Report shows Xbox 360 failure rate at 16 percent @ Gaming Target

Written by Kris Rosado on February 14, 2008

News: More red ring of death statistics

Once again there is another 360 Red Ring of Death story to report on. This time though, we have some numbers to look at.

An electronics warranty company named SquareTrade, has found that in 1000 Xbox 360 systems; 16.4 percent of them failed. This of course, is a much more realistic number than those claimed by retailers last year which were in the 30 percent range, yet still higher than Microsoft themselves have ever claimed.

Of those 16.4 percent that failed, 60 percent were caused by the red ring issue. While this is covered by Microsoft's three year warranty policy instituted last summer, it is still somewhat unsettling.

To make matters worse, SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernathy, does not think things are going to look any better in the future:

"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."

Keeping in mind that these statistics do not tell us how much these systems were used, what do you readers think about this and will it in any way affect how much you use your system?

source: 1UP