Xbox 360 Game Console Failure Rate Reaches 23 Percent

Research carried out by independent warranty provider, SquareTrade, found out that nearly a quarter of Microsoft's popular Xbox 360 gaming console have failed during the last 24 months.

The data compiled from warranty claims made by 16,000 game console owners found out that the Xbox 360 outclassed its rivals by a wide margin; 10 percent of Sony's Playstation 3 console owners had to be repaired and around one in every 40 Nintendo Wii consoles ever have encountered reliability issues.

SquareTrade's report comes a few weeks after a similar survey by Game Informer found out that more than half of Xbox 360 game consoles had actually failed at some point.

Both sets of data included figures about about the infamous Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death" which accounts for a significant proportion of failures.

PS3s problems were related to their hard disk drives and content output while Wiimote and Power supply issues plagued the Nintendo Wii console. Still this pales in comparison with the RROD epidemic that hit Microsoft.

SquareTrade also reported that during in a 24-hour period, the Xbox 360 was four times more likely to fail compared to the Wii. But there might be a simple explanation for the huge gap; Xbox 360 users use their consoles more frequently than Wii owners.

Over 24 months, an Xbox 360 owner used his console for 17.6 days while a Nintendo Wii game accumulated only 8.6 days worth of gaming time.