Am I Just Unlucky?

J

Joni Nitro

Gawd
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Messages
820
So, my Elite died on me today. This is the second Elite and 4th overall Xbox that has taken a dump on me. Thank goodness I have my warranty through BB, which have been pretty about echanging them now questions asked. This was kind of a bitter sweet death though. I am not a hardcore gamer and have always treated my eletronics very well. My 360's have always been laid flat and allowed to breathe easy.

I paid 449 for my Elite back in Dec 07 after the death on my second Pro version. That one lasted about 8mo and I had to exchange due to E74. So I went to exchange this one and they were sold out. I was allowed to exchange it and recieved a BB gift card for 485 dollars. Now, all I have to do is wait for the Elite to hit its 299 price and cash in. I dont cuttently have a PS3, but I will on Sept 1.

So, am I unlucky? The only thing I really loose is my saved games, but oh well. I not mad at MS, but that only because I had a 3rd party warranty.
 
Why would you lose your saved games? If you're doing an exchange through BB, just get them to swap you a console without the hard drive, or get them to transfer the stuff to a memory unit first.

Anyhoo, I doubt you're particularly unlucky. I've had mine die twice, and shipped back to MS for repair. Both times they were back within a week though, so it's not like I've particularly lost time on gaming, considering I've got the PS3 as well.
 
No, you're not unlucky. Up until very recently (Falcon / Jasper models), the failure rates have been ludicrous.

...and yeah, move your stuff to a memory card.
 
Joni Nitro said:
I am not a hardcore gamer and have always treated my eletronics very well. My 360's have always been laid flat and allowed to breathe easy.
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The 360 doesn't care if you offer it a monthly virgin sacrifice. It's still going to RRoD on you.
I dont cuttently have a PS3, but I will on Sept 1.
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Good man.
So, am I unlucky?
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Nope, your normal. Recent polls show 54% failure rate but many people on this forum say it's much higher.
 
Dont get me wrong, I think both systems are nice. Me personally I would still choose the Xbox 360 over a PS3 for game selection and Xbox Live support. I now I pay 50 bucks a year, but come on its less than a buck a week. I have played online with a PS3 and I wasnt impressed, its been a while though.

Well it makes me feel a little better I guess that a lot of people have failures. I knew about the RROD, but I just cant understand how MS can not really say too much about over 50% of thier consoles dying after a year or so of use. My original Xbox was impervious to damage and is still in use.
 
bigdogchris said:
Nope, your normal. Recent polls show 54% failure rate but many people on this forum say it's much higher.
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Uhm no, most people assume a much lower failure rate, around 35% which is still too high, but not that much worse then the predicted fail rate of the PS3. Oh ya BTW I love my PS3 and don't own a 360 so don't throw your PS3 fanboyism at me chris our resident 360 hater.

4 360's seems a bit much, but I hear the newer models are considerably better. If you really want one of the newer units consider grabbing the arcade for 199 and grabbing a hdd off of ebay. then you have a few extra bucks left over for the ps3 and a game or two.
 
Psychotext said:
Many people on this forum seem to think that whichever console they don't like has no games... I wouldn't listen to them on that either. :p
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Climber said:
Uhm no, most people assume a much lower failure rate, around 35% which is still too high, but not that much worse then the predicted fail rate of the PS3. Oh ya BTW I love my PS3 and don't own a 360 so don't throw your PS3 fanboyism at me chris our resident 360 hater.

4 360's seems a bit much, but I hear the newer models are considerably better. If you really want one of the newer units consider grabbing the arcade for 199 and grabbing a hdd off of ebay. then you have a few extra bucks left over for the ps3 and a game or two.
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Check out the hard news thread if you don't believe me. It's nothing about PS3 Love.
 
I checked the news thread. As best I could see, three people (possibly two, one was a long, rambling post which I kinda skipped through) thought it could be higher. Conclusive! (Just like the survey results)

So lets do some basic maths instead.

31m 360s sold. Assume 50% failure rate giving us 15.5m failed 360s. Assume that it costs MS $100 to replace each 360 (it'll be more, but it works)... that covering parts, labour, shipping, customer service etc and multiply that by the number of failed 360s. That would mount up to $1.55bn in costs. Which would have created a $400m hole (they set aside $1.15bn for warranty repairs) in their accounts which they wouldn't be able to cover up.

So no... it's not over 50%


I think I'll leave it there though. For some reason this sort of talk attracts the angrier fanboy (no-one in here yet) and I can't be bothered arguing. :)
 
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1. That gameinformer self reporting survey is bullshit, and anyone using that as a source should be embarrassed.

2. That doesn't mean the xbox doesn't have a ridiculous fail rate. Of my 8 xbox owning friends, the last unfailed just died last week. That's 100% among my friends, 4 of us who have had more than 3 failures.

le sigh







and yes, I realize my informal poll of my friends is just as terribly unscientific as gameinformer polls
 
lol, yea Game Informer gave the same data. My 360 hasnt RROD yet but hey always a possibility, I only play like what 10hrs every 2 months? For the last year lol, so if it RRODs that would suck big time. But no OP i dont think your unlucky because buying a 360 is more like renting one, but hey you made some profit off of it right?
 
I know 1 guy who has had 2 or 3 RRoD but he plays the shit out of the system. I know another guy who is pretty hardcore who's RRoD on him. A third RRoD but I don't know how much he plays. A 4th has not RRoD. He's casual. So that's 80% failure rate of people I know.
 
I'm on my fourth 360 as well, it's a jasper, so it should last. I know 10+ people who also have 360s and everysingle one of them has had at least one failure, most in the 2+ range. My buddy that had a luanch system has returned his at least 6 times, 2 times in the first three months, back then he got free stuff when they shipped back the system. So no you are not unlucky. It amuses me because the original xbox had a lot of failures but they were easily fixable and were gradual.
 
bigdogchris said:
Check out the hard news thread if you don't believe me. It's nothing about PS3 Love.
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I really am boggled. I think less than a handful of people thought the poll could have went higher, but not a single shred of evidence other then I think its higher, the poll itself is not even a survey. It would be like asking my friends, 2 of which have replaced their PS3's and 1 had to replace his Wii, and 1 has sent in his 360 just a month ago. So from that poll of friends the PS3 has the highest failure rate.

But hey, I get a kick out of watching your rabidly try and tear down the 360 every chance you get. It is amusing, sorta like a miniature horse trying to screw a Clydesdale, sad yet funny at the same time.
 
Climber said:
I really am boggled. I think less than a handful of people thought the poll could have went higher, but not a single shred of evidence other then I think its higher, the poll itself is not even a survey. It would be like asking my friends, 2 of which have replaced their PS3's and 1 had to replace his Wii, and 1 has sent in his 360 just a month ago. So from that poll of friends the PS3 has the highest failure rate.
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I can see your logic that the poll may be flawed. I'll give you that. In my experience, 5 of the 6 360's that have been owned by people I know, RRoD. I don't know what else to tell you.

But hey, I get a kick out of watching your rabidly try and tear down the 360 every chance you get. It is amusing, sorta like a miniature horse trying to screw a Clydesdale, sad yet funny at the same time.
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You must of completely missed my post a few days ago, talking about how good of a service Live is and that Microsoft will likely be hard to beat next gen. And I prefer watching midgets hump.
 
Oh, and back to the OP. I do the dead 360 stats over at NeoGAF, and there's one person there who has had 13 of them... THAT'S unlucky. :D
 
bigdogchris said:
And I prefer watching midgets hump.
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Midgets creep me out. Honest.

Oh, and back to the OP. I do the dead 360 stats over at NeoGAF, and there's one person there who has had 13 of them... THAT'S unlucky.
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either the guy is a glutton for punishment or else he really loves the 360, but no way am I getting something that breaks down that much.
 
Psychotext said:
Oh, and back to the OP. I do the dead 360 stats over at NeoGAF, and there's one person there who has had 13 of them... THAT'S unlucky. :D
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That is just sad. I would have booted the thing on the 3rd failure. Maybe even the 2nd and I don't care if its a free replacement either. I shouldn't have to worry about my electronic equipment spontaneously combusting.
 
Not unlucky, just gamed by Microsoft.

Of the four people I visit (to play Forza 2, mostly) who have Xbox360, 3 of them have had RRoD, one of them is on his third system.

I mean, Xbox360 has tons of great games but the unit itself is an unadulterated piece of shit.

Fuck the 'numbers', I'm tired of reading incorrect stats.

Piece. Of. Shit.
 
tirminyl said:
That is just sad. I would have booted the thing on the 3rd failure. Maybe even the 2nd and I don't care if its a free replacement either. I shouldn't have to worry about my electronic equipment spontaneously combusting.
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I'm not sure why he bothered either. Maybe he got to the point where he found it amusing? :D
 
im always surprised with these high numbers, sometimes i think it has something to do with countries and stuff... My first rev 360 is still fine, my falcon elite is also fine, and a couple of coworkers with xboxes also had no RRoDs. On top of that, the whole disc scratching thing got blown up pretty big in the media over here (holland), the RRoD received far less attention.

And yes i realize my anecdotal evidence is pointless, but so is the 54% data from that internet poll, the sample size is relatively small, and the sample method is highly questionable (i personally couldnt be bothered about a poll, unless i felt strongly about it, say if my 360 RRoDed), and there is no verification of the data, it could be 2000 actual xbox owners and 3000 ps3 fanboys with a grudge... (i realize the 3000 number is purely pulled out of my ass, but i dont think every single reply was truthfull)

Anyway, microsoft is pretty cool about the 3 year warranty for RRoDs in my opinion, just send your dead ones to MS without the hard drive... might take a little while, but you keep your saves and such (and i personally would just try to pick up an old core 360 or so..)
 
You are not alone.

I bought a LaunchDay Pro unit in October 2005.............about once a year my unit has RROD'd.
All refurbished by Microsoft without a question......that makes three units.

Last week my latest, now out of any warranty, had the DVD drive go out.......so I'm fixing that unit myself.

I just bought a Refurbished Elite and hooked it up last night.......here we go again.
At least this new one has a RROD warranty until 2012.

I am very surprised by the failure rate on these units......I'd think some improved heat sink design would be helpful..........but it's never happened.
 
magoo said:
I am very surprised by the failure rate on these units......I'd think some improved heat sink design would be helpful..........but it's never happened.
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The newest model is fine... but that doesn't help the 25+ million people out there with the old ones. :D
 
Going on #1 still and my 2 other friends with 360s are still on their first ones also. With Xbox 360s, I think it is just the luck of the draw. With 3 RRODs I say go buy a lotto ticket :D
 
I think of it this way. Just take the number reported. Okay, if it's way beyond the real rate of failure, would MS go out with a press-release denying the false higher number, and if it were about right or even too low, would MS sit back like quiet little mice?

Listen... do you hear that? Me neither.
 
They've never commented on this sort of thing... just like they never comment on rumours etc.

By commenting on this, all they'd do is give real news organisations a chance to report that MS has denied the 50%+ failure rate. That wouldn't be smart.
 
I have two 360's ,one from launch day (Oct 2005 build) and another from July 2007, the Launch unit has been repaired twice for RROD and the 2007 unit has been repaired once due to RROD.
 
I had a 360 , that we never played much from launch. but it RROD'd while playing Mass effect after the extended warranty. I ended up just buying an arcade unit tho.
 
Damn, my brother plays our 360 that we bought around the time Oblivion came out for at least 4-6 hours a day (yeah, he's a freak) and it hasn't broken yet. Maybe we're lucky
 
Out of the 7 people I know who have 360s none have ever died...even when we've attempted to towelmod them.
 
I've owned a 360 arcade unit for a year and a half with a decent amount of use (now sold to a buddy of mine) and never had an issue... also have a friend on his original launch console and has had no issues. However, my brother-in-law had his RROD and know a few others that have had it happen more than once.

It's pretty sad that it's this many revisions later and they still have problems with it (I've heard of it happening on the newer models as well as the old ones). On the flipside, at least they stand behind it and give you a good warranty which is probably why most people will keep coming back.

3 friends of mine have all had their ps3 drives take a crap on them. One sent it in to get fixed for, i believe, $100.00 or so. The other two were out of warranty and bought new ones
 
personally I believe that every single Zypher board and Xenon board will bite the bullet in fairly short order. I have had 2 2007 consoles bite the bullet both of them elites. i said screw it and replaced both of them with jasper based arcades and swapped drives.
 
schenksmill said:
Why would you lose your saved games? If you're doing an exchange through BB, just get them to swap you a console without the hard drive, or get them to transfer the stuff to a memory unit first.

Anyhoo, I doubt you're particularly unlucky. I've had mine die twice, and shipped back to MS for repair. Both times they were back within a week though, so it's not like I've particularly lost time on gaming, considering I've got the PS3 as well.
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Unless it goes to a Rapid Exchange for a Refurbished X-Box 360, you should not be getting your old HDD back. If they have given it to you in the past, your really lucky.

If you get a new X-Box in-store, technically you have to turn in everything for the new system.
 
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