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Xbox 360 failure rate may be as high as 33%

By The Gamepros
July 03, 2007 10:16 AM PST
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Anecdotal evidence suggests the Xbox 360 failure rate may be as high as one in every three machines according to retailers.

"After contacting several retailers from various regions in North America, the responses were unanimous: the Xbox 360 is the least reliable gaming console in recent history," reports Daily Tech after polling several retailers on 360 failure rates including EB Games, GameStop, and Best Buy.

"The real number [of Xbox 360 failure rates] is between 30 to 33 percent," said one former EB Games employee. An anonymous Best Buy employee said the failure rate for the console was "between a quarter to a third" of all units sold. A different yet current EB Games employee told GamePro the failure rate was 1 in 4 at their store.

Many stores have revised their policies in addition to increasing the price of in-store warranties "solely due to the failure rate of the Xbox 360" says Daily Tech. In addition, the report states that EB Games nearly doubled the price of its one-year, over-the-counter warranty.

By comparison, one retailer said the single store failure rate of PS3s was less than one per cent and conceded that "in the hundreds of Wii units sold at that location thus far, zero have come back as defective."

Microsoft has said before that its Xbox 360 failure rate is "well within industry standards" of 3-5%, but decline to disclose the actual number even in light of recent media and consumer scrutiny.

Just last week one UK-based repair company refused to continue fixing faulty Xbox 360s due to the high number of machines coming in which rendered excessive losses for the company.

Microsoft representatives were not immediately available for comment when contacted by GamePro.

With Microsoft staying mum on official numbers, it's difficult to gauge if a vocal minority of pissed-off consumers are just really loud, or if there really is merit to the claim that 360s fail abnormally more than they should. Perhaps the biggest indicator that something is wrong, outside of the above claim by retailers of course, is Microsoft's unwillingness to formally address the issue.