DailyTech has been privvy to some top secret information regarding the failure rate of Xbox 360's. They heard through the grapevine that EB Games once held conference calls for its Canadian stores informing them of the alarmingly high failure rates of the Xbox 360. A former employee stated that the real failure rate was in the region of 30 to 33 percent with this percentage being even higher for launch consoles. Out of 35 Xbox 360's at launch, mroe than half broke within the first six months and two were simply dead on arrival.

No piece of technology, no matter how well designed, should be expected to completely free of failure. The key metric is whether or not a product falls within industry standards of acceptable failure rates – and from findings based off retailer-supported warranty returns, the actual rate of failures could be six to ten times greater than what Microsoft is letting on.

Regardless of what the actual failure rate is, there is consumer perception that the Xbox 360 is a less reliable machine than its competitors. That fact alone should encourage Microsoft to do more than just avoid all comments on failures and only preach on the wonderful experience of its consumer base.