You'd still have to do a custom heatsink/fan replacement for the CPU/GPU if you wanted it to be absolutely reliable.

Although a Jasper chipset with a roomier case and better airflow alone would probably do the trick to avoid overheating. Even so, it would mostly be a hobby kit/novelty thing for the Xbox fan with multiple Xboxes. They're really not that expensive to replace anyway unless you get a RRoD/E74 failure every year or more. Then it's mostly just an inconvenience.

Pretty redundant. The core point mentioned holds true for most electronics.

I suspect PS3 does fail more than some imagine (certainly mine has!) but it seems unlikely to me that Sony would be able to dodge the trouble MS had if they were roughly equal in failure rate.

Clearly, the evidence suggests the PS3 remains much less susceptible to failure than the 360.

The same article does say that since lead in solders was forbidden from usage, solders are less reliable, and last less than the solder used 10 years ago. More performance, more heat, less space, less lead, more failure.

My atari2600, commodore 64, genesis, neo geo and saturn still function without having broken down once.. and some of those machines are over 15-20 yrs old.. I dont see why the ps360 shd be any different...

Mostly it simply boils down to the thermal output of both the CPUs and the GPUs used by both. They both use 3.2ghz processors although it's important to note that it's typically the GPU that's responsible for hardware failure.

Just compare PCs from say ten years ago and take a look at the heat sinks used by the fastest CPUs at the time. Nothing more than sliced aluminum blocks with no integrated fans. Discrete video card GPUs used tiny fans that today would be used simply to cool the Northbridge memory controller.

Compare those with many of the aftermarket cooling solutions being used today by CPUs clocked at 3.2ghz and above, which range from stacks of copper or aluminum fins 120mm wide or larger, with 120mm integrated fans and multiple copper heat pipes to liquid cooled systems with external radiator tanks.

While the lead free solder virtually guarantees lower life spans for high heat connections, much of the failure has to do more with cooling systems that simply aren't overengineered to last ten plus years.

Because the rate of complexity and price pressure in consumer electronics has outstripped improvements in fault tolerant design and component robustness maybe? The same reason why my grandparents wood case tv lasted 30 yrs and modern tv's are lucky to last 10? This is also why safety critical systems such as aircraft flight computers and most airborne military hardware uses some seriously outdated electronics based technology.

True

Microsoft profits every year with billions of dollars- I really dont see price pressure striking them. As for advancing tech, PC's are more advanced than consoles but they rarely go kaput the way most 360's go.. and they use 3-6 times more power. Its a lame excuse to say technology is advancing so fast that these companies cannot keep pace. I bought a PC around the same time a 360 launched.. an athlon X2 in a mini tower case.. and its running A ok.. it runs for 12+ hrs a day 7 days a week. Im on my second 360 in less than half the time. I think that speaks volumes for the quality we are getting in our consoles offlate. And accepting it as NORMAL and UNAVOIDABLE. Now thats truly pathetic.

... yes but it is cheap...

I think this held true for the early models, I would not be suprised if we compared failure rates since the introduction of the models that reportedly corrected the problem with PS3 failure rates over the same time frame it may be another story.

What does seem to be true is whether you own the 360 or the PS3 the level of failure is high when compared to other electrical consumer products. The PS3 failures seem to be gathering pace lately which seems to suggest the components fatigue is starting to bite eating away at the early reliability of the PS3. Unfortunately or luckily for PS3 owners it is unlikely to ever reach the catastrophic failure that forced Microsoft to bung a bil to one side and spend so much of designing the issue out.