Why can't 360 and PS3 be as reliable as the Wii?

[hsrob]

Legend11 said:

Grampy said:
A lot of problems are heat related and Nintendo dodges that bullet pretty well by a more conservative design. Certainly they can and do fail but at a commendably low rate. But to give credit where it's due, they put in some impressive build quality. Next time you change the batteries in the Wiimote, check out the battery holder. They could have just used a bent piec of metal like the rest of the world but no............

Did you know that the same group of manufacturers make the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3?  You were right when you mentioned heat but I find it hard to believe that Nintendo puts any more money into build quality than the competition considering how cheap their optical drives have been in the Wii and Gamecube.

Well if Nintendo don't put more money into build quality then they are just better at it.  To my knowledge they only stopped offering a lifetime warranty with their systems when they introduced the Gamecube, due to the optical drive (or it may have been in the N64 era) so they do have a long history of building very reliable hardware or at the least standing by their manufacturing standards better than most companies.

Nevertheless low power consumption was an active part of the Wii's design process and not something that happened accidentally by using older technology than the conpetition, as some people have suggested. As people have noted heat is obviously a major factor contributing to product failure.

Here is a comparison of the power consumption of home consoles if you are interested.

http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?id=71