A study conducted by SquareTrade, a supplemental insurance plan purveyor, released its findings today, naming Microsoft’s Xbox 360 most likely to fail, with more reported issues than Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, in their respective order.
SquareTrade claims, based on its 16,000 constituents, that the Wii is 9 times more reliable than the Xbox and 4 times more trusty than the PS3.
Furthermore, in the first 2 years of ownership 2.7 percent of Wii owners reported system failures, 23.7 percent of Xbox 360 owners, and 10 percent of PlayStation 3 gamers suffered from faulty hardware.
About half of that 23.7 percent of broken Xbox’s were the apparent result of the dread Red Rings of Death, a horrid system failure issue that has become commonplace in video game discussion everywhere. Hell, I’ve suffered through the ordeal 4 times already.
Of note however is Microsoft’s newly extended system warranty, which covers new Xbox 360’s for three years from the RroD and other non-negligent issues, so, as PC World puts it, this situation “may result in an underreporting of failures by Xbox 360 owners to SquareTrade, relative to the other consoles.”
No matter how you slice the cake, Xbox 360s will always be synonomous with gross failure, and for this reason, the next console iteration Microsoft throws out there will likely be the most solid, trusty, and diligently crafted piece of electronic gaming fun they’ve ever created. Or not, we’ll see.
Mine has been reliable