EDIT: By the title I was inferring all those articles about the PS3's climbing sales that say "the PS3 is looking up, but still has a long way to go before it catches up with the 360 blah blah blah." Yes, I know it's been out 3 years, stop picking apart my semantics and focus on the issue.
This seems like a dumb question, but I was doing a research paper on game consoles, looking at some figures, and a thought hit me.
PS3 units sold: ~29,million, climbing fast.
Xbox 360 units sold: ~39,million, climbing steadily.
Xbox 360 failure rate: somewhere around 40% according to surveys, falling thanks to hardware updates. ([a html="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94106-Microsoft-Responds-to-360-Failure-Rate-Survey"]link[/a])
The questions on my mind are:
1) Whether that's an accurate failure rate at all,
2) Whether the units sold takes into account failed consoles,
3) What the PS3's failure rate is like.
If that's accurate and the units sold INCLUDES failed consoles rather than excluding them, then the actual units sold for the 360 is more like 23,million, assuming the overly simplified case that everybody whose 360 failed got replaced once and assuming the PS3's failure rate isn't high enough to care about.
Frankly I don't have all the facts here and feel like I'm BOUND to have a lot of inaccuracies in this wild guessing game of mine, so I figured I'd share this thought with the Escapist and see what everybody else came back with. Someone's gotta be better-informed about these numbers than I am. So, guys? What about it? Is the PS3 ALREADY out-distributing the 360, or am I just reading the numbers wrong?
EDIT:
1 - This isn't a question of which console is better, this is a question about whether our distribution numbers are accurate.
2 - As several folks have pointed out, my assumptions hinge on the 360s being exchanged at retailers (as mine was) rather than being traded in directly with Microsoft or sent in for repairs on the warranty. A retail exchange would fluff the numbers up some as the numbers I plucked are units shipped to retailers, whereas a direct exchange with Microsoft wouldn't.
This seems like a dumb question, but I was doing a research paper on game consoles, looking at some figures, and a thought hit me.
PS3 units sold: ~29,million, climbing fast.
Xbox 360 units sold: ~39,million, climbing steadily.
Xbox 360 failure rate: somewhere around 40% according to surveys, falling thanks to hardware updates. ([a html="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94106-Microsoft-Responds-to-360-Failure-Rate-Survey"]link[/a])
The questions on my mind are:
1) Whether that's an accurate failure rate at all,
2) Whether the units sold takes into account failed consoles,
3) What the PS3's failure rate is like.
If that's accurate and the units sold INCLUDES failed consoles rather than excluding them, then the actual units sold for the 360 is more like 23,million, assuming the overly simplified case that everybody whose 360 failed got replaced once and assuming the PS3's failure rate isn't high enough to care about.
Frankly I don't have all the facts here and feel like I'm BOUND to have a lot of inaccuracies in this wild guessing game of mine, so I figured I'd share this thought with the Escapist and see what everybody else came back with. Someone's gotta be better-informed about these numbers than I am. So, guys? What about it? Is the PS3 ALREADY out-distributing the 360, or am I just reading the numbers wrong?
EDIT:
1 - This isn't a question of which console is better, this is a question about whether our distribution numbers are accurate.
2 - As several folks have pointed out, my assumptions hinge on the 360s being exchanged at retailers (as mine was) rather than being traded in directly with Microsoft or sent in for repairs on the warranty. A retail exchange would fluff the numbers up some as the numbers I plucked are units shipped to retailers, whereas a direct exchange with Microsoft wouldn't.
