^^LOL. The Wii is a phenomenon. The HD consoles are pretty much par for the course in terms of console sales.

This thread is about sales, I meant "worse" in terms of sales.

The average person has not even heard of RRoD. I think RRoD is a bigger issue for 'gaming proponents' on whatever side of the spectrum they side with.

I think the cluttered menu system of the 360 is a bigger potential handicap for new (and very unexperienced) users than RRoD.

Not really, not if you take them together at least. See this thread for the reason:

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=0&id=26420

^^There is a 2.3 mil difference but I would attribute that to Sony's awful start than anything.

How can you people think something failing 1 in 3... that's 1 in 3!!! is something people don't know about?

Look up mainstream electronics failure rates, and see how far ahead the 360 is compared to everything else. This was a story that hit the front page of every major market news website at some point. It's been talked about on just about every TV news station.

It's not just something gamers know about.

As for HD sales, the "HD consoles" collectively have more market then the Wii. if the 360 was not a pice of shit from a build quality perspective, it would have most all of that market.

The 360 is a great game machine, when it works.

I'm with NJ5 on this one. The Red Ring of Death (if I remember the abbrevation correctly) is not really a big reason for most people not to buy an Xbox 360. People may be aware of it, but the percieved quality of a console is not based on how long it holds together or how well built it is, but on the experiences it produces.

You do not buy a Playstation 3 because it's a good piece of hardware that will last. The same way you do not avoid buying an xbox because you think it might break down.

This is the main reason I do not think that the sales for Microsofts console would be much higher if it had not had this breakdown problem.

Besides, the Playstation is still lagging behind 5 million or so (too lazy to actually calculate the correct number), and xbox sales are up by a lot from the last generation (25 million or so then, total, right?). So I cannot say rushing it out there was really such a bad move.

All I can say if RRoD didnt exsist I know I would have a nice 360 and a copy of Viva Pinata, but as it is I dont want the hassle So guess it will eventally be PS3 and LBP.

Oh, one more thing:

If hardware reliability is so important, why were the first two Playstation consoles so successful?

I owned both PlayStations and never had one fail completely. The disc drive became fickle but I would just have to keep discs immaculate and that was long after its prime.