We are aware that the red rings are a threat to any Xbox 360 owner out there. Until the extended 3-year warranty came along last year Microsoft fed us the line that shit breaks. And yes, that is indeed true. One thing a consumer has to account for is the chance their new equipment is a dud. It happened to me with the 360, but not to anyone else I know. But Microsoft stepped up and offered to make amends.
In an interview with the BBC Bill Gates is doing one better. He believes with the new warranty and updated hardware that the Xbox 360 may become the ”most reliable” console out there. That’s a lofty goal, even for Bill Gates.
Gates’ commitment to attaining such a goal is admirable, and it’s nice to hear from the big man himself on the issue. The problem is semantics, one of the go-to arguments of any proper fanboy. The failure rate of the 360 from launch until this moment is atrocious. Microsoft has released no official figures, but analysts guesstimate it at about 30%. Unless Microsoft has zero failures going forward, they will never get to the sub 1% lifetime failure rate. That simply leaves “from this point forward.”
If the new version of the Xbox 360 is indeed the most stable consoles on the market, that’s fantastic. Gates is right when he says the hardware shouldn’t get in the way of the games.
