It might seem like every Xbox 360 owner you know has had their console kack out on them, but a new report from warranty seller SquareTrade says the real failure rate for 360s is actually about 16 percent.
Culling information from more than 1000 warranty claims, SquareTrade has found that the 360 dies about 16.4 percent of the time. The Red Ring of Death, a cause of failure so famous it's spawned t-shirts and greeting cards, was the culprit in a whopping 60 percent of the claims SquareTrade reviewed.
SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernathy theorized that the rate of 360 failure is likely to increase rather than decrease in the near future, because "Xbox 360 failure issues tend to increase with prolonged use where overheating appears the main culprit."
He further guessed that "most if not all" of the reviewed warranty claims were for 360s with the original motherboard.
