Warranty issuer SquareTrade said that they had found 16.4% failure rate for Xbox 360's from a sample of 1000. Microsoft has responded saying it does not comment on hardware failure rates. However, they did say they were unfamiliar with SquareTrade and the methodology of their report was suspect.

Warranty issuer SquareTrade revealed the results of its recent examination of Xbox 360 failure rates. The company said that, based on a sample group of 1,000 warrantees it had issued, 16.4 percent had service calls -- more than half for general hardware failures (a.k.a. Three Red Lights) and the rest for disk drive problems, hardware freezes and other issues.

"Microsoft does not comment on hardware failure rates [emphasis by Microsoft], nor do we comment on speculation," Microsoft spokesman Joe DiMiero told IGN in an e-mail message today. "We have not seen the report, and are unfamiliar with the agency that filed it. Based on the enthusiast community's feedback yesterday, the methodology of this report is suspect."