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Not that it will come as a surprise to Xbox 360 owners who’ve already suffered the flashing ‘red ring of death’ (RROD) that usually signifies the potentially expensive misfortune of an operational collapse, but a new quality report has revealed that around one in four of Microsoft’s consoles is heading for a hardware failure.
Possibly the worst thing in gaming, beyond Midway\'s Hour of Victory. Image: yoppy/Flickr.
According to two-year reliability research offered up by SquareTrade, 23.7 percent of all Xbox 360 users (this writer included) have looked on in abject despair as their console’s ring of green power LEDs suddenly flashes red, which generally indicates a terminal internal malfunction that can completely ‘brick’ the system.
Not that we’d ever accuse Microsoft of rushing its console to market to beat out competition from rival manufacturers Sony and Nintendo – both of which invested a further year into the development of their respective platforms – but it perhaps comes as little surprise to learn Sony’s PlayStation 3 has a comparative failure rate of just 10 percent.
In terms of specific technical problems related to the console platforms, SquareTrade’s report indicates that around 12 percent of downed Xbox 360s fall to the dreaded RROD, while the PlayStation 3 suffers disk problems, and both are prone to output failures.
It's not all bad news for prospective Xbox 360 owners however, with SquareTrade's report offering that newer versions of the console, namely those equipped with the 65nm Jasper chipset, are significantly less vulnerable to the RROD.
Despite leading the current generation in unit sales, the Nintendo Wii has a paltry failure rate of 2.7 percent. However, it’s worth noting that core hardware issues are generally not responsible for Wii failures – with most problems connected to the innovative Wii Remote control system and the console’s power supply.
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