360 failure rate put at 16 per cent - less than previously claimed

[QUOTE="jetpropilot"]

Wow! 16%! Still 5x the failure rate of both of its competitors! Yay!

"Sir, I am a world renowned cardiac surgeon. My patients die 5x as often as my fellow colleagues but it is okay. I have reduced my mortality rates from 33% so you should all be impressed. Now, who wants to sign the consent form for surgery today?"

ogvampire

what a dumb analogy. think about it for a second.

The failure rate of ps3 and wii is at the average 3%.

if you are a doctor and your mortality rate is 3%, then you are out of business. even 3% is a high mortality rate for the average doctor.

To be fair, we don't know if 3% is actually the average. This number is just as made up as any of the others. 3% is more the IDEAL. I'd be willing to be the average is more like 5-6% problem rate.

[QUOTE="jetpropilot"]

Wow! 16%! Still 5x the failure rate of both of its competitors! Yay!

"Sir, I am a world renowned cardiac surgeon. My patients die 5x as often as my fellow colleagues but it is okay. I have reduced my mortality rates from 33% so you should all be impressed. Now, who wants to sign the consent form for surgery today?"

ogvampire

what a dumb analogy. think about it for a second.

The failure rate of ps3 and wii is at the average 3%.

if you are a doctor and your mortality rate is 3%, then you are out of business. even 3% is a high mortality rate for the average doctor.

16% is unacceptable. in medicine and in electronics.

[QUOTE="ogvampire"][QUOTE="jetpropilot"]

Wow! 16%! Still 5x the failure rate of both of its competitors! Yay!

"Sir, I am a world renowned cardiac surgeon. My patients die 5x as often as my fellow colleagues but it is okay. I have reduced my mortality rates from 33% so you should all be impressed. Now, who wants to sign the consent form for surgery today?"

jetpropilot

what a dumb analogy. think about it for a second.

The failure rate of ps3 and wii is at the average 3%.

if you are a doctor and your mortality rate is 3%, then you are out of business. even 3% is a high mortality rate for the average doctor.

16% is unacceptable. in medicine and in electronics.

i completely agree.

but medicine is completely different. electronics break all the time, you just get a replacement. same cant be said about people.

thats why the failure rate for a surgeon wont even reach 16%, he will have his license revoked way before.

its tough to make an analogy cause i cant think of another piece of hardware that breaks so often. i had mine RROD 6 months ago, now everytime i use my 360 i have fan blowing on it just in case. lol

im still working with a 75% failure rate in Philadelphia.

seriously. since this thread I've been going down stairs periodically and asking people if they have a 360, and if they do, has it failed.

I've gotten 7 owners with RROD

2 owners with NO RROD

3 people who asked wtf was wrong with me

my study has now raised the failure rate to 77%

[QUOTE="ogvampire"][QUOTE="jetpropilot"]

Wow! 16%! Still 5x the failure rate of both of its competitors! Yay!

"Sir, I am a world renowned cardiac surgeon. My patients die 5x as often as my fellow colleagues but it is okay. I have reduced my mortality rates from 33% so you should all be impressed. Now, who wants to sign the consent form for surgery today?"

jetpropilot

what a dumb analogy. think about it for a second.

The failure rate of ps3 and wii is at the average 3%.

if you are a doctor and your mortality rate is 3%, then you are out of business. even 3% is a high mortality rate for the average doctor.

16% is unacceptable. in medicine and in electronics.

How could anyone go through the hassle of even buying a 360 now? That is beyond me. You have to be careless, or plain ignorant to buy one. No game is worth having picking up a faulty product.

[QUOTE="jetpropilot"][QUOTE="ogvampire"][QUOTE="jetpropilot"]

Wow! 16%! Still 5x the failure rate of both of its competitors! Yay!

"Sir, I am a world renowned cardiac surgeon. My patients die 5x as often as my fellow colleagues but it is okay. I have reduced my mortality rates from 33% so you should all be impressed. Now, who wants to sign the consent form for surgery today?"

Cute_Red_Panda

what a dumb analogy. think about it for a second.

The failure rate of ps3 and wii is at the average 3%.

if you are a doctor and your mortality rate is 3%, then you are out of business. even 3% is a high mortality rate for the average doctor.

16% is unacceptable. in medicine and in electronics.

How could anyone go through the hassle of even buying a 360 now? That is beyond me. You have to be careless, or plain ignorant to buy one. No game is worth having picking up a faulty product.

arent the new elites RROD-proof?

arent the new elites RROD-proof?

ogvampire

doubt it. haven't see any evidence indicating this. if they were rrod-proof, ms would be trumpeting them like sliced bread

[QUOTE="Jynxzor"]So one insurance company does a small sample and it's truth? anything over 5% is shamefull anyways.MikeE21286

1000 isn't a small sample.

1000 is a pretty small sample when your trying to come up with a sample for a multi million selling unit. with only 1000 systems there are too many variables that you can't control or even out with a larger sample.

no way...1000 is huge and by far more than you need to estimate populatin paramters...staistics is my major.... so....

Mike, you might as well be talking to the wind. If someone doesn't know how sampling works, then nothing is going to convince them that they need to pull apart every single xbox made to get a failure rate.

[QUOTE="MikeE21286"][QUOTE="Jynxzor"]So one insurance company does a small sample and it's truth? anything over 5% is shamefull anyways.wiwahib

1000 isn't a small sample.

1000 is a pretty small sample when your trying to come up with a sample for a multi million selling unit. with only 1000 systems there are too many variables that you can't control or even out with a larger sample.

no way...1000 is huge and by far more than you need to estimate populatin paramters...staistics is my major.... so....

Mike, you might as well be talking to the wind. If someone doesn't know how sampling works, then nothing is going to convince them that they need to pull apart every single xbox made to get a failure rate.

I'm not saying that you need to test every box, but the RROD you will get more accurate number with more systems.

testing 0.1% of a product doesnt give a very good readout. I know how sampling works and like all statistics the more data you have the better.

[QUOTE="jangojay"]It's based on a 1000 consoles.....GundamGuy0

that's a great sample size.

the problm with this study is it's not random, and doesn't include everyone because first everyone didn't know about there services, and some people wouldn't pay for it even if they did.

But we know it's more then the 3% that Microsoft suggested.

SquareTrade, a firm specialising in selling electronics warranties, is claiming the failure rate for Xbox 360 consoles is 16.4 per cent.

As reported by 1UP, SquareTrade based the figure on a sample of 1000 consoles. Sample lots "in the high hundreds" of PlayStation 3 and Wii units gave a failure rate of just 3 per cent.

According to SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernethy, the overheating problem associated with Microsoft's console may cause the failure rate to climb.

"It is reasonable to believe these failure rates will increase over time, since the Xbox 360 failure issues tend to increase with prolonged use where overheating appears the main culprit," he said.

The company's data states the 'Red Rings of Death' error accounted for around 60 per cent of the sample failures. Of the different hardware variations of the Xbox 360, Abernethy stated that of the associated problems he "would estimate most if not all were the original motherboard".

Last year, you may recall, Xbox boss Peter Moore apologised to gamers whose 360s had busted. Microsoft extended the warranty of the machine to three years and agreed to pay for repairs. The company declined to offer a solid failure rate figure but Moore told our friends GamesIndustry.biz, "You know it when you see it. We saw it, and it was unacceptable."

This morning a Microsoft spokesperson told GI.biz, "The majority of Xbox 360 owners have had a great experience with their consoles. We do not disclose internal hardware repair data and we do not comment on speculation."

Which ought to cheer up Eurogamer's Bert, Rich and Scott, all of whom have suffered from dead Xbox 360s within the past month.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92718jazreal

Firstly, I did read the article and they are being very vague. As far as I can tell, saying it is 16% is very misleading and there is a good likelyhood of it being greater than the stated percentage (maybe lower, but from hearing more news about how it is around 25-30 it's probably higher). It has a 16% failure rate? Are they including 360s that were just recently bought and if so, of course it is going to reduce the failure rate presented. If they wanted to make this more believable, they should have included a time frame in which the consoles were actually bought ranging from the launch date to maybe mid 2007 or something like that.

How does squaretrade work anyways? Where did they obtain their data and such? There are just too many factors.

Obviously, they could be giving us misleading information.

It's based on a 1000 consoles.....jangojay

and the 33% was based on a gamespot employees guess

Reported by a single poll consisting of 1000 360s. This has as much of a chance determining the true defect rate as that anonymous retailer who spouted that it was 33%.Verge_6

It was actually a number of retailers and they weren't anonymous.

[QUOTE="wiwahib"][QUOTE="MikeE21286"][QUOTE="Jynxzor"]So one insurance company does a small sample and it's truth? anything over 5% is shamefull anyways.Jynxzor

1000 isn't a small sample.

1000 is a pretty small sample when your trying to come up with a sample for a multi million selling unit. with only 1000 systems there are too many variables that you can't control or even out with a larger sample.

no way...1000 is huge and by far more than you need to estimate populatin paramters...staistics is my major.... so....

Mike, you might as well be talking to the wind. If someone doesn't know how sampling works, then nothing is going to convince them that they need to pull apart every single xbox made to get a failure rate.

I'm not saying that you need to test every box, but the RROD you will get more accurate number with more systems.

testing 0.1% of a product doesnt give a very good readout. I know how sampling works and like all statistics the more data you have the better.

1000 people is actually about the average for samples. when they do presidential polls how many people do you think they survey. not me, i never got a call. if you look at the numbers for most surveys, they are actually around 1000.

how many people did you expect them to survey, anyway?

That's just as accurate as the 33 percent failure rate which isn't accurate at all. The only people that know the real number is MS and they ain't talking. The only thing I know is, IT'S TOO GOD DAMN HIGH.

that is all.

heretrix

The 33 percent failure rate was confirmed. I don't know what your talking about.

[QUOTE="heretrix"]

That's just as accurate as the 33 percent failure rate which isn't accurate at all. The only people that know the real number is MS and they ain't talking. The only thing I know is, IT'S TOO GOD DAMN HIGH.

that is all.

-Karmum-

The 33 percent failure rate was confirmed. I don't know what your talking about.

by who?

It's based on a 1000 consoles.....jangojay

That's fine, the ratio would most likely stay the same. Someone isn't very good at math.

[QUOTE="jazreal"]SquareTrade, a firm specialising in selling electronics warranties, is claiming the failure rate for Xbox 360 consoles is 16.4 per cent.

As reported by 1UP, SquareTrade based the figure on a sample of 1000 consoles. Sample lots "in the high hundreds" of PlayStation 3 and Wii units gave a failure rate of just 3 per cent.

According to SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernethy, the overheating problem associated with Microsoft's console may cause the failure rate to climb.

"It is reasonable to believe these failure rates will increase over time, since the Xbox 360 failure issues tend to increase with prolonged use where overheating appears the main culprit," he said.

The company's data states the 'Red Rings of Death' error accounted for around 60 per cent of the sample failures. Of the different hardware variations of the Xbox 360, Abernethy stated that of the associated problems he "would estimate most if not all were the original motherboard".

Last year, you may recall, Xbox boss Peter Moore apologised to gamers whose 360s had busted. Microsoft extended the warranty of the machine to three years and agreed to pay for repairs. The company declined to offer a solid failure rate figure but Moore told our friends GamesIndustry.biz, "You know it when you see it. We saw it, and it was unacceptable."

This morning a Microsoft spokesperson told GI.biz, "The majority of Xbox 360 owners have had a great experience with their consoles. We do not disclose internal hardware repair data and we do not comment on speculation."

Which ought to cheer up Eurogamer's Bert, Rich and Scott, all of whom have suffered from dead Xbox 360s within the past month.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92718tmntPunchout

Firstly, I did read the article and they are being very vague. As far as I can tell, saying it is 16% is very misleading and there is a good likelyhood of it being greater than the stated percentage (maybe lower, but from hearing more news about how it is around 25-30 it's probably higher). It has a 16% failure rate? Are they including 360s that were just recently bought and if so, of course it is going to reduce the failure rate presented. If they wanted to make this more believable, they should have included a time frame in which the consoles were actually bought ranging from the launch date to maybe mid 2007 or something like that.

How does squaretrade work anyways? Where did they obtain their data and such? There are just too many factors.

Obviously, they could be giving us misleading information.

They are saying 16% of people who have purchased a 360 warranty from them have used that warranty. There is no way to tell if people have broken 360s but didn't use the warranty, or they went directly through MS's warranty program. They make no mention of whether or not people have had more than one problem and therefore had to use their warranty more than once.

Not to mention the fact that their data only applies to their customers. So it doesn't apply to all 360s, all 360 owners, and can't even be considered a proper sampling for statistical purposes. Therefore it is completely INACCURATE for determining what the REAL failure rate would be.

What I find interesting about this thread is how people refuse to relate a 16% failure rate of a thousand to a 33% failure rate of about 9-10 million. The greater the amount of consoles go into circulation, the higher the percentage is going to rise.Pariah_001

Uhmmm...no. That's not how percentages work. If 16% of consoles fail, then it makes no difference how many are made and sold...the failure rate will always be 16% of the total.

Uhmmm...no. That's not how percentages work. If 16% of consoles fail, then it makes no difference how many are made and sold...the failure rate will always be 16% of the total.ZIMdoom

Not true at all. The average failure rate percentage-wise is equatable to the amount of units sold. Do you really think the rate of failure wouldn't go up with every base unit?

Think about it for a second: A thousand vs. over 10 million including variable percentage errors.

If the console itself was technologically sound, you'd probably have a point, but because Microsoft themselves admitted the flaws, one has to take into account that the product is prone to failure.

Explain why the only 1 I had got RROD and why my brother in law has had 5 RRODs if it's that low. MS isn't revealing the truth, as it will harm them. patriots7672

Explain to me why I have a launch system and have never seen RROD. Explain to me why my friend and cousin both have systems and neither of them have seen RROD. I don't know anyone who has gotten RROD. Now, granted, I don't know that many people with 360s. I know there is a problem, but there is no reason to believe it is 33%. This 16% sampling is the first time I've seen anything even remotely scientific try to make an estimation. I would put more creedence in this than you and your brother in law. Sample size 1000 is excellent. Sample size 2, not so much.

Next-door neighbor: 5 RRODs.

Neighbor across the street: 2 RRODs.

Friend a block over: No RRODs.

You know what they say: Some stay dry and others feel the pain.

Just because you and your cousin and his counsin's cousins' dads didn't have RROD doesn't mean there isn't a 33% failure rate. The 16% figure came from a miniscule survey. The 33% figure came from active retailers--Even postal workers who've said they're still shipping 360's back and forth from Microsoft.

Just because something's done "scientifically" that doesn't make the science genuine. Just look at Global Warming for crying out loud.

[QUOTE="ZIMdoom"]Uhmmm...no. That's not how percentages work. If 16% of consoles fail, then it makes no difference how many are made and sold...the failure rate will always be 16% of the total.Pariah_001

Not true at all. The average failure rate percentage-wise is equatable to the amount of units sold. Do you really think the rate of failure wouldn't go up with every base unit?

Think about it for a second: A thousand vs. over 10 million including variable percentage errors.

If the console itself was technologically sound, you'd probably have a point, but because Microsoft themselves admitted the flaws, one has to take into account that the product is prone to failure.

sorry, but it is you who is wrong. youre trying to throw in variables, which most surveys do not deal with.

you are missing the point of a survey. here is a simple explanation:

they surveyed 1000 people. so to them 1000=16,000,000 (just for the sake of the survey)

out of the 1000, 16% were defective.

since 16% of 1000 (160 units) were defective, and since 1000=16,000,000 (2,560,000 units), you will notice that the total number of units goes up, but the percentage stays the same since in this survey 1000=16,000,000.

thats how all surveys are.

sorry, but it is you who is wrong. youre trying to throw in variables, which most surveys do not deal with.

you are missing the point of a survey. here is a simple explanation:

they surveyed 1000 people. so to them 1000=16,000,000 (just for the sake of the survey)

out of the 1000, 16% were defective.

since 16% of 1000 (160 units) were defective, and since 1000=16,000,000 (2,560,000 units), you will notice that the total number of units goes up, but the percentage stays the same since in this survey 1000=16,000,000.

thats how all surveys are.

ogvampire

So you're saying that you know for a fact that it's inaccurate and think its suspiciously low estimate is okay just because that's the nature of the survey?

Poll's actually do take into account margin of error. The technological integrity (or lack thereof) of the product would accelerate that margin.

Explain why the only 1 I had got RROD and why my brother in law has had 5 RRODs if it's that low. MS isn't revealing the truth, as it will harm them. patriots7672

Even if 16% is the truth, it's an abysmal number

Just because you and your cousin and his counsin's cousins' dads didn't have RROD doesn't mean there isn't a 33% failure rate. The 16% figure came from a miniscule survey. The 33% figure came from active retailers--Even postal workers who've said they're still shipping 360's back and forth from Microsoft.

Just because something's done "scientifically" that doesn't make the science genuine. Just look at Global Warming for crying out loud.

Pariah_001

How true.

33% is the most accurate figure in my book. I had a discussion about this with a district manager from EB Games. She told me that their return rates at the store have been about 35%.

She did also mention, however, that those rates have been steadily decreasing. At least in our area, they're around 10% - 20%.

Next-door neighbor: 5 RRODs.

Neighbor across the street: 2 RRODs.

Friend a block over: No RRODs.

You know what they say: Some stay dry and others feel the pain.

Just because you and your cousin and his counsin's cousins' dads didn't have RROD doesn't mean there isn't a 33% failure rate. The 16% figure came from a miniscule survey. The 33% figure came from active retailers--Even postal workers who've said they're still shipping 360's back and forth from Microsoft.

Just because something's done "scientifically" that doesn't make the science genuine. Just look at Global Warming for crying out loud.

Pariah_001

link for the bolded statement?

so you dont believe this "scientific" survey, yet you listen to random postal workers who have no merit? so if we were to do a survey based on your experience, then the percentage of defective 360's should be 66%. so i would choose this "scientific" survey that used 1000 people as examples as opposed to your experience of 3 people.

thats like me saying that i work at ebgames, and at my store we only sell ps3's and 360's. nobody is buying the wii's we have in stock. so by your logic that must mean that NOBODY is buying the wii, right?

[QUOTE="ogvampire"]sorry, but it is you who is wrong. youre trying to throw in variables, which most surveys do not deal with.

you are missing the point of a survey. here is a simple explanation:

they surveyed 1000 people. so to them 1000=16,000,000 (just for the sake of the survey)

out of the 1000, 16% were defective.

since 16% of 1000 (160 units) were defective, and since 1000=16,000,000 (2,560,000 units), you will notice that the total number of units goes up, but the percentage stays the same since in this survey 1000=16,000,000.

thats how all surveys are.

Pariah_001

So you're saying that you know for a fact that it's inaccurate and think its suspiciously low estimate is okay just because that's the nature of the survey?

Poll's actually do take into account margin of error. The technological integrity (or lack thereof) of the product would accelerate that margin.

dude. this is just a simple survey of 1000 people to see how many had RROD. what is so difficult to understand?

you took 1 statistics class and now all of a sudden all surveys are suspect. just take it for what it is. jeez

maybe i should talk in a language that you might understand: moooooooooooo. understand now? :roll:

what the h... are you arguing about?? 16% or 33% whats the difference? its still to dam high!! if lemmings want to say it's 16 from now on its OK with me because its still an abysmal failure rate.

i own a 360 and have gotten the rrod but i have not send it in to MS yet and don't know if I will, because it's too much of a hassle and i don't have time to send my things back and fourth to the manufacture. and because the put in a 3 year warranty, my 5 year warranty from the store is now nullified until those 3 years are up so maybe i will return it to the store when those 3 years are up.

what the h... are you arguing about?? 16% or 33% whats the difference? its still to dam high!! if lemmings want to say it's 16 from now on its OK with me because its still an abysmal failure rate.

i own a 360 and have gotten the rrod but i have not send it in to MS yet and don't know if I will, because it's too much of a hassle and i don't have time to send my things back and fourth to the manufacture. and because the put in a 3 year warranty, my 5 year warranty from the store is now nullified until those 3 years are up so maybe i will return it to the store when those 3 years are up.

tumle

trust me, as a victim of RRoD, Microsoft makes it easy to get it exchanged. its not really a hassle. you just call them, they send you a pre-paid shipping box, you get it back in 3 weeks with a 1 month gold membership. simple.

what the h... are you arguing about?? 16% or 33% whats the difference? its still to dam high!! if lemmings want to say it's 16 from now on its OK with me because its still an abysmal failure rate.

tumle

absolutely agree

love the adjective too (its the one I've been using :P)

5x higher than the competition is flat out unacceptable

According to maxconsole the RROD kit is coming to save all 360 owners but wait it has a price for something I thought they fixed for free with that 3 year warranty.

MS loves to milk its customers and I thought the PS3 owners were the cows.

According to maxconsole the RROD kit is coming to save all 360 owners but wait it has a price for something I thought they fixed for free with that 3 year warranty.

MS loves to milk its customers and I thought the PS3 owners were the cows.

Mongo-Boss

i think that's a joke

unless the kit bears an odd resemblance to a

[QUOTE="Mongo-Boss"]

According to maxconsole the RROD kit is coming to save all 360 owners but wait it has a price for something I thought they fixed for free with that 3 year warranty.

MS loves to milk its customers and I thought the PS3 owners were the cows.

jetpropilot

i think that's a joke

unless the kit bears an odd resemblance to a

[QUOTE="jetpropilot"][QUOTE="Mongo-Boss"]

According to maxconsole the RROD kit is coming to save all 360 owners but wait it has a price for something I thought they fixed for free with that 3 year warranty.

MS loves to milk its customers and I thought the PS3 owners were the cows.

Mongo-Boss

i think that's a joke

unless the kit bears an odd resemblance to a

ahhh gotcha

first you open the case, THEN you smash it! ;)

[QUOTE="tumle"]

what the h... are you arguing about?? 16% or 33% whats the difference? its still to dam high!! if lemmings want to say it's 16 from now on its OK with me because its still an abysmal failure rate.

i own a 360 and have gotten the rrod but i have not send it in to MS yet and don't know if I will, because it's too much of a hassle and i don't have time to send my things back and fourth to the manufacture. and because the put in a 3 year warranty, my 5 year warranty from the store is now nullified until those 3 years are up so maybe i will return it to the store when those 3 years are up.

ogvampire

trust me, as a victim of RRoD, Microsoft makes it easy to get it exchanged. its not really a hassle. you just call them, they send you a pre-paid shipping box, you get it back in 3 weeks with a 1 month gold membership. simple.

well not where i live (Denmark). they want me to get a neutral box from my post office and put a sticker on the box that the ups guy gives me. That gives me two problems.

1. I have to find a post office near me(they have closed most of the post offices in my area)

2. Then i have to arrange a date so the ups guy can get the 360,

But the problem is i have never used ups before so i didn't know that i had to do this with in 2 weeks so now i have to call MS back and get them to send another ups guy because the women from ups couldn't do it with out there consent:(