Are you having Xbox 360 problems? You are not alone. Most consumers have at least one issue with their console because of bad design and a high failure rating.

The problems range from disks being scratched, to “bricking”, or possibly even the “Red Ring of Death”. Some problems like games freezing can be annoying, but most people often accept them.

Imagine you have been playing for 4 hours straight. You have been working on completing an extremely hard area in the game, and then suddenly the game freezes! Rebooting doesn’t fix the problem. You take the disk out and see scratches on your new disk. Your console has either missing pads near the reader, or your drive doesn’t secure the disk in place. This is unfortunately very common, more common when the console is positioned on the side.

Another issue Xbox 360’s have is “bricking”. “Bricking” is a term used within the industry due to the brick shape of most electronics. Since a brick is useless when it comes to electronics, when items like a game console, DVD player or similar quits, it’s now “useless as a brick”. Some dashboard updates have caused “bricking”. The only fix for this is to contact Microsoft to see about a replacement or repair. If the console is out of warranty, the repair could cost anywhere from $99 and up.

Probably the worst, and definitely the most common issue with Xbox 360’s is the “Red Ring of Death”. When you boot up your Xbox 360 and only 3 red lights around the power light come on, looking like what appears to be a red ring, you are experiencing the “Red Ring of Death”. This is from either a core digital or general hardware failure. This problem requires you to send in for a replacement or repair to Microsoft. Luckily since this issue is so common, Microsoft extended the warranty from 1 to 3-years from the time you purchased your console. It takes about 8 weeks to get a system back.

Because the Xbox 360 is so problematic and is known for failures, lawsuits are common. Not long after it was released, the first lawsuit was filed. When the November 1, 2006 patch was released, a lawsuit was file because of “bricking”. Applying the updated “bricked” many consoles.

Though it has been over 3 years since the Xbox 360 first came out, the many issues still around continues to bring about more lawsuits. In October of 2008, a class action lawsuit was filed against Microsoft. The lawsuit was brought about by Californian consumers, which claimed that Microsoft knew about the faulty consoles but continued to manufacture them anyway. Microsoft also refuses to give the actual console failure rates.

Xbox 360’s too often have problems. In an industry where only 3-5% is an acceptable failure rating, a rating of over 50% is outrageous! What happened to the game consoles that lasted for years and years without any problems what so ever?

Tags: computers, games, games repair, Hardware, hobbies, how to repair, recreation, xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 repair, xbox problems, xbox repair