You're ignoring a factor in your long-term prediction.  While MS may or may not have addressed all issues that can contribute to the RROD, they have taken steps over time to attenuate the problem: an additional heatsink has been added, the CPU is now contributing less to the total heat of the system, and they have improved the conductivity points regarding the heatsink.

If you were to actually have a reliable way to graph this, you would see the failure rate declining while the total failure count declines as well.

Unless you have hard data that shows how effective or ineffective MS' steps to improve the situation have been, when those steps where taken, how many of the older units were still on shelves when they were taken, etc., then you have no way to reliably predict what the total failure percentage will be over the life of the product.  Common sense, however, would tend to dictate that the total failure rate is dropping and has been dropping for some period of time unless every attempt to improve the heat-sink issue has had zero effect, and I seriously doubt that anyone posting on this site has data that demonstrates such a thing.

Yes, you have a point, and I should have covered that a little more carefully. As I said, the newer 360s may be more reliable -- on the short term, at least, if not the long term -- but only time will tell if Microsoft's efforts have made a significant difference. If the new 360s are more reliable on the long term, then the failure rate for the console as a whole (for its lifetime) will drop, but the initial machines will still be hugely unreliable, and they will continue fail for the life-time of the 360.

Yes, we could assume that Microsoft's engineers have got it right this time. But, then again, I would have assumed they had it right the first time around, and I would have been wrong.

The same arguement you throw at me could be returned to you: Unless you have hard data to show how effective or ineffecitive MS's steps to improve the situation have been on the long term life of the console, then you have no way to predict what the total failure percentage will be for the life of the product. You state common sense says one thing, I'd argue that common sense says no such thing. Common sense seems to suggest we should be cautious, and wait to see what happens, not that we should trust Microsoft's console-building skills.

Just because many hope Microsoft have resolved the issue on the long term does not mean they have. However, give it a few years; we'll all know in the end.

The only 360 I saw that had RRoD are those in the Internet and the past 360s I had. If only ice doesn't melt I would've put a f*kin 360 inside an Ice Box.

I can't say I've seen it happen with my own two eyes, but a close friend of mine had it happen to him, a little bit after his birthday in fact, which made it even funnier. His was the only one that I know it happened to, out of 4 people who I know with a 360. He got it back quickly though, 2.5 weeks, so that was good. And he had other things to play (PS2/Wii/DS) so he was all right (but he loves his 360 the most).

I have seen two,one was a 360 from a cousin,it gets RROD only two days after buying it,recently one very best friend of mine get RROD,poor fellow,he does not what he going to do in his free time meanwhile Microsoft's service repair his 360,here in Mexico it's kind slow the service,from two weeks to two months O_O

And by the way,I'm not lying when I say that I don't buy a 360 because the RRODs troubles,I'm very happy with my PS3,I don't even imagine the possibility of a malfunction with my beloved system,I got to buy a Wii,because the games that I want and the proven reliability of the Wii,I don't want to buy problems,there´re at least three games in the 360's catalog that I want (Bioshock,Gears of War 1&2 and Ninja Gaiden 2)but I prefer go to a rent store here in Mexico and rent a system for some hours to end the games(they're very popular,this kind of service replace the arcades here already)

Many people argue about the 360's long warranty,yeah.....and what the hell are going to happen later,when the support ends?do you think that the system will not RROD after three years?it will do more probably because the use by that time,and I'm going to pay from my wallet to repair something that I already know that it can broke?No thanks,Microsoft shoot himself in the feet,they got a great opportunity with the huge and quality of their game catalog,but they screw that chance with a bad and early designed hardware.

That's one of the reasons I don't buy a 360,I'm very satisfied with the games that are incoming to my PS3,the franchises I love,and the reliability that I enjoy.

I've had 2 rrod's myself, before I decided to trade it in for something useful. I've also seen numerous rrod's appear on the forums of GH where good old Gazz is Super mod and active behind the scenes. With over 7 million unique visitors a month I come across quite a lot of them. Funny enough GH's forums are completely inactive and this site is overflowing with tons of posts with way less members.

ive seen quite a few, maybe 3? veryone that has a 360 has gotten it once

I've seen two, both happened to display consoles that were set up, one at Gamestop and another I saw at Wal-mart.

My console RROD'ed

My friend 360s rrod-ed twice.