MS Extends 360 Warranty to 1yr for ALL Owners (1 Viewer)

[Bryan X]

Microsoft today announced that it is extending the warranty for the Xbox 360 from 90 days to 1 year to match Sony and Nintendo. The extended warranty applied to all present and future owners. Nice!

 

[harryk]

Nice! I just hope i dont have to use it

 

[Steve Y]

This is a great move by MS. I'm rooting for the 360 (it has some amazing games now, and the online component is very robust), but its failure rate has been so abysmal that it's forced customers into "extended warranties". 90 days was a joke, considering the failures. An amazingly high percentage of people I know have had to return their machines at least once. It's one of the reasons I don't want to buy a 360 any time soon - if I wanted a machine that would spontaneously crash and refuse to function, I'd try to build my own PC from scratch.

 

[Bryan X]

Has the failure rate really been any higher than it was for the PS, PS2, Xbox, etc? It's easy to surf the web and get the impression that a particular item will break if you look at it wrong. Only the ones with bad machines post about it, and all. But is there any official data on the failure rate?

I'm hoping the 360 gains a lot of market share on Sony too. I really think the PS3's price is going to hurt it in the long run (unless they cut it, of course). And Sony's inability to get many of these to market is hurting too.

The big surprise for me is the Wii. More than the PS3 the Wii seems to be generating a lot of talk, which is telling. I love my 360 and walked away from a stack of 12 PS3s last week at my local Wal-Mart. But I just couldn't resist picking up a Wii yesterday when that same Wal-Mart received 3. You can't beat the price and I think the selection of games will complement my 360. Lack of many 'family-friendly' games on the 360 has been the biggest problem for me. I love Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc. But it's nice to have some less-serious, just-for-fun games. I think the Wii will fit that niche quite nicely.

 

[Steve Y]

Exactly, Bryan. The Wii seems to be generating buzzier, more mainstream talk from non-gamers... those people with square 30" TVs and no interest in war games. I have yet to see one Wii in stores, and when they arrive nowadays it's generally in batches less than five.

The stereotype is that the other next-gen systems are just for flashy combat games played online by young males. Sony and MS aren't doing much to dissuade this stereotype, since the two most acclaimed games for the PS3 and the 360 are in fact gun-based war games played online. (Resistance: Fall of Man and Gears of War)

MS has its own failure numbers, they are claiming a 3-5% failure rate for the Xbox 360. But some people in the industry are crying foul at this estimate, claiming it's closer to 20-30%, which is a substantial difference obviously. Here's a link - pretty interesting article actually.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13636

Many people have had zero problems with their console (so far)... but I'd be sitting on eggshells if I owned one, since there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the failures. It just stops working. Many times I've read posts that began, "I thought I was one of the lucky ones without a broken console. Well last night I tried turning on the console and got the ring of death... time to contact MS..."

It's funny (or actually not, if you paid money for it) that the game "Dead Rising" has allegedly caused many systems to overheat and, well... become "dead".

 

[Bryan X]

I've heard the same claim about Gears of War.

So far my 360 is OK. But I had problems with both my PS and PS2.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Official press release by Microsoft.

 

[TonyTone]

I don't have any hard numbers to offer, but OTOH I can offer my personal experiences regarding game console failure--I own both a PS2 (original and slimline versions) and a 360. My original PS2 is still going strong ever since I bought it back in 11/99, other than it has a little trouble reading blue-coated (i.e., non-DVD games) discs every now and then (problem started showing up on my console about a year ago IIRC). OTOH, my 360--bought last late December 2005 (build date 12/6/05)--just died on me a little over a week ago (infamous 3 red lights).

You want to hear something funny? When I brought the 360 to UPS in order to have it shipped back, the clerk recognized the package as a 360 repair...even though the 360 was in a nondescript cardboard box (i.e., no printing on the box that would give away that there was any sort of electronic equipment inside) and the shipping label didn't have "Microsoft" or "Xbox" or something similar printed on it. I asked the clerk as to how he knew my package was for 360 repairs; he said that he sees plenty of them come through his terminal that he can easily recognize the return address.

 

[Bryan X]

I appreciate your experience, but we can't make generalizations about systems by our own limited anectdotes (mine included). Your 360 failed and PS2 lives on. My PS and PS2 died and my 360 lives on (and no one else I know has had to send their 360 back either).

I don't doubt there are 360 failures, and they may very well be above 'normal'. But I imagine actual failure numbers would be very difficult to come by as I would think Microsoft would want to hold those close to the vest.

Interesting story about the UPS guy, too. But I'm not sure that tells us anything either. Perhaps he's a 'techy' guy and therefore is interested in this sort of thing, making him more likely to pick up on the address. I don't know.

Regardless, it's a good thing Microsoft has extended the warranty. It makes me feel better even though mine is running fine.