Report: Wii is most reliable console; 360 has highest failure rate

[wraggster]

The Wii is the most reliable console on the market with only 2.7 per cent of owners reporting a system failure compared to 23.7 per cent of Xbox 360 owners, according to an independent report published by warranty provider SquareTrade.

In the study, which covered just the three current-generation home consoles, the PlayStation 3 came out between its two rivals with malfunctions reported by 10 per cent of owners.

It also determined that the Xbox 360's failure rate couldn't be attributed solely to the much-publicised 'Red Ring of Death' hardware issue covered by Microsoft's three-year warranty, since 11.7 per cent of Xbox 360 owners reported different problems.

The study, conducted by the US-based independent warranty provider, randomly selected 16,000 games consoles under its SqaureTrade Warranty for analysis.

As well as looking at failure numbers, it also compared usage amounts, which concluded the PlayStation 3 was the most used of the three home consoles.

Owners used the Sony console for an average of 19.9 days over 24 months, compared to 17.6 days for Xbox 360 and just 8.6 days for Wii.

Breaking down this data into failure rate per 24 hours, the study concluded the 360 was still the least reliable with a 1.35 per cent chance of failure (0.67 per cent excluding RROD), while the PS3 came out at 0.50 per cent and the Wii 0.31 per cent.

Disc read errors and output issues were the most common reported among both PS3 and Xbox 360 owners, while the Wii had more remote control issues than the other two systems.

The report did acknowledge however that the introduction to the Xbox 360 of the Jasper chipset in late 2008 has now "likely solved" the RROD issue.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-failure-rate

[havoc_012]

All nintendo consoles are made of nintendium, the strongest element in the universe. No wonder they never break.

[ojdon]

I've had two Wii Disk drives fail on me. D: And I have had 2 RROD's. But one of them randomly fixed after a week. But yeah, None of these new generation consoles are as reliable as they were a few generations back mainly because the companies behind them are after money more than quality.

[PoorKingz]

Well the Wii doesn't really have supertechnology packed into it like PS3 and 360.

[VampDude]

Nintendo make their consoles to last... My Nintendo Entertainment System is 20 years strong, though unaware of whether it still works or not, but it worked 5 years ago before I left it with my other classic consoles that have also lasted a good 10-15 or so years.

All the consoles I've owned lately, except the Wii have failed or broken in some form... I only ever remember the older consoles ever breaking if they were abused is some way, such as the PlayStation (original) because it took some beating before it finally gives up from being pulled from wherever it was placed due to the short control wire and dropped from a height of 2-3ft. The SEGA Saturn on the other hand, they were made to break. Because one time in 1997, I threw the controller at the console and the lid popped up and then when I closed the lid it wouldn't read the game and that was the first of the fifth generation consoles I ever had replaced because unlike it's predecessor the SEGA Saturn couldn't take a good beting from it's own control pad like the MegaDrive could... The Nintendo 64 was the strongest built fifth generation console, GameCube was the strongest built sixth generation console... And the Wii, I have no idea about the strongest (it looks the weakest built - although I have dropped mine twice) but it's the most reliable.