Are Xbox 360 Problems Stressing You Out?

Xbox 360 problems are way too common. Anyone who owns one has probably had a problem of some kind with his or her system. It is almost expected when the failure rating is more then 50%.

These problems can be anything from the “Red Ring of Death”, to just simple game freezing. Some consumers experience disks being scratched while others see “bricking”. Whether the problems are acceptable or not, they are still a headache.

Have you been playing your favorite game on your Xbox, and suddenly it freezes up on you? You reset the console to only find that it freezes again. Taking out the disk you find that there are now scratches on it. Unfortunately, this is common with this console. As many as 1 in 9 consoles positioned flat, and 3 in 9 positioned on their sides have scratched disks. This is due most often to two issues, a pad missing near the reader in the disk drive, or the drive not securing the disk in place before running.

Another issue Xbox 360’s have is “bricking”. “Bricking” is a term used within the industry due to the brick shape of most electronics. Since a brick is useless when it comes to electronics, when items like a game console, DVD player or similar quits, it’s now “useless as a brick”. Some dashboard updates have caused “bricking”. The only fix for this is to contact Microsoft to see about a replacement or repair. If the console is out of warranty, the repair could cost anywhere from $99 and up.

You have settled in for a nice long marathon playing your newest game but when you boot up your Xbox 360, you only see 3 red lights lit up around the power light. Because of the red ring shape the lights look like, this has become known as the “Red Ring of Death”. When you see that, don’t expect to be playing your new game anytime soon. You will have to send in your console to Microsoft and wait an average of 8 weeks to get it or a replacement back. Thankfully since this is so common of an issue, Microsoft has extended the 1-year warranty these consoles come with to 3-years. Due to faulty design, core digital and general hardware failures happen too often.

On November 1, 2006 a patch was released. This patch, when applied, caused “bricking” in many systems. This led to a lawsuit being filed later that same month. This wasn’t the first of lawsuits that had been filed against Microsoft concerning the Xbox 360’s problems. Soon after the Xbox 360 first hit the markets the year before, a lawsuit had been filed.

Though it has been over 3 years since the Xbox 360 first came out, the many issues still around continues to bring about more lawsuits. In October of 2008, a class action lawsuit was filed against Microsoft. The lawsuit was brought about by Californian consumers, which claimed that Microsoft knew about the faulty consoles but continued to manufacture them anyway. Microsoft also refuses to give the actual console failure rates.

The industry will accept 3-5% failure ratings, but Microsoft has done little about their 50% rating. With it being more then 3 years since the release of this console, it is surprising that it has been allowed to stay so high. Bring back the stability that consumers could expect with the previous gaming systems!

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