Here's my nightmare scenario: I convince my mom to fork over a big chunk of her paycheck on the shiny new Xbox 360 I want. Christmas morning, I unwrap it, set it up and bask in the glow of HD video, savoring that "new console box smell". A few hours into my first game I feel a crazy amount of heat radiating from the machine. It gets warmer and warmer until the green circle on the front of the console fades into the sickening red of hardware failure. Instead of a game box I now have a worthless brick.

Am I paranoid, or should I really be worried about this scenario I've heard so much about?

Here are the results of my research.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has weathered an incessant battery of bad PR due to its high failure rate. Their initial policy was to ignore the problem (always a bad move!). Gizmodo reports that retailers estimate Xbox 360 failure rates could be as high as thirty percent. Private surveys from game fansites find even higher failure rates climbing as high as sixty percent! As customer dissatisfaction reached embarrassing levels, Microsoft finally admitted in July that there was indeed a widespread problem with their machine.

Here's the short-list of the major problems that can kill your machine:
Red Ring of Death
Game discs that get scratched by the console
Overheating consoles
Update incompatibility
3D glitching
But nothing captures the scale of the problem like reading about the personal horror stories out there. For instance:

One Xbox devotee went through a whopping seven consoles before finally giving up.

A single UK repair center has been flooded with thousands of faulty Xbox 360's every day.

This guy had to deal with dozens of unhelpful outsourced tech support reps.

This poor game journalist waited six weeks for his refurbbed Xbox.

One poor sap's Xbox actually exploded, and this was one of eleven that he burned through. Eleven!


A condolences card for someone who lost their XBox to the Ring of Death

Gamestop has now stopped offering extended warrantees on all Xbox 360 consoles. This is a telling sign. After all, if a game retail giant doesn't trust the Xbox's quality, why should I? This vote of no-confidence alone is enough to scare me away.

But wait, Microsoft is no stranger to poor product performance (Blue Screen of Death anyone?) and has extended the Xbox 360's warranty to a full 3 years. Microsoft has also beefed up its service policy. If you experience problems with your Xbox, you will most likely get it repaired or replaced within a short period of time. Then again, you'll probably get a refurbbed unit that is almost as likely to conk out.

Microsoft still refuses to inform the public as to the root causes of these varying malfunctions. In mass failures like these, honesty is always the best policy. Consumers are right to be wary of such high failure rates, especially when their causes remain shrouded in speculation. What's the deal, Microsoft? When rumors are flying around that more than half of Xbox's are bricks, don't you think that's a good time for full disclosure?

Contrast this behavior with Nintendo's handling of the Wii Remote strap issue. They immediately warned consumers of the flaw and subsequently changed production to provide for thicker straps and sent out free new and improved straps to all users. If that weren't enough, they released a slip cover to provide better "grip and cushioning". That's customer service. Nintendo didn't have to wait for lawsuits or even grumbling in the blogosphere. "We screwed up, here's what went wrong, and here's how we're going to fix it."

Microsoft is now manufacturing all Xbox 360s with an updated "Falcon" chip. Yet, even these new and improved models are suffering from a similar ring of death, this time with Christmas cheer. Just in time for the holidays! A buddy of mine told me recently that every single Xbox 360 owner he knew had experienced technical problems of some sort with his/her console. "The red ring of death is the Xbox's puberty," he said. "They all have to go through it."

Such high failure rates, coupled with Microsoft's consistent inability to address the issue head-on make them the Firestone of videogames. Those who would prefer to avoid the hassle are better off waiting until Microsoft releases an updated version of the hardware (that actually fixes the problem) or simply buy a Wii instead.

PS: In the middle of writing this post, my friend told me that his Xbox had bitten the dust. He was almost in tears.