I’ve coined a new term, and I’d like you all to use it

The term is “anecdotal failure rate”, and it’s quite important. It’s a term for the “I’ve heard lots of people say their whatever has broken”.

I’ve been weighing the options of either an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3.

360 Positives (in no particular order):

1. Game selection
2. Uhmmm…

360 Negatives:

1. lack of hi-def dvd format player built in.
2. And, the crux of the issue, the number of people I know who’ve had their 360’s give the “red ring of death”. It’s a lot. One of my friends has has BOTH of his red ring on him. A demo unit at one of the Target’s around here has a nice red ring of death.

PS3 positives:

1. Gran Turismo (it’s a HUGE deal for me)
2. Blu-Ray player

PS3 negatives:

1. Overall game selection (although there are plenty of games I’d like to play, but it would be nice to have Bioshock or Mass Effect available)

Both systems will stream audio and video from my mac and windows machines, so that’s a wash.  But the failure rate, that’s what really did it.  It doesn’t really matter what the actual overall failure rate is, but when you know more people who have red-ringed 360’s than have 360’s that haven’t red-ringed, that makes a difference.

Sony’s getting my money, and I’ve coined a new term, so you’d better fucking use it.