Over the past couple weeks there have been several articles about the quality of the Xbox 360 and it failure rate. One person had audio proof that he has replaced 11 consoles and one company in England has stopped repairing Xbox 360s because of the volume of units that need repairing. There have also been stories about how much longer it is taking to get a system fixed. Plus when asked about their failure rate Microsoft dances around the issue and refused to say what the problem is or what the failure is running at.

There have been some very mixed results with quality issues since I'm on my second unit and I'm the only person from my friends that has had to send their console in to get fixed. So how could someone be on their 11th system? Is this strictly user error maybe placing the unit in a confined local with little air flow? Part of the problem is that early on Microsoft was sending referb units that where not fixed properly. Often these early systems where just walking time bombs waiting to fail again which just added to the problem.

One of the more interesting rumors is that people are red ringing (you get a red ring on the front panel when the system has a hardware failure) their system on purpose. In the last system update Microsoft added some code that checked to see if your 360 had been modded and banned those consoles from Xbox Live. Seems the modders are killing their system and making Microsoft fix their systems. Seems like a bit much but anyone that needs to mod their game system so they can get some advantage in playing online games is probably not a rational person.

In my opinion the real issue is Microsoft's blatant attempt to ignore the problem and their refusal to say what is the hardware failure rate on Xbox 360. Right now the 360 has the best games and most games coming out than any other game console. The 360 should be selling at a much higher rate but fear of a system breaking is keeping a lot of people away from the Xbox 360. Until Microsoft can fix their manufacturing issues (they already closed one plant) and come clean on what the failure rate is, people will continue to hold out and wait to buy a next gen system. The risk is if PS3 makes a drop in price and some of these games Sony hypes actually make it to market. Then that early lead could vanish before your eyes.

UPDATE: I guess I should have stated that's modders breaking their system is why people think the time to get you system fixed has increased.