Reader Ben Strauss is doing a cool project for his marketing class – he’s surveying Xbox owners to find out how many have had failed Xboxes and/or know someone who does. So far he’s interviewed 200 people and is seeing a 71% failure rate, with 85% of respondents saying they know someone with a failed Xbox. Ben writes:

I recently had my 4th Red Ring of Death, specifically a 0020 Error. What that essentially means is that the internal components to my xbox have been warped to a point that the cheap soldering has broken, and the thermal paste inside the box isnt protecting the GPU enough. As Microsoft states, it’s a general hardware failure, one that they refuse to officially identify.

That was the 4th xbox to RROD in my home.

I figured I would try to call Xbox support and see about getting a repair. Well, didn’t work out as I planned. I’ve spent 5 days and 15 hours on the phone, most of them on hold. The first set of guys “Leon”, “Mike”, and “Vlad” a rep, “Supervisor” and “Manager” respectively, told me that they could not help me as my xbox was apparently out of warranty. I’ve not owned my 360 that long, I bought mine on Oct. 23rd, 2007. I tried to dispute this fact with them, but I was called a “Stupid American” and was given the brush-aside by being told I would receive a phone call in 24-48 hours to speak with an upper level manager.

Well, it’s been several days since that happened. I don’t believe xbox is doing the consumer right, so I decided I wanted to find out exactly what was going on around campus. I intend to poll about 1000 people, personally, pertaining to individual xbox 360 failures. With this data, I intend to prove my thesis: It is not a matter of “if,” it is a matter of “when.” So far, I have about 200 respondants, and of them, I am sitting on a 71% failure rate. 14 students have worked with 3 xboxs, with 4 of them (including myself) working on their 4th box.

My aim is to show that through personal interview, I can get a better understanding of exactly what is going on with xboxs around the country (we are a university after all.)

I’d love to ask more people about their experiences, and when I feel that I have enough data, I plan on working with the Math department to get a good model on three variables “pass/fail test”, “length of ownership”, and “hours played per week.”

If you are an Xbox owner and would like to help Ben with his project, email your name, phone number and a convenient time for a short interview to BenStrauss {at} sinsandsaints dot org.

RELATED: Xbox 360 Failure Rate is 54.2 Percent, Game Informer Finds
(Photo: tubbynj)

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