XBox Fox

No xbox 360 problems? Then count yourself as one of the blessed ones. With a failure rating of more then 50%, most consumers have undergone at least one issue with their console.

The problems range from disks being scratched, to “bricking”, or possibly perhaps the “Red Ring of Death”. Some issues like games freezing can be annoying, but most people often take on them.

Have you been playing your favorite game on your Xbox, and abruptly it freezes up on you? You reset the console to only find that it freezes yet again. Taking out the disk you find that there are now scuff marks on it. Unfortunately, this is common with this console. As many as 1 in 9 consoles positioned flat, and 3 in 9 positioned on their sides have scratched disks. This is due most often to two issues, a pad lost near the reader in the disk drive, or the drive not securing the disk in place before running.

Another issue Xbox 360′s have is “bricking”. “Bricking” is a term used within the field due to the brick pattern of most electronics. Since a brick is useless when it comes to gadgets, when items like a game console, DVD player or equivalent quits, it’s said “useless as a brick”. Some dashboard changes have caused “bricking”. The only fix for this is to check with Microsoft to see about an exchange or repair your Xbox 360. If the console is not in the period of warranty, the repair can cost anywhere from $99 and upward.

The common problem with Xbox 360′s is the “Red Ring of Death”. The name for this issue is derived from the three red lights that are on near the power light in the front of the console, forming a red ring. This is as a result of either a general hardware crash or a main digital failure. Either of these conditions is not good. Both need your console to be presented to Microsoft for fix or replacement. The average time to receive one after fix is eight weeks. Due to the rate of occurrence of this issue, Microsoft elongated the 1-year warranty that these units came with to 3 years from date of purchase.

Because of the frequency of failures with the Xbox 360, there have been several lawsuits made. The first was immediately after the release of the console. Second was filed in November of 2006, only about a year after release. This lawsuit was because of the “bricking” that was encountered after the November 1, 2006 release of a dashboard fix.

The most recent class action lawsuit filed against Microsoft was in October of 2008 by Californian buyers. The filers claim that Microsoft knowingly manufactured faulty consoles and that they refused to release the actual failure rates of the consoles.

Xbox 360′s too often have troubles. In an industry where only 3-5% is a reasonable failure rating, a rating of over 50% is very high! What happened to the game consoles that lasted for years and years without any problems what so ever?