I did a poll of my 60 some friends on Live and got 30 responses: 23 of them have had red rings, 7 of them haven't, and of those 7, 3 got theirs this year (the newest 360, which allegedly won't red ring anymore). While many polls have been done outside of mine, the results are always staggering, in some polls (like the game informer poll) gamers report that the failure rate is over 50% while some polls report around 20-25%. Anything above 10% in my mind is a completely unacceptable.

I don't really understand why Microsoft can't seem to get it right. Each year they come out with a new mobo or a new CPU/GPU setup that supposedly solves the issue of a red ring and yet each year there are a large amount of red rings. Working at a GameStop, I see a lot of units come in that have red rings, and I have seen some of them with the Jasper mobo. Whether or not it was user error is beyond me but I still feel that Microsoft should be able to make a product that doesn't red ring unless under extreme conditions.

My PS3 has been working since the day its come out just fine. I don't know if it's the fact that Sony learned from MS's mistakes and fixed them, or whether their hardware is of a better quality. I have seen some PS3's come in with the yellow light of death, however they are few and far between and generally looked worse for the wear than average.

My Wii has never had an issue although it should also be noted that I barely use it. At my GameStop, I have yet to see a Wii come in with an issue that was a manufacturing issue although I have known of cases in which there has been a major hardware failure which wasn't the player's fault.

Since each respective system has come out, I have had the following issues:

1 Dreamcast (Drive failed to read games, but the system failure occurred in 2008, well after the system was purchased)

1 Playstation (Drive failed to read games, system failure occurred in 2006)

1 PS2 (Drive failed to read anything except DVD Movies, system failure occurred in 2003)

1 NES (Needed new 72 pin connector, which Nintendo themselves still makes, system failure occurred in 2009, well after the system was purchased)

1 Genesis (Cartridge reader disconnected itself somehow, it could very well have been my fault as opposed to the manufacturer's fault, I re-soldered the connection and everything worked fine again, system failure occurred in 2008)

4 360's (all red ringed, system failures occurred in 2007 – my first 360 lasted 3 years!- 2008, and 2 in 2009)

I have repurchased a 360 each time my system has red ringed and while I don't think MS has created some sort of conspiracy to make more money, but seriously, it should be an issue I don't have to deal with