Orca's 360 hasn't red ringed in the two years it's been had.

QFT man.  Lower chance of RRoD every time a new 360 comes out.  1 yr overall warranty & 3 yr RRoD warranty.

The failure rates of new X360s would be around 5%.

The X360s have gone through 5 or 6 revisions and the chips (GPU and CPU) have been reduced and internal cooling systems have been improved dramatically over the course of three and a half years.

I forget what the official failure rates of launch X360 consoles were but they were no where near as high as some of the PS3 fans are trying to claim on the internet. 25% failure rate is the highest rate I believe the launch consoles reached. The 40 to 50% failure rates claimed by PS3 fans are ridiculous false statements.

To be fair, the x360 only has a 3 year warranty on RRoD. Any other problem like disc scratching or drive failure is still only one year. I hear you on the broken ps3 though. Mine broke out of warranty, and I was quoted $177.45 including tax for a recplacement. To make it even worse, the replacement unit has a 90 day warranty. That's like 2/3 of my gaming budget for the year, rediculous.

This...^^^

The RROD is seemignly not as bad as it used to be, but it isn't the only thing you should be concerned about.  Hey, no piece of electronic is perfect.

that was kinda forced you know was either extend warranty or face court, i had my lens fried ps3 but also 360 also faces not reading disc problem sometimes that its sadly a Disc based failure and even the wii had (brawl :( was on warranty thank god!).

while true no piece of eletronic is perfect hardly many mass market products have this problems for this long, nokia 5800 have a earpiece problem but was corrected within a month, all 1 million sold to costumer will get free replacements.

it's going for a fourth year and still not so clear microsoft have fixed the problems then again microsoft it's not a hardware company, and their OS isn't good til many patch up.

i hope they fix it before the gen it's over or fix it all, because i expect my consoles to last more than 5 years. or else i will miss out tons of jrpg. :(

This is easily the most thoughtful and reasonable response to this whole topic.

Unfortunately, you will not find the real numbers or, I should say, the last hour of Googling left me not muchv closer to an definitive accurate and unbiased number. A frustration I apparently share with the European Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Dutch consumer protection groups, trade publications and several class action lawsuits still pending.

Putting together an composite of what information is available through retail reports, third party warranty services and a few reluctant admissions from MS [and their estimated losses in earning reports] here is as much as I think you can reasonably say.

The early consoles had a catastrophic failure rate that was almost certainly as high as 33% and for some specific production batches may have been nearer to 60%. The 33% failure rate is based on the statement of the three largest retailers EB Games, Game Stop and Bestbuy and supported by the report of Micromart, Britain’s largest repair shop. It also is supported by the fact that the billion dollar funding set aside by Microsoft for repairs was apparently based on a replacement of 1/3 of every Xbox 360 made up to that point.  A leaked, but never officially denied Microsoft pre-release test run found a 68% failure rate. This did not apparently prevent release without any substantial improvement.

The first hardware modifications  got this fairly quickly down to around 16% but it is unclear to what degree the rate was due to new hardware (Falcon & Jasper) vs refurbished (potted chips etc) older models. In February 2008, an examination of 1040 Xbox 360s by SquareTrade found a 16.4% (one in six) failure rate in a 10 month period. “171 were "disabled", of these 171 units 60% failed due to a general hardware failure (and thus fell under the 3 year extended warranty) of the remaining 40%, not covered by the extended warranty, 18% were disc read errors, 13% were video card failures, 13% were hard drive freezes, 10% were power issues and 7% were disc tray malfunctions.”

On current builds, the RROD problem is probably is down to 5% and possibly a little better but other problems, disk scratching, E74 etc (Wikipedia lists “over 100 technical problems that can render it unusable” – and 85 good reference links) have prevented MS from ever achieving the reliability level of their competitors.*

 The latest problems are a result of the November 2008 "New Xbox Experience" (NXE) update which caused an outbreak of disk reading and HDMI audio problems. Unfortunately the Feb. 2009 audio patch to fix the HDMI problems caused an outbreak of increased E74 & RROD problems for ALL chipsets old and new. (Geez Luise, does it never end?)

Upcoming hardware changes are hoped to finally lay to rest most or all of the systemic problems although the damage to consumer trust may be harder to repair than it would have been if MS had been more forthcoming and less evasive in the face of unprecedented technical problems.

So it can reasonably be claimed that your confidence in purchasing an Xbox 360 can be higher than ever before but almost certainly not yet at a level comparable to the competition.

*Similar figures on the Ps3 and Wii are not easily obtained because, for example, Wikipedia has no listing under “Wii technical problems” or “PS3 technical problems” only “Xbox 360 technical problems”. Apparently both are considered comparable and well within the 3-5% consumer electronic standards. Their repair rates have been listed as <1% or <3% depending on how strictly user mistakes are eliminated. Factors such as crowding of equipment and lack of surge suppressors have significant impact on problem rates. Certainly neither unit is immune to problems but they both seemed to have achieved a commendable reliability rate. A major retailer at the same time as he was admitting, to a 33% return rate on the Xbox was asked what the rate was for the other units and replied  that the failure rate of PS3s was less than one per cent and in all the Wii units sold so far, zero had come back as defective.

@twestern

I've never had a Nintendo console to break. NES, SNES, GCN, N64, Gameboy, 3 GBAs, Wii, DS, Gameboy Color. None of my Sega or Atari systems either Game Gear and Genesis, Jaguar, Jaguar CD, Atari, etc. Never had one to break. And nobody's Nintendo systems that I know of have ever broken either, even the Wii. Heck, I even backed over my GCN with my car because I forgot to put it in the trunk. lol. Just sayin. While every console "can" break, the probability of a 360 eventually having a RROD is much greater than most, which shouldn't be ignored. It's the only reason I've held out on buying one myself. I can just play my roommate's though.

To get your ps3 fixed for free after the warranty scan receipt and change date by importing it into word BINGO!  Now you are covered, I did this for my cousin that had the power supply go out last christmas.  I know this is bad but think about it I saved him 150 dollars and he got his game back that was stuck in the disk drive "resistance 2"

You are dreaming both 360's RRoD on my brother and he is currently on his 4th replacements, the 360 is in no form or fashion in the same league of the quality that is the ps3 or the wii.