Japan will soon enjoy black Wiis. The US is stuck with white ones.
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Nintendo Wii games are better than ever
By Chris Gaylord | 09.02.09
Good news for Nintendo Wii fans: Video games on the popular console are significantly better this year than last, according to an industry survey.
While Xbox 360 games improved slightly and PlayStation 3 titles remained steady, review scores on Wii games increased from an average of 60 to 66, according to Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR).
PS3 performed the best for the second year, hitting 68 percent in both 2008 and thus far in 2009. Xbox 360 ticked up from 66 to 67 percent. Video games as a whole also improved, jumping from 63 percent to 67. These numbers are an average of review scores collected by EEDAR’s team.
The Nintendo Wii has had a great year so far. Metroid Prime Trilogy and Guitar Hero 5 both ranked among the system’s Top 10 games of all time, according to Metacritic. And this year’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Little King’s Story, Boom Blox Bash Party, and Punch-Out!! were all big critical successes.
Thinking of buying a Wii? You have little to fear, because the Wii is the most reliable current-gen console on the market. A different study showed that the Xbox 360 crashes more than any other system – mostly because of the infamous “Red ring of death.”
“By far, Wii are the champions!” wrote warranty provider Squaretrade, who did the study. “Nintendo fans will be happy to hear the study finds Wii is 4x more reliable than PS3 and 9x more reliable than Xbox360.” The survey looked at more than 16,000 new systems. Xbox 360s failed 23.7 percent of the time, but are much better since the newest “Jasper” line hit shelves late last year. Ten percent of PS3s bricked. And only 2.7 percent of Wiis died.
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Have your systems failed? Are you excited about new Wii games? Let us know below or join the conversation on Twitter. We’re @csmhorizonsblog.
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2. Dennis | 09.02.09
GWatson - The 23% quoted above is the conservative estimate - on the higher end, failure rate is estimated to be 54.2%! All these systems slipped through MS’ touted QA/QC procedures did they? If 20 - 50% of your shipped consoles fail due to a known issue, you HAVE to fix them, warranty or not. Either that or lose customer ’stickiness’ and other consequences. It is nothing to be proud of - MS is a company with deep pockets and they can afford a reactive solution. Incidentally the 360 is gone for a couple of weeks for a fix - not 2 days.
Comparing this with the Wii does not even make sense! Depending on the issue with your out of warranty Wii, the fix may be free or cost a fraction of the cost of the console i.e. only the parts (most likely). Nintendo prides itself on its Customer Service and QA (google it) - hell they’re the best in the industry.
3. Jeff | 09.02.09
How many companies make a product so poor that to avoid legal issues they have to issue a three year warranty. How many consumers want to go through three Xbox 360s? There is more than money involved. There is time and frustration with a product that has a horrendous failure rate. Completely unacceptable. Who buys a car knowing it will be replaced? Who buys an HDTV knowing it is going to fry within 3 years?
4. Steve | 09.02.09
GWatson: Microsoft provides that service for free because their product has a horrifying failure rate, which obviously points to a manufacturing flaw. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay for Microsoft’s failure.
On the other hand, I haven’t heard of one Wii failure.
5. JHastings | 09.02.09
Great point GW. I got the red ring and had a brand new 360 in a week. While I wish it had not happened I doubt I would get similar results from other console makers.
All the consoles have something feature-wise over each other. If you can’t acknowledge that then you’re just being a fanboy or a hater.
7. RROD | 09.03.09
LOL Gwatson - you seem very proud of saying that your xbox comes with free RROD and it’s ok because MS will replace it anyway! You’ve been hipnotized by Microsoft! Get over it!
Besides the reason why Wii has less issues is because these game consoles spend a considerable time on the shelves collecting dust. I know because I have one and I’m just considering giving it away this christmas to my nephew who wanted one so badly.
I also have the xbox 360 and I’m not so proud to say that I’m on my 3rd replacement - though MS takes responsibility on the RROD issue, it should not be happening anyway. And yes I play a lot of games on it!
Now, I think I may have to try out that PS3 Slim as the price has gone down. Will see if I have the budget next paycheck and will give it a try! I think it would be nice to have 3 of them.
9. J Thomas | 09.03.09
I had a problem with my Wii whilst it was under warranty. The controllers would not connect and made it unplayable. I contacted Nintendo’s excellent customer support who paid for my postage, repaired my Wii, sent me 4 new controllers and Wii remote jackets. Iv never had a problem with a Nintendo product before but at least I know if I ever do in the future, I won’t be worried about support.
10. Tom | 09.03.09
I’d rather have a more expensive product that doesn’t break in the first place! I don’t care if they give me a free one every time it breaks for its lifetime. I don’t have time to get an RMA, unplug it, box it up, take to the PO, wait for it to come back, unbox it & plug it in again.
I had a car like that. It would fail to start on cold mornings. The dealer would come get it, look at it, then return it the next day. In the meantime, I’m late for work every time that happens. Great dealer, but I’ll never buy that brand of car.
11. raindog469 | 09.03.09
My Wii’s optical drive failed within a few months of launch, so they’re not failure-free. But like the Xbox people posting on this thread, I had a replacement within a week. If the drive blew now, I’d be out of luck, but it’s been over 2 years. As others have mentioned, the 3-year warranty Microsoft provides is a reactive measure, I suspect to avoid a class-action lawsuit. But it’s still enough to make me consider a 360 now, whereas I never did before the 3-year warranty was available (especially with big retailers not offering extended warranties on it due to the ridiculous failure rate.)
12. Jason | 09.03.09
I have had my PS3 60GB (First Release)and has been running strong. Every system that has came out always has problems. I have played the XBOX360, the Wii and the PS3 beats them both hands down. The XBOX360’s and the Wii’s processor is unable to touch the PS3’s. They max out during game play where the PS3 still has yet to be maxed out during game play. I have to admit to the Nintendo that they have finally relized that you need to broaden your customers to everyone not only to the children.
13. B | 09.03.09
Almost everyone I know who has owned Xbox 360 have had them repaired or replaced. Same with the original Xbox. I had my Xbox replaced twice and my 360 once so far. Much worse than the dreaded ‘DRE’ error of PS2.
In my personal experience, Xbox 360s seem to have like a 70% failure rate, and Xbox closer to 90%
14. lanternprime | 09.03.09
The RRod is not a free fix. I had to pay xbox $99 dollars to “renew” my warranty before they would even look at my xbox. Since system launch I have had 14 xbox’s repaired(and yes I had a surge protector and even had an electrician come to my home, and everything checked out good.) This last time was the final straw. I sold all of it and bought a ps3. I will never buy a xbox product again.
15. Pay Me Now | 09.03.09
MS should be paying each of us who have owned a failed device a fee for handling their sorry mess - or at least give us some sort of gift card for games or accessories for our trouble.
We’ve had an XBOX 360 for 11 months. The first unit failed within a month and it was over two weeks before we got a replacement. That one ran well for two more months and then it died a sudden death! Sent that one back too, and in a few weeks got another replacement. It has been working fine, that is until until a few weeks ago. Now it freezes up dies after playing for more than 45 minutes or so. We’re going send this one back too.
My time is valuable — I have two kids and a demanding job. It takes time to package these things up, get them to a UPS drop off place. Now if three failures was just a result of me being incredibly unlucky, fine. But with a failure rate that approaches 50% (depending on who you ask) I’m sure others have had multiple failures too.
Oh and BTW, we also have had a Wii since Christmas. Its in one of the kids rooms, and so it gets pretty heavy use. Thankfully, no problems so far.
16. Chelsea | 09.03.09
“That Red Ring of Death excuse is bad, it is a FREE fix even if out-of-warranty. How many companies give you free out-of-warranty repairs? How much is it going to cost to get your Wii repaired if it breaks?”
MS isn’t the only company that provides free repairs. My Wii with an expired warranty had an error with corrupt memory at the end of 2008 and Nintendo gave me a brand new Wii at no cost to me. Since then I’ve had no trouble.
And since the Xbox 360 breaks down 9 times more often than the Wii, I’d rather stick with a console with a higher reliability rate, because I don’t want to have to go through 10 systems (or more, based on very common horror stories I’ve read and heard) before I get one that works. I don’t really care if the Xbox 360 replacements are free; it’s extremely annoying to deal with that high of a failure rate. Microsoft needs to focus on making a quality product in the first place instead of trying to cover their butts and distract from the ridiculous amount of RRODs by yelling about their free replacements.
17. Robinz | 09.03.09
The wii may be reliable but the hardware is allmost the same as the gamecubes spec and not as nearly as high tech or complecated as the 360’s or ps3’s consoles so the wii is not likly to fail as much. also microsoft and sony’s consoles are used considerable more than nintendo’s on a daily basses.
18. Pedro | 09.03.09
GWatson You are wrong. Microsoft does fix the red ring of death on Xbox 360’s that are out of warranty because it is Microsoft’s mistake. I had mine fixed twice and it stopped working again and I bought a Wii instead. The wii has not had a problem since I bought it 2 years ago. I also bought a PS3 the day it came out and it has never had a problem. I am now going to buy the PS3 Slim because I know that the PS3 is reliable and it only costs $300. Blu-ray included, wifi included!!!!
19. Pedro | 09.03.09
Microsoft does fix the red ring of death on Xbox 360’s that are out of warranty because it is Microsoft’s mistake. I had mine fixed twice and it stopped working again and I bought a Wii instead. The wii has not had a problem since I bought it 2 years ago. I also bought a PS3 the day it came out and it has never had a problem. I am now going to buy the PS3 Slim because I know that the PS3 is reliable and it only costs $300. Blu-ray included, wifi included!!!!
20. think about this | 09.03.09
The wii is a great let down for those who thought that its motion detectors were going to be exactly what you wanted… for those who dont know the red ring of death can be caused buy by parts of the mother board melting to were it wont work… some things you can do to fix this is get and inter coolent for it and put it on somthing that wont conduct the heat on it so carpet is bad thing… they also have found a way to fix red ring for most of the time… those who are interested go to youtube and search 360 natal and watch it id you havent seen it already…i want to see the numbers on how many wii’s were returned vs the other two consoles
21. Wolvesgod | 09.04.09
The only time i ever had issues with my Wii was when i had a scary mother of a thunder storm and i thought the chip got fried because of afterwards it wasn’t even no longer in standby mode. I asked my mom to send it to Nintendo and before the box even got to my house, at the time, my father found that it was working again when he wanted to play super smash bros brawl so then i apologized to Nintendo and told them that it started up again. and the only console i had to send to nintendo is a DS lite because it was so thin, on the connection from the top and controller shells, and they sent me a brand new one for free. Now what company well do that even if it’s not covered by a warranty. Hell even my GC still works after i dropped it… from a three story apartment… lol.
22. Kmach | 09.08.09
An average of game scores is no way to compare systems. The amount of titles available for the Wii and PS3 are about half of what is offered for the 360. Also, if these scores include “Indie,” “Arcade,” and/or “Virtual Arcade” titles then the numbers aren’t valid at all.
The PS3 has been struggling to get out decent titles for the entirety of its lifespan, the 360 has 3x more titles than other current systems (which means a lot more good titles are needed to keep the average score up), and the Nintendo Wii still has on average worse titles than any other system.
Punch Out is a good title but is a shell of a game without online play. Boom Blox! and Little King’s Story are harldy system sellers or something to write home about. Metroid is the only remotely truly interesting game out for the Wii as we speak. Nintendo needs to get their poo together and get some online games already!
23. antennenkabel | 09.21.09
Hi,
I like to play on the Wii black.I am an avid fan of the Wii console for its appeal to gamer and it is better than the other leading consoles in reliability.I like to see the performance of the Wii black and I wish it will never disappoint me.
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1. SquareTrade Reports on Game Console Failure Rates: Wii Most Reliable « SquareTrade News | 09.03.09
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1. GWatson | 09.02.09
That Red Ring of Death excuse is bad, it is a FREE fix even if out-of-warranty. How many companies give you free out-of-warranty repairs? How much is it going to cost to get your Wii repaired if it breaks?
The red ring of death may let you be out of action for a couple days, but its not going to hurt your wallet.