Store managers detail PS3 failure rate at less than 1%

by Peter Vrabel { Jul 3rd 2007 at 3:00PM }

The inquisitive folks over at Ripten decided to do a little research on the failure rate of current next-gen consoles. Their conclusions should come as no surprise, with the PS3 resulting in a low failure rate. What is surprising however, is the failure rate for one console in particular appears to be higher than previously anticipated. An EB Games associate singled out the Xbox 360 console by advising "failure rates for all other consoles were not high enough for EB to consider revising their policies" further claiming the failure rate of the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii to be "less than one percent." An EB Games manager reiterated the low failure rates of the Nintendo Wii by exclaiming that "zero [consoles] have come back defective." A Best Buy manager then went on record saying "a quarter to a third" Xbox 360 consoles sold, come back defective, confirming the 33% failure rate percentage. The methods used to determine failure rates for these consoles appear to be too elementary to really prove anything concrete. Nevertheless, this story allows us to breathe a little bit easier, as it continues to prove our console of choice can still fold like a champ and have a longer lifespan than that of its direct competition.

[Via digg]

Tags: defective, eb games, EbGames, failure rate, FailureRate, ps3, ripten, xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Andir3.0 @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:19PM

concur (agree) or confer (debate, hold conference)? :p

But on topic: The PS3 has an awesome track record and am proud to have one coming into this summer and fall. Now bring me Lair!

Josh Kendrick @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:19PM

Surprise surprise, just confirms what's already seemed to be the case - the PS3 has much better QC.

Why buy a 360 when you're potentially sacrificing your eternal soul?

Andy @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:21PM

For some reason I always thought there was a mass failure rate with the PS3. If only these store managers tried to sell the PS3. When I went in to my local EB games they tried to sell me a Xbox 360 at first before I told them I had my heart set on a PS3.

Andy @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:29PM

As someone who is rather new to video games I am still having fun with games like Resistance and Motorstorm. True that about people not buying PS3's for games. It does make a great home theater deck and many people use it for that.

Microdot @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:48PM

"what does a broken Xbox 360 and a working Xbox 360 have in common?
Neither one is good for playing games."

you had a couple of typos. dont worry. i fixed them for you.

kingofwale @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:33PM

heck, too busy on my Ninja Gaiden to offer a comeback. ;)

but 25%-30% are quite conservative, considering the other broken consoles probably went to Microsoft directly. :)

Rob @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:39PM

I sold my Xbox 360 before it cased on me. To me, the biggest reason that the 360 sucks is that you can't buy one used, or even without a warranty, without taking a huge risk. Otherwise I bet you could find one for $300 pretty easy, which is about what it is worth.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been a class-action lawsuit.

Andir3.0 @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:50PM

"I'm surprised that there hasn't been a class-action lawsuit."

Microsoft has all the lawyers tied up in the basement until this blows over.

Aaron @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:53PM

@8

Well said.

mccomber @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:06PM

You know who I'd like to hear from? The UPS guy that backs that semi up to the repair center's loading dock every day.

Joshua Campbell @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:08PM

@4

PWND

Arkyte @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:10PM

Two weeks after buying my PS3 (launch system) I was in my local GS. I heard the manager telling a customer not to buy a PS3 because “All of our launch systems were returned because they are defective”. I stepped right in and said really all of them. The manager recognized me since I’m a regular customer and recanted his statement. I’m so glad he doesn’t work there anymore as all they want to do is push Xbox’s.

David @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:16PM

a few days ago I left my ps3 on for an entire day and I used everyone of it's functions...from blu-ray movie playing, to music, to online downloads and obviously game playing...I was happy to see that after 24hrs it was still performing like a champ...great piece of engineering...now let's just wait for the games to come ;)

hey just a suggestion in the post you say 33% failure rate percentage...you should delete the last "percentage" since it is redundant

Lakuma @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:28PM

Can you imagine if they released a Folding @ Home client for the 360? I wonder what the failure rate would be then?

FrankTheCrank @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:34PM

The 360 failure rate is abysmal and an industry joke to boot.

The thing that is even worse is Micro$oft's public denial. Do they think that the gaming community is stupid? When are they going to fess up? I'll tell you when, when a class action suit is filed.

They will settle out of court with a $50 coupon for every affected customer. Pitiful.

No thanks Microsoft. I'll make mine PSWii

Afsheen @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:41PM

From what I've read about this elsewhere (I first read about it at consumerist.com), that 33% failure rate has to do with launch consoles. I'm not trying to make excuses for the 360, but accuracy in reporting is important.

Andir3.0 @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:00PM

@Afsheen: The Elite systems have been reporting the same issues and they are far from launch editions (unless of course you magically reset the XBox Launch to when the Elite was first dropped.)

insane257 @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:14PM

This is GREAT news for the PS3. It's all piecing together now. Playstation 3 selling more than the Wii and 360 recently in Austrailia, BlockBuster supports Blu-Ray, now this great news that the PS3 failure rate is less than 1%. Sony Playstation 3 (in my opinion) is officially taking off now. It's on its way to becomming #1.

If this doesn't shut up the Xbox Fanboys, i don't know what will. Our PS3 consoles are 1) Built MUCH better 2) Have blu-ray support from blockbuster, one of the biggest retailers, 3) Have top quality games on the way, and is set to last 10 years according to Sony.

I put my trust in buying the PS3 and i can honestly say i'm glad i did. It's the best console of the 3.

GodisaMyth @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:14PM

I do not understand why Gamestop and Eb employees try to convert people to the Xbox brand. They did it with Xbox and they are doing it with the 360. What do they care what I play, do they have stock in Microsoft? Do they get spiffs for converting PS2 or PS3 owners?

I had a friend who wanted the PS2 with Gran Turismo packed in and he told me that the guys in the store tried to convert him to the Xbox.

He told them to bite me and give me my Playstation.

"You know who I'd like to hear from? The UPS guy that backs that semi up to the repair center's loading dock every day."

That would sum it up for sure. Does anyone know a UPS driver?

I was at SuperTarget the other day and the only kiosk not working was....drum roll please, the 360.

"what does a broken Xbox 360 and a working Playstation 3 have in common?
Neither one is good for playing games.
Hahahah... sorry guys but I had to"

Good one, however come this fall, you will have to recant that statement for the PS3.

Microdot @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:38PM

"however come this fall, you will have to recant that statement for the PS3."

this fall? you mean last fall? ive enjoyed my ps3 from day 1. if you havent, then maybe you shouldnt have bought one yet... and that goes for any system or electronic device. ive spent countless hours with resistance, darkness, motorstorm, virtua fighter, (and as of today) ninja gaiden, as well as tinkering on linux dev, blu-ray, etc. and can honestly say im glad i didnt wait.

Steve @ Jul 3rd 2007 8:52PM

>> A Best Buy manager then went on record saying "a
>> quarter to a third" Xbox 360 consoles sold, come
>> back defective, confirming the 33%

Technically that's more like a 29% confirmation :)

What's interesting is that 25%-33% (aka 29%) of Best Buy 360 sales are returned to the store as being defective. Anyone know the length of Best Buy's return policy or the number of people who get the extended warrently? Surely many defective Best Buy 360 purchases are returned directly to Microsoft because they cannot be returned to Best Buy or because the customer choose to deal directly with Microsoft. When my Wii went defective I didn't return it to Target, I went directly to Nintendo.

BestBuy's 29% defect rate is bad enough, but the overall defect rate easily twice that. It's likely that the remaining simply haven't died yet.

When failure numbers are this high the only explanation is that the product has an inherent design flaw that affects every unit. It's disappointing (but not surprising) that Microsoft released such a defective system but it's flat out shocking that Microsoft has done nothing about this in the 20 months the product has been on the market.

Xiru @ Jul 3rd 2007 8:22PM

My Wii was defective, it would not connect to the internet after I updated. Nintendo then sent me a refurbished unit that would spit the cd back out randomly. I eventually fixed it by blowing air into the drive. My PS3 has had ZERO problems. I believe the Wii has a higher failure rate than the PS3 from personal experience and what i've read. It doesn't matter really, the PS3 and Wii are good products in terms of reliability. The 360 is horrible. I have witnessed 5/6 personally fail. My Elite is still going strong...

mccomber @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:58PM

Whenever I hear about Gamestop or EB Games employees pushing the xbox so hard... I think of how glad I am my local store is run by a PS3 fan. Just picked up Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and he did the normal preorder deal. Mentioned Army of Two, and I said something about that was one I was waiting on to see if the 360 version turns out much better like so many others.
His response was "well, at least if you buy the ps3 version you know your console will work long enough to play it."

Scutt Farkas @ Jul 3rd 2007 6:06PM

a working 360 isn't good at playing games? (i've had mine for a year and a half, no problems with it) haha. come on. COME on. gears of war pwns the entire ps3 library. and halo 3 will make everyone forget your fancy blu-ray player! oh wait. it plays games that are already out on the 360 too. sorry. haha. your number 2 reason for ps3 being better than a 360 is BLOCKBUSTER? haha. i'll quote a wise man here, "NOW WE CAN RENT (movies) FROM BLOCKBUSTER!?!?" gosh. im sure glad the gameboy advance hasn't outsold my console for the past few months. but seriously. blockbuster's stock in next gen dvd's really made me pick my console. im serious.

kingofwale @ Jul 3rd 2007 6:18PM

>a working 360 isn't good at playing games?

now, here's the rub, do you want a working 360 that will scratch your DVDs, or a broken one that just sits there.

;)

Scutt Farkas @ Jul 3rd 2007 6:34PM

i heard about that scratch problem. not a problem for me, although i've been banking on mine crashing since i've heard about how all of them crash. one thing thats sticks in my mind though...the 360 has been rapidly outselling the ps3. at least in america. where i live. how is this so? they all break! i wonder what explains the trouncing of ps3 month to month then! maybe people would rather buy something that will play games for a few months then break, rather than buy something that's best exclusive is folding@home! hazuah! but all jokes aside. and all friendly debating aside. i'll buy a ps3 someday. when it has games. if it has games, rather.

Geimkisi @ Jul 3rd 2007 6:35PM

I have a ps3 and a wii and I love them both, my ps3 gets 95% of my time and the wii gets 5%. Even so my ps3 is purring on like a kitten and I'm now on my second wii. I just cant believe the failure rate is zero for the wii.

Scutt Farkas @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:36PM

steve. wow. this is my last post. but come on man. easily twice 29%? theres no way in hell anyone believes the failure rate is "easily around 60%". To say they're all going to die, they just haven't died yet can be said about anything, genius. My NES just crapped out on me 6 months ago. I can tweak your last paragraph so badly it's not even funny haha. along the lines of, when sales numbers are so low...it's no surprise sony did what they did...well... you get the picture.

"have you had enough, or are you thirsty for more?"

Allen @ Jul 4th 2007 12:30AM

Admit it, towards MS, that's good ownage in the quality department. And we're still hearing new about the 3 red lights too.

Guynextdoor @ Jul 4th 2007 12:43AM

"what does a broken Xbox 360 and a working Playstation 3 have in common?
Neither one is good for playing games.
Hahahah... sorry guys but I had to"

Would have been funnier if you didnt write "working Playstation 3" because unlike the xbox, with a playstation 3 you dont have to specify if its working or not. People already come to the assumption that it is :D

Consolcwby @ Jul 4th 2007 3:00AM

"A Best Buy manager then went on record saying "a quarter to a third" Xbox 360 consoles sold, come back defective, confirming the 33% failure rate percentage."

Oh! Snap - and double - Snap!

Oh, wow - i wonder what the fanbois will say about this?... (Probably: "What manager? WTF is this douche's name? I'm gonna go to the store and beat the shit out of the little f*cker! Muthaf*cker!" or "yeah, I knoe him - he actually wurks fer Sony.") =D

What a prime example of sheep they are! LOL! -D

Neil @ Jul 4th 2007 4:38AM

I'm currently having to relocate my PS3 due to the imminent arrival of an ordered Logitech Z5500 5.1 system. Apparently you can't have any electrical equipment within two feet of the Sub !, anyway, the sub is going to be hidden in a wicker box, the PS3 currently sits on that box. So, I slotted my PS3 into a cabinet slot with less opportunity for cooling, the slot is open fronted with about six inches clearance back and side ( air vent side ) and the result, well, nothing really, i tested with folding@home for a few hours and yes, it all got a little warm inside the cabinet but nothing worrying at all. I will open up the back of the slot so warm air is pumped out but
really guys, the PS3 happily carries on without any issues.

A couple weeks ago i went into my local EB store ( in England ) and asked how the Ps3 was doing. They answered that it was selling better now than two months ago..... Saying that, the PS3 was shoved to the back of the store which i though was pretty grim !

Can't wait till september, some great games coming, oh yes.

Xbox360.... Great games, Looks like a Jug Kettle and obviously has a kettles element in it.... that'll explain the overheating..... where's the water slot !

Jldowning @ Jul 4th 2007 10:58AM

@ 26 Scutt Farkas

Actually WatchDog in the UK has reported a 40-60% failure rate on the Xbox towards the end of the warranty or shortly after it. (thats not counting Xbox's that broke early into its warranty)

I have gone through two Xbox's myself, of my co-workers, 6 own 360's (including me) and 4 of us have had to return the console, 1 of us can't play Lost planet or Gears of war without the system crashing, and one works fine.

Andy @ Jul 4th 2007 4:18PM

That is really uncalled for. You realize most nintendo fanboys are between 6 and 12.

As much as I love the PS3 I am not a big fan of Blu-Ray. Imagine how long it will take to load 50GB games.

RC @ Jul 9th 2007 10:43PM

Let this be seen by all those Microsoft fan boys who say the PS3 is a pathetic, defective system. It has a very clean, defective-free record. I have owned mine for over 6 months, and I have never had one single problem or ANY kind. When a system has a defective rate of 30%, shouldn't that send a potnential buyer the message that they need to reconsider? Get a system that has a less then 1% defective rate, like the PS3 and Wii