The Xbox 360's most infamous Achilles heel, the Red Ring of Death, appears to have finally been curbed to respectable levels. The results of a new survey of 500,000 Xbox 360 owners conducted by No Fuss Reviews indicate that the current Xbox 360 failure rate is now no higher than the failure rate of its closest competitor, the PS3.

The “Red Ring of Death” was reportedly the result of an engineering flaw in the original launch design of the Xbox 360, which caused the unit to overheat and warp its motherboard. At one point, Microsoft wrote off $1.05 billion as the cost of replacing defective original units through an unprecedented customer service warranty program. The problem was allegedly solved by the design of the Jasper circuit board, which tolerated heat better, and then Xbox 360 Slim design, which took design steps to help solve the overheating problem.

Data released as part of the No Fuss Reviews survey indicates that the Xbox 360 Slim has the lowest overall failure rate of any Xbox 360 model, followed by the Elite, Arcade, Pro, and then Core models. In short, the newer your Xbox 360 model is, the less likely it is to go belly up due to overheating. Buyers coming to Xbox 360 late can now pick up reliable systems that will play the 360's large software library for years to come.

Will this lesson be carried into the next generation of hardware? Let's hope so.

Posted: Jul 27, 2012 2:43 pm

Source: http://www.oxmonline.com/report-xbox-360-failure-rate-now-comparable-ps3-failure-rate