Are Xbox 360 Problems Failures Stressing You Out?

No xBox 360 problems? Then count yourself as one of the lucky ones. With a breakdown rating of more then 50%, most customers have encountered at least one issue with their system.

The problems range from disks being damaged, to “bricking”, or possibly sometimes the “Red Ring of Death”. Some issues like games freezing can be irritating, but most people often allow them.

Have you been playing your well-liked game on your Xbox, and abruptly it freezes up on you? You reset the console to only find that it freezes again. Taking out the disk you see that there are now grazes on it. Regrettably, this is common with this console. As many as 1 in 9 consoles placed flat, and 3 in 9 positioned on their sides have scratched disks. This is due mostly to two issues, a pad lost near the reader in the disk drive, or the drive not fixing the disk in place before running.

Another issue Xbox 360′s encounter is “bricking”. “Bricking” is a word used within the industry due to the brick pattern of most electronics. Since a brick is useless when it comes to electronic devices, 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 solution for this is to connect to Microsoft to see about a substitution or repair your Xbox 360. If the console is not in the period of warranty, the repair might cost anywhere from $99 and up.

The most common problem with Xbox 360′s is the “Red Ring of Death”. The name for this issue comes from the three red lights that are on near the power light in the front of the console, forming a red ring. This is caused from either a general hardware problem or a core digital failure. Either of these issues is not good. Both call for your console to be sent in to Microsoft for fix or replacement. The average time taken to receive one back is eight weeks. Due to the frequency of this issue, Microsoft elongated the 1-year warranty that these systems came with to 3 years from date of purchase.

Because of the frequency of failures of the Xbox 360, there have been several lawsuits submitted. The first was immediately after the release of the console. Another was filed in November of 2006, just about a year after release. This lawsuit was made due to the “bricking” that was experienced after the November 1, 2006 release of a dashboard fix.

The most recent class action lawsuit made against Microsoft was in October of 2008 by Californian users. The filers claim that Microsoft knowingly made faulty consoles and that they denied to release the actual failure rates of the consoles.

Xbox 360′s too often have troubles. In an industry where only 3-5% is a reasonable failure rating, a rating of over 50% is exorbitant! What happened to the game consoles that prevailed for years and years without having any problems what so ever?