I remember plenty of people playing with their Playstations upside down, and people rebuying PS2s due to the disc read error.

          You say "people", I said "the average person".

          The average person probably hasn't heard of the 360, much less RRoD.

           >> if the 360 was not a pice of shit from a build quality perspective, it would have most all of that market.<<

           If you really think that, you are in serious denial of why people are buying up the Wii in hordes.

           RRoD is a problem with the gaming enthusiasts.   The 360 "design and games" represents the best of what 2004 had to offer.

The PS1 and PS2 were nowhere near as unreliable as the XBOX 360 , and on top of that several other factors contribute to the success of the PS1&PS2.

I would really like to think "no" but I had the RROD and never got it fixed (happened before the warranty extension) and recommend against buying one to every single person I know. There are probably more like me. I might rebuy someday, but I would still never recommend.

You may be right, but I haven't seen the statistics so I don't know. However, the PS and PS2 were IMO unreliable enough to justify asking this question... It seems that people don't care that much about reliability (maybe partly because most people don't know about it before buying their consoles).

^^Well the internet is far more prevalent now than back in the day as well. Information travels a lot faster. And is readily available.

far better? yes and for a number of reason:

• a lot of potential buyers are still worried for RROD even if with falcon this issue has almost disapperaed...I, for instance, know that probably by now failure rate is less than 5/10% but nevertheless plan to buy an x360 only when the next revision comes out (45nm)
• here in Italy x360 cannot be easily spotted in shops...and when you find one chances are that is a non-falcon (i suspect that MS is using smaller markets to clear out old-rev consoles)
• RROD costed MS 1B$...money that could have been better spent on:
  • price drops
  • marketing & commercials
    
  • exclusives
  • game developement

that said x360 still managed to succeed in 2 fields where the 1st xbox failed:

• gaining major support from game devs
• make some profit

i would have got a 360 but......

I dont think it would effect it that much. While the gaming populous cares a lot about this, the normal consumer may never hear about this. His/her best source of knowledge is his/her friends or someone in a store. They might hear about some problems, but it's questionable how many, and how would it effect their purchase.

I think in the long run rushing the system worked for Microsoft. It allowed them to get a head start and hurt Sony early on (which is their plan). It attracted third party support and had more people buy the system early on rather then wait for a PS3. Whil many people will look at the fact that Sony is selling more then Microsoft, they have had to do it at a cost by lowering the price (were it still 600-500$ it would still be sitting on the shelves). Since Sony is in for a profit, it hurts them as they can't make up the money spent on the system. Third parties wont make as many games and people wont buy as many accessories.

In the end, Microsoft accomplished their goal. Also, they looked at tyhe PS2 and saw a good reason for it's success was it released really early on which is what Microsoft was banking on. I think gamers care about the red ring but most consumers will still buy the system.

They'd still have me as a customer if they did...

On topic I hardly doubt it would of made that much of a difference. The first 360's went to die hard Xbox fanboys and when their console RRoD's they just get another. RRoD isn't well known to the common consumer. Most people at retailers for videogames either don't know about it or won't tell you unless you ask spcifacally about it (mention to word RRoD). All in all the 360 is prob doing far superior than anyone expected. The only drawback is sense Playstation isn't winning M$ thinks they are entitled to everyone else's money.