My first 360 did the the red rings. I had the warranty though. To be honest, I think the 360 is worth the risk. Great games, great online play, great community (some of them atleast :P). Microsoft has given everyone a 3 year warranty so you should be fine.

I own the 360 and the Wii. I take very good care of them, but i've had the misfortune of having numerous hardware issues with the 360. Not everyone has hardware issues with the 360, but if you do Microsoft replaces the unit you ship to them with a refurbished unit that may not be up to spec with what you sent in. This can cause more issues since you never know what the person before you did to the box (towel trick, etc...). If you're really considering buying the 360 I'd recommend that you go to the xbox.com message boards and read up on the hardware problems. Living in upstate NY it takes about a month for the whole repair process for me.

The 360 does have great games, but the online costs money to play against other people, plus if you want wireless its $100 for the adapter. I'm a bit biased due to the ammount of time and money i've wasted on the 360 so i'd recommend getting the PS3 if you're looking to get another system. If you're one of the lucky ones to get a 360 that doesn't have any hardware issues its great, but once you go down the hardware maintenance route it never ends.

Its a chance you have to take, one of my friends has never got the rrod, and another or my friends has had it 4 or 5 times. You've got 3 years warrrenty covering your console from the rrod so you shouldn't worry

I have never played a game on a 360 nor plan to buy one but I am considering buying a PS3.

What happens once the 3 year warranty runs out?

You'll have to pay for a repair

I've had to send in my 360 to Microsoft for the RRoD, but you know something, it's been worth it, annoyances aside. The 360 just has the games I want to play, at least for now.

I also have a PS3...I only have 3 games for it. I've been totally surprised by how many games I don't want to play that have come out for the system. I've used my PS3 more for playing PS2 games and watching Blu-Ray movies than I have for PS3 games.

I got mine last Summer, and it was all fine until December. It broke a couple days after Christmas day, then it took a month to get back after I sent it in. 3 weeks after I got it back, it broke. Took another month to get it back. I'm getting fed up with it, but I've still yet to get the RROD. That's something positive.

Games are the best.

The fun of the 360 overrides the risk. my friend still has his launch 360 and it never had any problems except freezing sometimes on Oblivion. I had mine for over a year and I still have o problems (but sometimes the disk tray wont open, it just needs a tap and it would come out. and lately it freezes a fair amount of times.) IMO, the 360 is the best console, and you shouldn't worry about RROD. Just make sure you dont move the box while a game is in it while the 360 is on. And MS 3-years warrently only covers RROD, not other things like disk reading failure.