360 failure rates estimated at 16 per cent

A new report from US electrical warranties firm SquareTrade claims that the failure rate for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is about 16.4 per cent,

1UP

reports.

The infamous ‘Red Ring of Death’ accounted for 60 per cent of the faulty machines. The stats were gathered from over 1000 warranty claims.

And SquareTrade’s CEO Steve Abernethy believes the failure rate is likely to increase in time: " Xbox 360 failure issues tend to increase with prolonged use where overheating appears the main culprit.”

There was no specific information on how many of the machines used the original 360 motherboard and how many were built using the newer 45nm Xenon chipset.

The firm also stated that it has seen a 3 per cent failure rate on PS3, and next to nothing with Nintendo’s Wii.

Little-known website 8bitjoystick.com in January posted a supposed interview with a source close to Microsoft’s manufacturing division, which claimed 360 failure rates were around 30 per cent.