Xbox 360 is the Worst Lemon of Gaming Consoles

Yesterday my wife called me into the living room claiming that the Xbox 360 was acting a bit weird. With a feeling of frustration (and a bit of laziness) I walked into the front room to see that the screen of the Xbox 360 was frozen. Deep in my heart I knew what was happening but I rebooted the Xbox 360 to discover a red ring and an E74 error.

It would be bad if this was my first experience with an Xbox 360 that needed a fix, but this was a scene that I knew all too well. Since I first bought my Xbox 360 I've had to take this gaming console apart over 12 times to fix problems with this poorly built gaming device. I've had to perform the X-Clamp fix because of the 3 Red Rings of Death (RRoD), reapply thermal paste, and perform the Heat Gun fix several times as well.

I'm technologically savvy but I wonder what someone that doesn't know how to "fix" their Xbox has to go through. Problems with this gaming console are so frequent that if you type in "failure rate" in Google, "failure rate of Xbox 360" will pop up as the second option (after condoms) and is reported to have a 54.2% failure rate. Having a failure rate of 54.2% is admitting that over half the people that buy an Xbox will face the same problems that I've had to and have to fix or replace their gaming console if it's out of warranty. When you buy an Xbox 360 it's inevitable that you'll run into problems.

Most people will claim that there are several ways to guarantee your Xbox 360 from problems but there is no one time fix for the Xbox. The real problem with an Xbox is how the darn thing was made. If Microsoft decided to fix the console instead of just pumping out lemons, gamers wouldn't be faced with having to fix these problems themselves, but Microsoft will never fix these problems (or add a Blu-Ray player, for that matter). If Microsoft fixes the Xbox 360, it would be like admitting guilt and would open the floodgate of lawsuits that are waiting to be filed against this problematic gaming console.

Microsoft keeps pumping out new add-ons on the Xbox like twitter, facebook, a personal Avatar, software updates, and Project Natal scheduled to be released later this year but Xbox fans don't need twitter - we need a gaming console that works (don't start PS3 and Wii fankids). The Xbox 360 would be the perfect system, if only it were manufactured correctly (like the original Xbox).

I've become so paranoid of my Xbox failing again that I stopped gaming on it altogether and instead use it to stream videos from my computer to TV and it still gave in on me. I'll eventually fix my Xbox again (in a day or so) but a consumer that has shelled out over $300 for a gaming system I feel that I shouldn't have to be forced to fix a system that was built broken.