Ever since the Xbox 360 were launched it has been dogged by hardware failure issues. The biggest has been overheating, with the system design being too restrictive to allow enough airflow over it's components. This meant the system had to include some very noisy system fans to try and dissipate this heat, but even this measure didn't seen to work as many 360's still fail due to overheating.
And it seems that the 360's reliability issues are continuing to grow, with an estimated third of all 360's now failing and requiring send back for repair. And even worse is that the third party repair outlets handling much of Microsoft's repairs for them differ on the reasoning for the source of the problems compared to the reasons given out by Microsoft themselves.
Microsoft have even owned up to this issue by increasing the warranty on all 360's sold to date to 3 years. And they estimate the cost of this new warranty, based on expected return rates, repair costs per unit and the resale potential of defective units, currently sits at costing Microsoft between $1.05bn and $1.15bn. Ouch!
But there might be good news coming. Microsoft are currently working on a revised chipset codenamed Falcon that will move from a 90nm to a 65nm fabrication, and this will include the core components such as CPU, GPU and video processors, which should increase the airflow inside the system and reduce the heat output. This may also see the system drop in price more as the new 65nm fabrication will halve the cost of manufacture.
Based on Microsoft now saying that they anticipate to finally be making a profit on the 360 at the beginning of next year has given rise to speculation that 360's with this revised Falcon chipset will be ready towards the end of this year and should be included in all new 360's at some point before the end of 2007.
So if you really were planning on buying an Xbox 360 I would definitely wait until this revised one comes out. Or better still save your time and money and just buy a PS3. You wll end up having to anyway. ;)
