How much fail could Microsoft nail, if Microsoft could nail fail?
While the art of pinpointing numbers has been… shall we say, “imprecise.” Former Microsoft Tattoo Model, Rock Star, and when he had time, Corporate Vice-President Peter Moore described them as a “moving target” with the company’s estimate gauging the failure rate at about 3 percent.
According to some retailers, however, the Red Ring Experience has been a little more generously shared with the consumer, with as many as a third of all the systems being hailed as three-light specials.
According to 1UP, there is new evidence that the truth is someplace in between. Or that Peter Moore was right, take your pick. In either case, a study by electronic warranty dealer SquareTrade, there is some interesting data among the 1000+ warranty claims which they have accumulated.
According to these claims, the failure rate for the Xbox 360 was in the range of 16.4%, whereas Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii only held a rate of 3%. Of those 360 failures, 60% bore the mark of the Red Ring, and so were covered by Microsoft’s extended warranty.
Steve Abernethy, CEO of SquareTrade, gave speculation that the number may only increase from here. “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. He proceeded to note that while they did not track the various 360 SKUs, he “would estimate most if not all were the original motherboard.”
1UP goes on to note the two most important factors in the taking of statistics, those being sample size and randomness. With 1000 samples, there is sufficient size, though since they were taken from people who all sought out SquareTrade’s services, there remains a possibility that the randomness could be somewhat skewed, leaning in favor of those who would more likely overheat their systems via heavy system usage. “This doesn’t invalidate the report by any means,” 1UP notes, “but it is worth keeping mind.”
