According to a Game Informer survey of "close to 5,000 readers", the failure rate for the Xbox 360 is 54.2%. Among the owners of those failed systems, 41.2% suffered another failure after the repair. Which is a surprisingly low number from where I'm sitting. I've personally had to deal with eight (8) dead Xbox 360s. How did those 45.8% get so lucky?

Also cited in the amusing figure that 69.9% of respondents' "friends have had console hardware failures" with the Xbox 360. What the heck kind of survey question is that? Data by proxy? And can you count friends of friends? What about disgruntled bloggers whose sites you read?