Survey: Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death" finally on the decline?

A recent survey points to a sharp dip in reports of the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" for Xbox 360 consoles purchased this year, although the same survey slaps the console with an overall 23.7-percent failure rate for the first two years of ownership.

The Wall Street Journal got these latest figures from SquareTrade, a firm that sells warranties for various consumer gadgets. Last year, SquareTrade's survey (which included data from about 1,000 claims it received from gaming console owners) found that about 16.4 percent of Xbox 360 consoles up and die; this year, the number climbed to 23.7 percent. (Another recent survey pegged the 360's failure rate north of 50 percent.)

But as the Journal points out, there's an encouraging trend in the SquareTrade report (which covers claims from 16,000 SquareTrade users): Apparently, less than one percent of SquareTrade warranty holders in the survey who bought an Xbox 360 in 2009 have reported the "Red Ring of Death" or any other serious hardware failure.

So, why the sudden improvement? It might just be due to "Jasper," the code name for the smaller, and cooler chipsets that are reportedly shipping in the latest Xbox 360 consoles. With their new, 65-nanometer graphics chips (compared to 90nm for older 360s), the latest Xbox 360 units should run considerably cooler than their predecessors—and indeed, excessive heat has often been blamed for the console's poor reliability in the past. (I'm on my second Xbox 360 myself after suffering the "Red Ring of Death" on a couple of occasions.)

That said, Microsoft shouldn't get too cocky. The new SquareTrade survey also found that the PlayStation 3 had only an overall 10 percent failure rate in the first two years of ownership, with a mere 2.7 percent figure for the Nintendo Wii—a number that's low for consumer tech in general, much less gaming consoles, as the Journal notes.

Related:
Wii Fails Less Than Xbox, But ‘Red Rings of Death’ Abate [Wall Street Journal]