Wii tops reliability survey

A new study from SquareTrade claims that the Nintendo Wii is by far and away the most reliable console in the current generation of machine – and Xbox 360 is unsurprisingly named as the most prone to failure.

The report, named Game Console Failure Rates, claims that just 2.7 per cent of Wii owners have reported a technical problem with their machine.

In comparison, 10 per cent of PS3 users have reported fatal errors with their hardware. Bottom of the pile, however, was Xbox 360, with a reported failure rate pegged at 23.7 per cent.

Interestingly, only half of those with faulty Xbox 360s are said to have suffered the infamous ‘Red Ring of Death’. Disc read issues and ‘output errors’ were the most common problems on both Xbox 360 and PS3.

A bit more stat crunching also came up with a ‘failure rate per 24 hours’. Xbox 360 was again named the least reliable, with a 1.35 per cent chance of failure for every 24 hours played.

In contrast, PS3 has a 0.5 per cent chance of failure and the Wii 0.31 per cent.