RRoD is an acronym that literally sends chills up and down the spines of faithful Xbox 360 owners.
Otherwise known as the Red Ring of Death — a condition in which the normally green LEDs on the front panel of the Xbox 360 turn into a ghastly red ring–which basically means the game console is unquestionably dead and has gone to game console heaven.
The actual figure of failure rates for the game consoles have been heavily debated among gamers and Microsoft. While it seems that every 360 owner knows at lease three or four people with machines that have given up the ghost, Microsoft claims that the failure rate is much lower and hovers in the neighborhood of only 3%.
But according to a survey held by a company called SquareTrade, who deals with selling additional warranty services for electronics, the failure rate of the Xbox 360 related to the Red Ring of Death clocks in at 60% of all 360 warranty claims.
Steve Abernethy, CEO of SquareTrade, said he expects the incidents of failure for the Xbox 360 will increase as time goes on. "It is reasonable to believe these failure rates will increase over time, since the Xbox 360 failure issues tend to increase with prolonged use where overheating appears the main culprit."
Abernethy estimates that most of the problems occurs with Xbox 360s that had the original motherboard versions installed in the game console. Microsoft has since claimed that the newer models of their 360s offer new and improved hardware which addresses the problems.
The data SquareTrade gathered was from a sampling of approximately a thousand warranty claims sent into them by game console owners. In comparison only 3% of game PS3 owners sent in console warranty claims with the Wii game machine only tallying a few hundred. It should be noted that some warranty services were under policies that included accidental damage coverage.
Whether or not the 60% failure rates attributed to RRoD is accurate or not, it seems that a great number of Xbox 360 owners have either experienced some sort of mechanical or electrical problems or personally know gamers that have experienced these problems.
What have been your experiences with the Xbox 360? How long have you owned it and have you had to return it for repairs? If so, what was wrong?
[via 1UP]
