NPD February 2016 Sales Results

[Egmon83]

If we are going by anecdotal evidence: I used Xbox between 2008 and... 2008. The first one red ringed, the second one scratched the discs, the third one was fine, until I discovered that Lost Odyssey could not be played anymore due to the scratches on the disc, and I needed to pay 15 euro's to replace the disc. I said F-it, and put the 360 in a box in the attic. Every single one of my Xbox playing friends (6) eventually went through multiple consoles during the course of 2005-2009.
In comparison, of the 8 friends that played PS3 including myself, only 1 had a problem; the lens got dirty because they had a lot of dust in the house. I know this because he gave it to me after buying a new one, and opening it up and cleaning the lens fixed it.
However, my PS3's laser died in 2013; it would only play DVD's not BD media. This was after many years of use.

I know that this holds no scientific validity, but if people are really honest, and think back, the general rule is:

"everyone knows a person who had a PS3 die on them, but nobody knows anyone who didn't have a 360 dying"

just look at the motherboards of both devices (first generation), the PS3 one is several generations ahead

the 360 design was filled with cheap electrolytic capacitors, while the PS3 had the advanced ones from the very beginning. Heat sink design was superior as well. No super tight board bending clamps; rather engineering elegance. Also the fan design was better, heat sink as well.
Technical engineers will find it very hard to believe that the 360 could be more reliable; looking at the crude design. Later 360 revisions were better though!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know anyone who had a 360 die. I know three people who had at least one PS3 die, some of us more than one. Anecdotal evidence for the lose - please stop without reference to real data from a repair company or company financials or something that's real, meaningful evidence.

Does this discussion even really belong in this thread?

 

[goonergaz]

I don't know anyone who had a 360 die. I know three people who had at least one PS3 die, some of us more than one. Anecdotal evidence for the lose - please stop without reference to real data from a repair company or company financials or something that's real, meaningful evidence.

Does this discussion even really belong in this thread?

I'm sure there must be several dedicated threads

 

[Clukos]

I don't know anyone who had a 360 die.

Had 2 die on me actually, tried to fix the first one myself and killed it, second one didn't have a warranty when it died. When i got my fat Ps3 i had ocd with cleaning the dust and replacing the thermal paste for the CPU/GPU, at least that survived.

It's funny to see how many revisions in cooling solutions the 360 got: http://beta.ivc.no/wiki/index.php/Xbox_360_Revisions

 

[AlNom]

Does this discussion even really belong in this thread?

 

[London Geezer]

My PS3 never had an issue.

/very important anecdote

 

[Egmon83]

Come to think of it I actually helped repair more Xbox360s than PS3s in my lifetime.. though I am not an official repair -person.

On the topic of sales, I did know 2 people who had secondary Xbox360s, this was during the height of the COD4 craze.. They bought them specifically to be able to continue playing while the other was in repair. But yes, if PS3 owners were in a clan or something, they probably would have had backup consoles as well.

PS3 receiving more exclusives post-2010 certainly could help with more active users; most 360 games could be bought on PC unless the game rhymed with Balo, Cheers of Yore, or Corsa. Thus, a 360 breaking down in 2013 post Xbox One launch might not require replacing.

 

[NRP]

Why do we have to have the damn console reliability arguments again? Last Gen used new mfg techniques and many devices had various issues as a result. Stop using it as a virtual wiener measurement metric.

 

[steveOrino]

Also the fan design was better, heat sink as well.
Technical engineers will find it very hard to believe that the 360 could be more reliable; looking at the crude design. Later 360 revisions were better though!

The Major design flaw was the shallow GPU heat sink with the dvd drive directly over it and poor overall case airflow. You knew they fucked up when the first redesigned heatsink had a heat pipe from the GPU to another heatsink away from the dvd drive. Absolute dip shit design but not surprising given that the 360 was rushed to market to beat the PS3.

Why do we have to have the damn console reliability arguments again? Last Gen used new mfg techniques and many devices had various issues as a result. Stop using it as a virtual wiener measurement metric.

I dont think there is any wiener measurement going on. Just rational discussion over well documented post mortem, like all past consoles after the fanboys move on to new systems to get angry over. Sony and MS did learn from it after all, even if paying consumers had to help beta test

 

[function]

More than reliability, I'd be interested to know how past PS360 owners are transferring away from their old systems, and if those old systems are finding further use anywhere

PS4 seems to be a more compelling purchase than Xbox One (going by the vast gulf in sales globally), and undoubtedly lots of 360 owners are "jumping out" and going Sony, but might there also be more 360 owners than PS3 owners still hanging around in last gen?

 

[Egmon83]

Well, this sounds a lot like fanboy logic but:
Xbox360 lifetime sales = +90 million
Xbox One lifetime sales = +15 million

Xbox 360 users still waiting to buy Xbox One = 75 million.

This is pretty extreme, I agree, but (anecdotal warning) I know quite a few people who only play Gran Turismo or GTA, and they bought a PS3 when GT5, or GTA5 came out. It's possible that for the 75 million potential future Xbox One owners, a lot are waiting for the new Fable game, or the next Gears of War game. Banjo Kazooie even!
They don't care about specs, exclusives, internal studios, system design, or other features which I would use to measure a console's worth. They just want to go on Xbox Live once the next Gears of War comes out, and play with their friends.
So while some (myself included) think sales wars were lost years ago before the systems even came out, other might think the Xbox One still has a fighting chance. Whoever you are, or which side you are on, I hope the person reading this has a great day!

 

[eastmen]

Why are we discussing this . I still have a working launch xbox 360. My 40 gig ps3 died a sad painful death with the drive no longer working and finally the thing not starting up.

Yes the 360 had a horrible RROD issue . But sony had huge problems with the drives in both the ps1 and ps2 which resulted in class action lawsuits. The internet was in different phases of its life back then but the issues were bad. I didn't know anyone at the time who didn't have to have a ps1 flipped upside down or couldn't play cds anymore in the ps2 and so on.

Problems happen with electronics. It looks like MS fixed those problems , the xbox one is a well designed cool running system that is whisper quiet for me. The ps4 is another well designed cool running system. Lets be happy they both learned from last gen

 

[goonergaz]

@Egmon83 The question is, of those 75M how many already switched sides (10m?) meaning only 65M left (as an example)

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I wish to congratulate eastman on asking incredulously why reliability is being discussed then talking about nothing else for the rest of the post and throwing in PS1 and PS2 to boot! Some kind of shiny ironic award is in order

 

[MrFox]

It's just that we're old and we keep forgetting we ever talked about it.

 

[goonergaz]

I did some scientific stuff to put an end to this madness.

I used google;
ps3 dead = 19.3M
Xbox 360 dead = 20.4M

ps3 faulty= 462K
Xbox 360 faulty= 504K

ps3 damaged disk = 385K
Xbox damaged disk = 484K

Conclusive proof.

PS this was a joke

 

[BRiT]

I did some scientific stuff to put an end to this madness.

I used google;
ps3 dead = 19.3M
Xbox 360 dead = 20.4M

ps3 faulty= 462K
Xbox 360 faulty= 504K

ps3 damaged disk = 385K
Xbox damaged disk = 484K

Conclusive proof.

PS this was a joke

Now eliminate results from the first gens and narrow it down to latest version of the old hardware ...

 

[MrFox]

Forum noise is what I eat for breakfast!

https://consumerist.com/2009/08/17/xbox-360-failure-rate-is-542-percent-game-informer-finds/

The poorly manufactured, red ring of death-prone console has a 54.2 percent failure rate, compared to 10.6 percent for the PS3 and the Wii’s 6.8 percent.

https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_Xbox360_PS3_Wii_Reliability_0809.pdf

Synopsis: SquareTrade analyzed failure rates for over 16,000 new game consoles covered by
SquareTrade Care Plans and found that the Wii experienced one-fourth of the common failures that the
other systems have.
Highlights of the study include:

- Looking at the first 2 years of ownership, 2.7% of Wii owners reported a system failure to
SquareTrade, compared with 10.0% of PlayStation 3 owners, and 23.7% for Xbox 360 owners.

- Excluding “Red Ring of Death” failures, which are covered by Microsoft’s 3-year warranty, 11.7%
of Xbox 360 owners reported a failure.

- While the RROD problem continued to be the major issue for Xbox 360s purchased through
2008, early indications point to the problem abating in 2009.

- The most common types of problems seen with the PS3 and Xbox 360 were disc read errors and
output issues. The Wii had more power and remote control issues than the other 2 systems.

Major discrepancy between the two because of sample bias.

 

[BRiT]

As for proof of reliability...

Deaths of each lastgen console from BluRay Laser Failures:

Nintendo = 0
Xbox 360 = 0
Sony PS3 > 0

 

[Nesh]

Forum noise is what I eat for breakfast!

https://consumerist.com/2009/08/17/xbox-360-failure-rate-is-542-percent-game-informer-finds/


https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_Xbox360_PS3_Wii_Reliability_0809.pdf


Major discrepancy between the two because of sample bias.

Interestingly a friend of mine fixes consoles and the most broken consoles he receives from customers are PS3's. He still gets some PS3 slims too. I had a PS3 fat BC which died on me and got fixed once. After some time though the fans were going crazy without even playing anything. And that is a bitch to fix.
Sony for some peculiar reason has some rectangular plates sitting on top of the processors and its extremely difficult to remove without damaging. A thin tool like a blade is required to do that but it's something you have to make yourself, otherwise kiss your console goodbye. And even then it needs extreme caution. The paste inside those plates is usually the culprit and needs replacement. And it makes the console a lot harder to fix if the problem is an overheated processor that gets you a YLOD. The 360's are easier to fix if they get a RROD