Bill Gates. Neither am I going to claim the 360 is the best thing to happen to consoles since Pong. No extreme position is worthwhile, helpful, or very sane. Beware of anyone who cannot move beyond their infatuation with a particular object. They are more likely to be an axe murderer than the regular population... "statistically speaking" of course. :)

5. Microsoft rushed to market to beat Sony. In their haste, they inadequately designed the 360's cooling mechanism (most new and all refurbished ones seem to come with a different heatsink setup, as we've no doubt covered in other threads). It's their fault, pure and simple. It's not "user error" "gremlins" or those evil Linux partisans trying to undermine the great and unique work Bill Gates and Redmond's finest are doing.

Was it worth it? You won't be able to tell this generation. Simply beating Sony isn't going to tell you squat. What _is_ going to tell you is when the XBox 720 (or "next") comes out. If it suffers from a perception problem in the quality department, we may see the ultimate brand scarring become permanent. If not, they may have been able to slip it past most people again... either way, no matter what the quality of the next Xbox is, just like Sony, the 360 is going to dog them for quite some time. (People still talk about the plastic gears over the PSU that would warp on a Playstation 1....) It doesn't do all that much to their bottom lines, but it does create a mindset that makes people suspicious....

And I've spent entirely too much time typing this... ;)
 
[quote name='Mechafenris']Not to feed the trolls, but let's face it, surveys are not bulletproof, scientific, peer-reviewed results cross-tested against a control group in laboratory conditions. But then again, why should they be? A great book you should read is "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff (first published in 1953). It shows you the inherent biases in surveys and so forth... and quite frankly will make you call into question 90% of gathered data. If it doesn't _you're_ delusional.

But, since you decided to participate, let's just put the facts out there:

1. Failure rate of the 360 is high. Very high. So high that MS took a huge warranty hit (a billion? I forget the specifics) to avoid a recall. It is impossible to tell the actual failure rate, because Microsoft will not publish the information. And in spite of your love of the scientific method, we're not going to ever find out the actual data, because it's probably worse than even we could imagine.

2. The failure rate is systemic. No console is safe from it 100%. The 3 Red Rings points to a specific, documented, and confirmed failure. The GPU's inadequate cooling is the culprit. (The Falcon chipset only shrinks the CPU, not the GPU, IIRC.) Does that mean every failure here is a RRoD? No. But it does mean that of the failures, the incidental ones are going to be dwarfed by this particular failure.

3. Not everyone's 360 fails. For whatever reason, the failure rate is not 100% simply because usage habits vary widely from person to person. Storage, location, game types, pets, humidity, sunspots, and Morlocks all contribute to the inaccuracy of "system X will fail at time Y because of Z, A, and B." Those pronouncements are impossible, because no two 360's will be used in the same manner in the same conditions. Just like when Ford recalled the cruise control mechanism in most of their trucks and cars, not every Ford caught on fire... but a significant number did enough to point to a failure in a particular part that required, due to safety concerns for all Ford owners, replacement.

4. It doesn't mean we all hate the 360. It means we're realistic about its quality. I am not going to set my elite in my driveway and set it alight in protest of that rat bastard Bill Gates. Neither am I going to claim the 360 is the best thing to happen to consoles since Pong. No extreme position is worthwhile, helpful, or very sane. Beware of anyone who cannot move beyond their infatuation with a particular object. They are more likely to be an axe murderer than the regular population... "statistically speaking" of course. :)

5. Microsoft rushed to market to beat Sony. In their haste, they inadequately designed the 360's cooling mechanism (most new and all refurbished ones seem to come with a different heatsink setup, as we've no doubt covered in other threads). It's their fault, pure and simple. It's not "user error" "gremlins" or those evil Linux partisans trying to undermine the great and unique work Bill Gates and Redmond's finest are doing.

Was it worth it? You won't be able to tell this generation. Simply beating Sony isn't going to tell you squat. What _is_ going to tell you is when the XBox 720 (or "next") comes out. If it suffers from a perception problem in the quality department, we may see the ultimate brand scarring become permanent. If not, they may have been able to slip it past most people again... either way, no matter what the quality of the next Xbox is, just like Sony, the 360 is going to dog them for quite some time. (People still talk about the plastic gears over the PSU that would warp on a Playstation 1....) It doesn't do all that much to their bottom lines, but it does create a mindset that makes people suspicious....

And I've spent entirely too much time typing this... ;)[/QUOTE]
:applause:

Neither of my failures were RRoD. Both were disc read errors where it wouldn't recognize games at all in the tray. Still, I love my 360 and will continue to support the platform as a whole - I hate that they have problems, but I applaud Microsoft for extending the warranty and reparing/refurbing them for nothing. Granted, this isn't the case with ALL errors, but for the known and most common problems with the system, Microsoft has gone out of their way to repair systems and do their best to make up for a faulty product.

Everyone wants to point fingers. As long as Microsoft fixes the problems, I'll remain happy. Annoyed, but happy overall. Just gives me more time with the Wii.
 
This poll just confirms what most of us already knew. The failure rate is ridiculously high.
If not for a ton of great games the 360 would have failed miserably. I have two 360's just in case one red rings. The first one I bought had a bad dvd drive, but never red ringed. I also own a PS3 and haven't had any problems besides a game freeze or two.
 
I didn't get a chance to vote, but I've had one break. I bought it new in April 07 and it crashed in October 07 while playing Halo 3. I had it almost six months. It was one of the first-gen 360's, though. My current one has been fine, but it is nearing the six month mark and that is beginning to worry me.

My friends been through three, all of which lasted about six or seven months. I work at GameStop and I notice this there too. Most of the ones I hear about are around six months or at the one year mark.
 
Didn't get a chance to vote either, but I also had my first one RRoD on me. Bought it in January of '06. Think it died around October of that year, after I D/L the backwards compatibility update to Halo 2.

The refurb (with a crack on the face plate) has been working fine so far. But then again, I don't use it that much.
 
I've had mine since launch day, the same unit I stood in line for. A weekly breakdown would be at least using it 2.5 to 3 hours a day(including movies).

When I first heard about this RROD, I thought it was just a vocal few. But with MS backing the 3 year warranty and admitting the problem, obviously it's real.

Out of the owners I know, only 1 had the RROD.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones!!
 
although I am in the minority where I have had my console not RROD of at least 6 months.. after seeing more and more polls of a majority having had RROD'd, I'm tempted to sell my elite and just go PS3.. that way I won't lose out money in the long run.. hmmmz
 
[quote name='aznguyen316']although I am in the minority where I have had my console not RROD of at least 6 months.. after seeing more and more polls of a majority having had RROD'd, I'm tempted to sell my elite and just go PS3.. that way I won't lose out money in the long run.. hmmmz[/QUOTE]

How exactly would you lose money in the long run if MS repairs RROD 360s for free?
 
[quote name='Blinkman987']All CheapyD did with this poll is show why he has no concept of the scientific method or objective ways to observe and arrive at legitimate results. If you really think your information is not disputable, you're delusional.[/quote]

Let's go out on a ridiculously long limb and say this poll has a +/- 20% error rate. That still leaves us with a minimum of 39% of our 360s failing.
 
[quote name='mogshaz']How exactly would you lose money in the long run if MS repairs RROD 360s for free?[/quote]

one, the xbox 360 price drop and two, won't my console be forever tagged as a RROD'd unit, thus resale of it in the future would lower. Either way, selling sooner than later is usually the better way. just a thought I have now.
 
[quote name='mogshaz']How exactly would you lose money in the long run if MS repairs RROD 360s for free?[/quote] I believe he is thinking about when Mickeysoft stops repairing consoles for free.

Edit: Or not.
 
[quote name='Mechafenris']most new and all refurbished ones seem to come with a different heatsink setup, as we've no doubt covered in other threads[/QUOTE]

This highlights something I would have liked to see in such a poll: dates purchased. I haven't searched around yet on here to look at the other 360 threads (just bit the bullet last weekend, still easing in to being an owner of one) but I'm still curious as to how much, if at all, the newer Falcon configurations are actually helping with the thermal issues.

Having a breakdown of purchase times vs failures would be an interesting way to try and see if the more recently manufactured consoles actually have lesser failure rates. Granted, it's a long shot, given that I think the Falcon is pretty new and so I imagine a pretty small percentage of owners would have one. Plus it's not super easy to tell if a given unit is a Falcon, which combined with the Internet Stupidity Factor would further obfuscate any such results. But! It'd be neat to see that data regardless :)
 
[quote name='aznguyen316']one, the xbox 360 price drop and two, won't my console be forever tagged as a RROD'd unit, thus resale of it in the future would lower. Either way, selling sooner than later is usually the better way. just a thought I have now.[/QUOTE]

I have never heard of consoles being tagged as RROD, although that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but considering that RROD consoles still sell for a decent price on Ebay without ever being refurbed I don't know of how much of a problem it could be even if it were true. Like mentioned, the bigger issue would be when MS inevitably stops repairing the things. Though, i can't say i have ever considered a piece of electronics to be an investment so....theres that.
 
[quote name='mogshaz']I have never heard of consoles being tagged as RROD, although that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but considering that RROD consoles still sell for a decent price on Ebay without ever being refurbed I don't know of how much of a problem it could be even if it were true. Like mentioned, the bigger issue would be when MS inevitably stops repairing the things. Though, i can't say i have ever considered a piece of electronics to be an investment so....theres that.[/QUOTE]

I think he means if he decided to sell it in the future (i.e. when the next X-box comes out or right before) it would probably have a lower price than other consoles as their probably won't be much demand for used 360's since everyone knows they'll pretty much all RROD at some point.

I don't know that I agree, for the most part all console values tank rapidly when the successor comes out. And I don't see the 360 used values currently tanking from the RROD problem. They may be harder to sell since people are wary of buying used, but prices on craig's list etc. don't seem abnormally low.
 
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