Sony’s PS3 beats Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in reliability
By Ruben Francia
If we are to believe all the claims made by the companies about their products, then Sony’s PS3 is apparently more reliable than Microsoft’s Xbox 360. At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering, disclosed that the failure rate of PS3 consoles is 0.02%.
This failure rate puts Sony well ahead of Microsoft, which has said that the failure rate of the Xbox 360 is “well within industry standards” of 3 to 5%.
Microsoft, however, has declined to disclose specific failure rates, even in the light of Internet reports that suggest the Xbox 360 failure rate is between 25-33%. This, however, hasn’t stopped the company from doing things to address Xbox 360 failure rate issues, including offering free-of-charge repairs on all machines manufactured in 2005, refund on all paid repairs of its launch units; an extension of warranties from 90-days to one year; and the replacement or repair of out-of-warranty units at discounted price.
Right now, there is an on going perception, that seems to be rooted in reality, that the Xbox 360 is less reliable than the PS3. That perception won’t be easy to change, even with the best marketing strategy.
Clearly, Microsoft has to do something about its hardware, and that is exactly what seems to be happening with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company disclosing that Microsoft has begun using cheaper and cooler-running 90 nanometer RAM for the Xbox 360, to possibly help reduce the number of machine failures.
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August 16th, 2007
What an assload of FUCK!!!
August 17th, 2007
Xbox 360 reliability is zero as nothing. Xbox President Peter Moore even offered an apology in addition to extend its console warranty to 3 years.
Moore said: “If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.”
What a suck. Microsoft thinks it can buy good experience by increasing Xbox 360 warranty. No way. I consider Xbox as a junk. period.
August 17th, 2007
In reply to reube:
You can hardly call the 360 junk. It has an over heating problem and seeing as MS has hardly been in this business for very long you can’t really blame them for making mistakes. Nintendo made mistakes like the virtual boy, but now just look at the wii. And the 360 over heating problem can be solved by MS including two heatsinks, which is what they are including in xbox 360 elites in europe. So in future it is almost certain they will do the same for the other SKUs considering they have set aside 1 billion dollars to rectify the problem, I doubt they will want to have to do this again so they are probably very much fixing this problem and includint two heatsinks.
And to be quite honest im quite chuffed with the 3 year warranty, MS even sends you free stuff back as an apology like a gold live membership, hardly a generous action I would expect from sony. And considering the 360 is out selling the ps3 every where by quite a large margin except Japan, I think that it can hardly be called junk.
August 17th, 2007
Sony never did anything about the PS2. The PS3 just hasn’t been out long enough (or played enough at that) to really claim a number. Sony’s just using the fail rate M$ has against them.
August 17th, 2007
@sonicguy
http://vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=488
Playstation 3 has been kicking the 360’s ass in the past weeks.
August 17th, 2007
You are a complete moron sonicguy.
Don’t try using the excuse that MS is relatively new to the console market as reasoning to mass produce a faulty product.
Why even bring up the virtual boy, as I remember it didnt have a 33% failure rate. Dont try shifting blame to sony and nintendo, MS F’ed up, face it.
But you appear to be to busy deep throating Bill Gates slong to view things with any perspective at all.
August 17th, 2007
I’m sure this news is a great relief for all warehouse mangers.
January 13th, 2009
Sony never did anything about the PS2.
Yes, they did. They fixed the DRE on my launch console for free.
As for 360, its the biggest hardware disaster in console history. Why people continue to support that ***hole of a company even though they knowingly released a defective console just to get a market lead over sony is beyond me. Don’t kid yourself, they knew the 360 was faulty. But their greed came first and decided they’d just fix the problem later. As long as they got a substantial lead over sony, tahst allt hey cared about. You only have to take a look at the original Xbox to realise that the 360 was going to be a horrible piece of hardware though.
I came so close to getting a 360 on launch, but I’m glad I didn’t. PS3 was definitely the right choice, getting all the multi-platform games 360 gets as well as having far more first and second party exclusives. Not to mention ist built for the long term, whereas 360 has obviously been maxed out judging by Gears 2.
January 13th, 2009
“Sony never did anything about the PS2. The PS3 just hasn’t been out long enough (or played enough at that) to really claim a number. Sony’s just using the fail rate M$ has against them”
Classic example of a blindly loyal xbot. Defending a 30% failure rate is both sad and pathetic.
Look, MS don’t give a **** about you. They don’t give a **** about any of their consumers, which is why they released a console that they knew full well was defective just so they could get a market lead over Sony.
They just decided they’d make a half-a**ed attempt to solve the problem later, after millions of mugs had already brought their 360s.
And whoever used MS being new to the console market as an excuse for their failures, please shut up. Rememeber PSX? That was Sony’s first foray into the console market and never had a 30% failure rate. Quite the opposite actually, I still have my launch PSX and it still works perfectly(although I haven’t used it in years).
April 19th, 2009
@ sonicguy
So, almost 2 years after your post… the xbox 360 keeps failing a lot, and now it has new errors!
It seems that 1 billion of $ were not enough.
October 4th, 2009
Again, a lucky red ring of death means you receive a package from the Xbox stork — however, if you are suffering from any other problem, instead of a 3 year warranty, you’ll be working on the original warranty of your first Xbox, the one that crapped out. In other words (words that your Xbox rep will try to make seem a little less painful), when you receive your replacement Xbox, which should, by all means, be fixed in entirety and without problem, you are working on the 1 year warranty that came with your original Xbox — Microsoft won’t stand behind their replacement consoles.
At this point, customers are presented 1 single option: pay Microsoft $100 to have their consoles repaired. When asked what parts will be replaced in this very blanket $100 fee, customer service representatives as well as their supervisors can’t document the replacements that will be made. Obviously, that would be very difficult; they don’t know what needs to be fixed, so how can they tell you what is going to be replaced, right?
In reality, Microsoft could simply be receiving consoles for “repairs,” reboxing them and sending them to their owners, no repairs made. After all, if you didn’t have a red ring, it could be user error — at the rate that red rings pop up, users could have their consoles stop functioning before they ever know Microsoft didn’t make a single repair.
Here’s the real kicker: when you send your 360 in for “broad” repairs (that can’t be listed, but can certainly be charged for), you are given a 1 year warranty — the warranty you should have received when you get a replacement console.
November 19th, 2009
XBOX360 makes me wanna do a 360 and kick it out a window cuz its junk fuck u bill gates and fuck you Microsoft fucking rich fuckers…..they knew that the xbox would frry…yet they sent it out anyway u dident see them rush the ps3 out now did you and i dont have to pay to use my own internet >.>