Why your Xbox 360 might break down more sooner than you think and what Microsoft is going to do about it.

Although reports have been circulating around the Internet that more and more Xbox 360 customers are getting the “red ring of death” but Microsoft remained oblivious of the fact. It seems that even now Microsoft cannot deny that fact due to Xbox 360s failing at an average rate of around thirty to thirty-three percent of all consoles sold.

Earlier this Thursday Microsoft announced that it will extend its Xbox 360 warranty coverage to three years from date of purchase and fix any consoles within the warranty period free of charge. With an estimated 2.5 million Xbox 360s reported to be defective, it will set back the company’s Entertainment & Devices division as much as by $1.1 billion. Sony executives might be glee with joy but it’s certainly not good news for Microsoft as it’s Entertainment division is operating at $315 million in the red in it’s third quarter. “In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.”

Though the company has not revealed the cause behind the hardware malfunctions, it claims to have “identified a number of factors which can cause general hardware failures” and “has made improvements to the console”.

This might be good news for Xbox 360 customers because not only has the warranty period been extended, but Microsoft will reimburse any amount that you have spent behind repairing your console.

Sony must also be celebrating this announcement. With Microsoft confirming hardware issues, and set back by a billion dollars, Sony is in a spot of pure advantage. A well-planned price frop may give them some more leverage in the console war for this year.

Now the next generation consoles are complicated pieces of equipments. The industry accepted standard is a failure rate of three to 5 percent. So what about the other consoles? Are they also facing the same fate as Microsoft? When compared against other systems, the Xbox 360 is failing at higher rates than its current competitors and predecessors.

Former EB Games worker Matthieu G. said that the failure rates for all other consoles are not high enough and guesses that most other console systems have a failure rate of less than one percent, including the PlayStation 3. Another EB Games manager conceded that in the hundreds of Wii units sold at that location thus far, zero have come back as defective.

So there you have it folks. The Xbox 360 might be one of the most successful console so far of this generation but the Xbox 360 is a less reliable machine than its competitors. Still, Microsoft has taken a bold step in the right direction, don’t you think?

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