How does 54% of 5,000 readers = 54% of all the 24 million XBox 360s?

5,000 Game Informer subscribers answered a few questions.

That means the source of this information came from fanboys who subcribe to the magazine!

Owners of each system summed up the 5,000, so the actual amount of 360 owners is less.

How many of them do you think actually own Xbox's 360s?

How do you know if they had a launch or a recent model?

There was no timeframe in any of the questions, If someone had an RROD in 2005, how does that equal to the failure rates now?

Do you people actually believe that there is more RRODs in the current batch of 360s?

How is this even remotely accurate? Theres no logic involved to believe so.

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

I agree, the figure was very exaggerated. I think they did it to get more people to read it. Of course, IGN felt kind of left out and felt the need to plaster a summary of the article all over their front page. :roll:

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Hanass

Cows apparently think so. They also want to believe that all of the 5000 people actually own a 360.

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Hanass

The answer is easy, System Wars spin.

It's a large enough sample pool, it's how statistics work.

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Hanass

Hmm didn't see anything come up in google. Mind finding it for me?

[QUOTE="Hanass"]

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Blue-Sky

Hmm didn't see anything come up in google. Mind finding it for me?

Ok Microsoft reports 5%, which is obviously a lie (I smell damage control), but retailers often report >30%.

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Hanass

Its not that high, the last statement has it around 16%

On topic - logic escapes fanboys in system wars. Information has to go through a fanboy filter first lol, it goes

Bad news-----------> fanboy filter---------------> field of roses

and

Inaccurate information----------->fanboy filter-----------> big news/ammo to bash opposing console/fanboys

Have you ever learned how random surveys work?

Its called percentages and statistics.
5000 surveys for 30 million people is acceptable.

I'd suggest reading up on percentages and statistics...

Here's step one of finding your answer, rather than asking people who more than likely won't have a mathematical clue on how to properly answer your question.

Polls are actually proven, legitimate ways to conduct research and gather information. Depending on how the poll was conducted, it could be pretty much spot on. Was there a margin of error listed any where?

Have you ever learned how random surveys work?

Wasdie

No, could you explain?

[QUOTE="Hanass"]

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

navyguy21

Its not that high, the last statement has it around 16%

I made a mistake, the 39% was from retailers, which honestly are much more credible than MS.

[QUOTE="Hanass"]

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

navyguy21

Its not that high, the last statement has it around 16%

[QUOTE="navyguy21"]

[QUOTE="Hanass"]

The official report from Microsoft is around 39% if I remember correctly, so it's not that far away.

Stevo_the_gamer

Its not that high, the last statement has it around 16%

I don't even think that blind Xbox 360 fanboys would believe that.

I don't even think that blind Xbox 360 fanboys would believe that.Hanass

What I don't understand is why people are taking this poll so seriously and treating it as if it is undeniable fact.

[QUOTE="Hanass"]I don't even think that blind Xbox 360 fanboys would believe that.Stevo_the_gamer

I'm on my 4th Xbox in 8 months, so I'm sure that figure is correct. However the majority of failures came from the previous motherboard. Today's Xbox's are said to be a lot more reliable. Maybe not a 100% fool proof, but better.

Spin it many times you want lems but 360 is the worst console ever made yet the biggest failure in gaming history ............. But thanks to MS marketing department peoples still buy 360 without knowing how faulty that console is .............Foxhound_spy

Spin it many times you want lems but 360 is the worst console ever made yet the biggest failure in gaming history ............. But thanks to MS marketing department peoples still buy 360 without knowing how faulty that console is .............Foxhound_spy

I find it funny that the 360 can be "the worst console ever made" and "the biggest failure in gaming history" and still be solidly in second place right now and, not only that, but the only console to show any growth in 2009.

That must be some damn fine marketing MS is doing.

[QUOTE="Stevo_the_gamer"]

[QUOTE="Hanass"]I don't even think that blind Xbox 360 fanboys would believe that.navyguy21

It's the nature of fanboyism itself. I now RROD exists (I had mine sent in last year) Yet it seems to be one of the most exaggerated subjects I have ever seen. I was trying to explain to someone yesterday that for every 1 legi case of someone being stung multiple times, there are almost 20 - 25 fanboy made up stories. Every cow still owns launch PS2's, yet knows every 360 owner on their 5th or 6th 360.

Its called percentages and statistics.
5000 surveys for 30 million people is acceptable.

I'd suggest reading up on percentages and statistics...

JohnM1983

The Game Informer questions were too vague and with no specified timeframe. One of the questions were, Did you have a friend that have an RROD. My answer to that would be yes, back in 2006. But in now way would that equate to the failure rates in 2009, thus making the argument, "RROD is rising" invalid.

Its called percentages and statistics.
5000 surveys for 30 million people is acceptable.

I'd suggest reading up on percentages and statistics...

JohnM1983

Spin it many times you want lems but 360 is the worst console ever made yet the biggest failure in gaming history ............. But thanks to MS marketing department peoples still buy 360 without knowing how faulty that console is .............Foxhound_spy

You mean the one in 3rd place after 2 gens of dominence that you cows have to compare the sales of to MS's 1st gen hardware?

[QUOTE="JohnM1983"]

Its called percentages and statistics.
5000 surveys for 30 million people is acceptable.

I'd suggest reading up on percentages and statistics...

KingsMessenger

Which is exactly why this poll shouldn't be taken out of context.

It may be representative of the hardcore gaming community but it's highly unlikely that it is representative of the entirety of the Xbox 360's userbase.

[QUOTE="JohnM1983"]

Its called percentages and statistics.
5000 surveys for 30 million people is acceptable.

I'd suggest reading up on percentages and statistics...

Blue-Sky

The Game Informer questions were too vague and with no specified timeframe. One of the questions were, Did you have a friend that have an RROD. My answer to that would be yes, back in 2006. But in now way would that equate to the failure rates in 2009, thus making the argument, "RROD is rising" invalid.

Not denying there could be problems with the survey.
Just explaining that a sample size of 5000 is adequate for a population of up to 30,000,000 which was one of the issues the TC had a problem with.

But theres no denying that there are problems with the 360 and the RROD. No matter what way you look at it.

I'm surprised there is no official % from Microsoft considering all the law suits.

5,000 Game Informer subscribers answered a few questions.

That means the source of this information came from fanboys who subcribe to the magazine!

Owners of each system summed up the 5,000, so the actual amount of 360 owners is less.

How many of them do you think actually own Xbox's 360s?

How do you know if they had a launch or a recent model?

There was no timeframe in any of the questions, If someone had an RROD in 2005, how does that equal to the failure rates now?

Do you people actually believe that there is more RRODs in the current batch of 360s?

How is this even remotely accurate? Theres no logic involved to believe so.

Blue-Sky

As in mathematics, there's the usual 3% margin error. How many here actually learned Statistics at school? Even though some would claim that only lemmings answered to the poll, there's still a larger number that are not lemmings and according to research that's where that 3% margin error falls in. If any dooesn't believe in a poll, please look at all and any kind of polls taken in general and compare it with the final results that were found and see how many of them were totally wrong or too off.

Polls are actually proven, legitimate ways to conduct research and gather information. Depending on how the poll was conducted, it could be pretty much spot on. Was there a margin of error listed any where?

saruman354

Do you really think GI would go through the trouble of carrying out a formal survey? The best we can hope for is they asked readers to send in their answers rather than just slapping a poll on their website.

Which leads to why this poll is absolutely ridiculous -- sample bias. Those that feel strongly about an issue are more likely to answer a poll (ie few people will go to go out of your way to point out "everything is normal!"), which in this case means those most likely to reply to the survey are those who have had major 360 problems and/or fanboys and/or MS/Sony/Nintendo trying to skew the numbers. This is particularly evident in the Wii and PS3 figures, which are significantly higher than the commonly accepted 3-5% failure rate for consumer electronics.

There are also questions regarding the demographic -- GI's readership is obviously going to have an exaggerated percentage of hardcore gamers (meaning their consoles used more than average), and considering that GI is not only a magazine, but one that is owned by EB/Gamestop, we can also assume that the readership's IQ is significantly lower than average (joking, but seriously, gaming print media? Go back to the 1990s. Say hi to Jurassic Park and Tupac for me.).

So based on all that, the best guess we have is the 360 has a ~16% failure rate (based on this). Significantly higher than the 3-5% average for consumer electronics, but not as bad as all these stupid rumours and polls.

Cliffs Notes version: The poll is BS.

As in mathematics, there's the usual 3% margin error. How many here actually learned Statistics at school? Even though some would claim that only lemmings answered to the poll, there's still a larger number that are not lemmings and according to research that's where that 3% margin error falls in. If any dooesn't believe in a poll, please look at all and any kind of polls taken in general and compare it with the final results that were found and see how many of them were totally wrong or too off.

the_real_VIP

I just read the IGN story on the poll. I mean, it's no Gallup poll, but it seems pretty sound. I thought it was a poll based just on 360, but it was all consoles. And for all of those saying that Sony and Nintendo fanboys could have easily schewed the results, well, the same could be said about Microsoft fanboys doing that to the PS3's numbers. It's not a good argument. I sense no bias either. Sure, the failure rate number was pretty high, but they did note that less than 4% of respondants said they would NOT buy another 360 because of past failures

As in mathematics, there's the usual 3% margin error. How many here actually learned Statistics at school? Even though some would claim that only lemmings answered to the poll, there's still a larger number that are not lemmings and according to research that's where that 3% margin error falls in. If any dooesn't believe in a poll, please look at all and any kind of polls taken in general and compare it with the final results that were found and see how many of them were totally wrong or too off.

the_real_VIP

So you're going to say that polling 5,000 people = 30,000,000 people with a margin of error of 3% ?

[QUOTE="Blue-Sky"]

5,000 Game Informer subscribers answered a few questions.

That means the source of this information came from fanboys who subcribe to the magazine!

Owners of each system summed up the 5,000, so the actual amount of 360 owners is less.

How many of them do you think actually own Xbox's 360s?

How do you know if they had a launch or a recent model?

There was no timeframe in any of the questions, If someone had an RROD in 2005, how does that equal to the failure rates now?

Do you people actually believe that there is more RRODs in the current batch of 360s?

How is this even remotely accurate? Theres no logic involved to believe so.

navstar29

Albeit I don't believe this 54%, that seems way too high. But its probably in the overstated general ballpark range. That's what polls are for for giving you a general idea.

You quoted my post. But did you read it? In now way am I saying that Polls can't work. I am saying that there is inconsistences with THIS survey. Look at a presidential polls. They are taken frequently and with specific time periods and always compared to previous polls.

This GI survey has NO timeframes, no comparison to any past data, but somehow makes the claim that theres a rising percentage? How is that logically possible? Had they simply add the year "2009" to each of their questions, would of boosted their accuracy substantially.

Look at the difference between:

Do you have a friend that had an RROD

Do you have a friend that had an RROD in 2009.

I just read the IGN story on the poll. I mean, it's no Gallup poll, but it seems pretty sound. I thought it was a poll based just on 360, but it was all consoles. And for all of those saying that Sony and Nintendo fanboys could have easily schewed the results, well, the same could be said about Microsoft fanboys doing that to the PS3's numbers. It's not a good argument. I sense no bias either. Sure, the failure rate number was pretty high, but they did note that less than 4% of respondants said they would NOT buy another 360 because of past failures

saruman354

I',m beginning to beleive that some of you people should seriously think about taking up stand up comedy for a living if you want to cling to the idea that this poll is sound in any way shape or form...

Come on we all know polls work. Back in 2004, the polls showed that John Kerry was going to win the US Presidential election and he did win.....WAI A SECOND...

Come on we all know polls work. Back in 2004, the polls showed that John Kerry was going to win the US Presidential election and he did win.....WAI A SECOND...

MizFitAwesome

Exactly, informal polls never lie. Case in point:

[QUOTE="the_real_VIP"]

As in mathematics, there's the usual 3% margin error. How many here actually learned Statistics at school? Even though some would claim that only lemmings answered to the poll, there's still a larger number that are not lemmings and according to research that's where that 3% margin error falls in. If any dooesn't believe in a poll, please look at all and any kind of polls taken in general and compare it with the final results that were found and see how many of them were totally wrong or too off.

The__Havoc

So you're going to say that polling 5,000 people = 30,000,000 people with a margin of error of 3% ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

2004 presidential poll:

1013 polled out of a population of 300 million

Margin of error: +/- 3 to 4% interval of change

[QUOTE="The__Havoc"]

[QUOTE="the_real_VIP"]

As in mathematics, there's the usual 3% margin error. How many here actually learned Statistics at school? Even though some would claim that only lemmings answered to the poll, there's still a larger number that are not lemmings and according to research that's where that 3% margin error falls in. If any dooesn't believe in a poll, please look at all and any kind of polls taken in general and compare it with the final results that were found and see how many of them were totally wrong or too off.

the_real_VIP

So you're going to say that polling 5,000 people = 30,000,000 people with a margin of error of 3% ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

2004 presidential poll:

1013 polled out of a population of 300 million

Margin of error: +/- 3 to 4% interval of change